BS: The MOST British given name of all is...

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Dazbo
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:18 PM

Sorry Emma, didn't notice the inverted commas.

( no longer at work :-) )

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:25 PM

Someone mentioned Clive...a very British name, I think. Then it occurred to me that Owen is also rather British-sounding. Then you have Clive Owen! Perfect.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Desdemona
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:29 PM

Okay, LH, I see what you're looking for now, and I think I can provide it, because my very own cousins, Juliet and Derek, have a daughter named Georgina...now that's what I call a "British" triple threat!

~D

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 12:43 PM

Perfect, Desdemona! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: ard mhacha
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 02:08 PM

LH , Owen Celtic from Eoin same pronunciation.
I left out the most common name in the nationalist north of Ireland ,Sean.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Banjo-Flower
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 05:46 PM

Gerald

Gerry

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 05:48 PM

When I spotted the thread title, the first name to come to mind, for me anyway, was "Trevor."

The first Trevor I ever met in person (here in the states) was a coworker who had been born in South Africa. Not England by any means, but more-or-less "British" from the US standpoint. (He was certainly of British ancestry ~ not a Boer or an African.)

While I had never previously known a Trevor in person, I did recognize the name as a boy's/man's name.

At my next job, I had an employee named Trevor, but this was (and still is) a female Trevor. Very attractive, and very aristocratic, from a wealthy and prominent family. Made me wonder if upperclass Brits named their daughters as well as their sons Trevor, or if this was a strictly American affectation ~ ??

One name mentioned only briefly and obscurely in one of the preceding posts struck me as just the kind of quintessentially British names LH was asking for:

Rhys.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 06:26 PM

The best known male Hilary has to be son of the Socialist MP, formerly known as Sir Anthony Wedgewood-Benn, AKA Tony Benn MP. His son Hilary is the Enviroment Minister.

My grandmother was named Ethel Winifred - a very English sounding composite.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: folk1e
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 06:41 PM

most Brittish give their kids a "christian" name!

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: JennieG
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 07:38 PM

Forgot to say in my post the other day....my British-born grandfather's first names were Christopher Hiram. Christopher I can understand - it sounds British - but Hiram? I always think of Hiram as being a 19th century Amurk'n entrepreneur out to change the world, not someone who was born in the British Isles in the 1880s.

Then there is his sister (also mentioned in my post) Remillion. Heavens only knows where that came from.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Greg B
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 07:56 PM

Owen? Well, then, me cousin was Welshman Daniel Owen, poet laureate
to none other than good old Queen Vic herself. First Welshman to
write a novels in native Welsh in the 'modern' era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Owen

I have the fortune (or misfortune) of being his very image.

My understanding is that his mother ran the bawdy house in
his native Mold, Clywyd, where he is immortalized in the town
square.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Rowan
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 12:06 AM

Richard didn't meet too many "Rowan"s in his stay in Oz; for the first 20 years of my life I was uncomfortable with the fact that I was the only example of Rowan I'd heard of. When I got to uni I found I shared my given and surname with someone in the medical faculty and about 30 years later come to the conclusion my mother may have met him while pregnant with me, liked the sound of it and 'pinched' his name for me. Since then I've met several, some female. Very few seem to have had a Scottish connection.

And, Mr Happy, your reference to Mountain Ash tempts me to some thread drift. Around 1900 some foresters from New Zealand did a bit of a tour of the othe Australasian colonies, starting with Tasmania. Tassie foresters took them to see the Florentine Valley, where the tallest eucalypts towered 300' + into the sky. "What are they?" asked the NZers. "Swamp gums" answered the Taswegians. "Do you have any seed?" asked the NZers. "No" answered the locals. The next stop for the tourists was Victoria, where they found out the Forests Commission had a huge collection of all sorts of seeds. "Do you have any swamp gum seed?" asked the NZers. "Take as much as you like!" answered the Victorians. Which is how NZ got about 30,000 acres of Eucalyptus ovata which rarely grows more than 30' high, is straight for no more than 2' and is difficult to burn. What they wanted was Eucalyptus regnans, called mountain ash by the Victorians. This cuationary tale was told to all aspiring biologists at Melbourne Uni as an injunction to use scientific binomials.

Some other reflections on names mentioned above;
Doris, Edith, Enid, Mamie, Mae and Thelma are (or were, before they died) aunts of mine
Wendy is the mother of my daughters
Ivor (one pronounced Eyevor and the other pronounced Eevor) is the name of two friends (both Aussies) of mine
all of which Little Hawk may (probably correctly) regard as the Britishness of Oz

PoppaGator, I'd always associate "PoppaGator" with the US and "Rhys" with the UK, although we have plenty of the latter (and none of the former) in Oz.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Rowan
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 12:15 AM

Yes, Rich-joy, I think (but couldn't swear to it) that it was the Mavis Bramston Show.

And John Clark did a beaut hour's doco on the origins and development of the Australian Accent on the ABC (Oz, for you USers) last Thursday night; I confess I fall into the camp that maintains there are regional differences in the Oz accent. I always associate "coool" with Victoria and SA and "Kewl" with NSW and Qld. I can't do phonetic symbols but I'm sure you'll understand, even if my attempts mystify nonAussies.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 12:32 AM

I know of two men named Lynn, both originally from Saskatchewan. I've never heard it used elsewhere. Is it of English origin and more common in the UK?

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: JennieG
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 12:34 AM

Rowan, I think Rich-Joy's wonderful litany of names came from The Naked Vicar Show on ABC radio in the 70s - from memory it ended with:
Maybelline, Marlene, and my name's Kay!

I work with a Marline, pronounceed Marleen.

I enjoyed the ABC doco and I agree with you, there are regional differences in the Ozzie accent. I thought those SA women were wonderfully up themselves......

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: rich-joy
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 01:58 AM

Despite the popular view that it's a very Aussie name, I've always found the "Sheila"s I have heard of, to be from the British Isles (as opposed to the "small s" descriptive term "sheilas", which is kinda like older terminology for "chics" downunder in Oz .....)

"Algernon" had got my vote for feeling most British - until I discovered it was a French word to do with moustaches - and came over with William the Conquerer, along with Percy!!!


Yeah, Rowan and JennieG, the Oz regional difference thing gets my vote too! Upon moving to the state of Queensland some years back, I was struck with the common-usage pronunciation "Quoinsland"!!!!


Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Bob Hitchcock
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 01:31 PM

My Father's full name was "Albert Charles Leslie Hitchcock", a very English sounding combination, but everyone just called him Bert. Tarquin and Quentin always strike me as very English along with Orson. I knew a man in our village in Sussex many years ago whose last name was Cart (a shortened version of Carter I expect) I told him he should name his son Orson, he was not amused.

Bob.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: fumblefingers
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 02:54 PM

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 03:06 PM

"Then there's the other rare middle name Death or De'ath."

I think you'll find that it's Irish, Richard.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: GUEST,Bert on Kelly's machine.
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 03:09 PM

I don't know about MOST but the BEST is certainly Albert!

I used to be called Little Bert, 'cos I was taller than my Dad and he was Big Bert.

Bertie.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 05:14 PM

"Orson Cart" lol

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 03:47 AM

JennieG - Remillion seems to be a dark red dye used to imitate the blood of Christ in religious artwork (statues and icons usually) and has been around for several hundred years as a given name.

It's probably linked to vermillion, the more popular red pigment.

If you Google Remillion you'll get a link to the 'behind the name' website which has a couple of people also looking for ancestors named Remillion. Maybe you're related?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 02:36 PM

Metchosin:
Lynn as a man's name. Lynn Davies Gold medal winner in the long jump 1964 (Tokyo) Olympics.

And anyway, what's wrong with 'Nigel'?

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 02:57 PM

There's nothing wrong with Nigel, it's just very British, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: GUEST,JohnB
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 11:34 PM

Refering back to your first post, I have a friend named "Nigel Lester", known him for over 40 years now. Commonly known as "Nige" middle name "Howard"
My vote would be for my rather commonly used monica.
JohnB

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Anne Lister
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 07:33 AM

Followers of "Old Harry's Game" on BBC Radio 4 will know that in a previous series there was the revelation that God's real name was Nigel....

I'm puzzled by some of the contributions above. Lester Simpson and Lester Piggott aside, I'd assume any Lester to be American, myself. Lynn is a man's name, reasonably frequently found here in Wales. Trevor as a girl's name? Never heard it here. Have met an American female Cyril, though - I was very confused.

I've known two male Vivs here, not necessarily spelled with extra "y"s but generally Vivien rather than Vivian. Other confusing first names here in Wales include Ceri (male or female, and sometimes spelled Kerry).

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 12:02 PM

"Kevin" also seems rather British to me, but there are a great many Kevins in North America.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Alec
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 12:22 PM

Wayne? (Not common but not ultra rare either) Clement? (Never common & now almost defunct)

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: PoppaGator
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 02:28 PM

When I was 10-12 years old in New Jersey, one of the most prominent high school athletes in the area was a fellow with the first name of Lynn. I thought his name was extremely weird, annd thought that perhaps his athletic prominence might have been prompted by a need to "prove his manhood" ~ not unlike Johnny Cash's "Boy Named Sue." (Of course, this was years before that song came out.)

LH: I am quite sure that Kevin is an Irish name, not British.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: ard mhacha
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 02:43 PM

LH, Kevin 12th century Irish Saint, ancient monastery dedicated to the Saint in Co Wicklow.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 02:49 PM

Ahhhh - But it doesn't follow that he was Irish does it? wasn't St Pat a Welshman, Ard? ;-)

Would whoever said that Mohammed was in the top ten of boys names in the UK care to back that up? I suspect that someone has been spinning you a yarn - easily disproved! I looked it up and in 2007 said name was at number 22! I was quite surprised at that. The 2001 cencus gives the split of religions in the UK as follows -

Christianity 42.079 71.6%
No religion (Incl. Jedi) 9.10 15.5
Refused to answer 4.29 7.3
Islam 1.59 2.7
Hinduism 0.559 1.0
Sikhism 0.336 0.6
Judaism 0.267 0.5
Buddhism 0.152 0.3
Other 0.179 0.3
Total population 58.789 100.0%

All I can assume is that there are either a lot of non-Moslems use the name or an exeedingly high proportion of Moslem males use it!

Anyway - boring stuff out of the way.

Roderick now has my vote as well. Can't help but chant 'Welease Woderwick'...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: gnomad
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 03:23 PM

I feel it is valid, as Bobad proposes in his post of Nov8, to add together the alternative spellings of what is essentially the same name.

As Dave mentions Mohammed is ranked 22 by the DNS, but Muhammad is also there at 44. Someone do the sums please, I've gone off arithmetic.

Just as an aside; Mohammed seems to have been pretty consistent, rankings for 2002-6 being 22,22,20,23,and 22.

I suspect the explanation is as Dave suggests: that a high proportion of male moslems have one variation or the other as their first name. That would certainly fit with my experience when working in Bradford with a large customer base among the whole community [almost everyone of working age needs a bank account].

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: PoppaGator
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 04:45 PM

Back on the 7th, Rowan observed that he would "always associate [the name] PoppaGator with the US..."

First of all, um, thanks!

I suppose that my pseudonym is definitively American, although the thought had not occurred to me before. An African or Australian would be "PoppaCroc," right? And no European country provides habitat to that kind of big scary reptile.

My real given name is Thomas, which is not especially indiciative of any English-speaking nation to the exclusion of the others, or even (given alternate spellings, e.g., Tomas) of any corner of "Christiandom," or Western Civilization.

In my case, I'm named after a long line of Irish forebearers, but we were all (putatively) named for an English Catholic saint, Sir Thoms More.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Rowan
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 05:16 PM

G'day again PoppaGator.

PoppaCroc? Hmmm.

Kakadu, probably still the biggest of the Northern Territory's National Parks and adjacent to Arnhem Land, is blessed with a number of rivers, full of crocodiles (mostly "salties", Crocodilus porosus) and there are a few places where there are "freshies" or Johnson River crocodiles (C. johnsonii), which are smaller and 'safer'. But the two biggest rivers there are the Alligator River and the East Alligator River, so named because the naming was done by some Pom aboard HMS Alligator in (I think) the 1830s. Given we have no alligators (they're all in the New World) it gets very confusing for tourists.

Bringing the thread drift back closer to the notion of naming, grandparents get called lots of 'familiar' and 'diminutive' names; Poppa is one I'd associate with the US more than with anywhere else, although it's not uncommon here in Oz. Perhaps this is because I associate the parental familiars "Mom" and "Pop" with the US, whereas in Oz it's usually "Mum" and "Dad"; I suspect the later is the most common usage in the UK too.

This leaves the field open to "DaddyCroc" as your Oz equivalent, pace the Oz rock band "Daddy Cool"!

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 08:20 PM

Ethelred
Abernathy

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Greg B
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 09:32 PM

Friend of mine's name is Lynn. He was a US Navy test pilot. Tough
as nails. From South Dakota.

His dad?

Leslie.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Rowan
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 12:33 AM

My mother's three brothers were, in birth order, Archibald, Cyril and Leslie; all in Oz but "British" by inclination.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: JennieG
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 01:28 AM

In Oz Lynn or Lyn is short for Lynette, a popular girls' name. I went to school with a few....work with one.....know others.....

Lindsay (m) or Lindsey, Lyndsey (f) can also be shortened to Lin or Lyn.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Rowan
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 01:53 AM

And somtimes Lynne is the full name of the lady; at least two in the Oz folk scene.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: ard mhacha
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 02:41 AM

Dave a correction on Kevin`s origin, 12th century monastery, 7th century Saint.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 01:59 PM

I can tell you one of the rarerest - so rare I know of only one living soul with the name. cresby.com I am willing to be proven wrong just tell me where/when/who.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 03:00 PM

Here is a piece of deep British given name trivia.

   What was Inspector Morse's given name?

And no, it's not Inspector.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 03:41 PM

I am so far from being British that I can't even spell "UK", but I have relatives named Nigel, Colm, and Rowan.

BTW, according to this site, there is nobody in the US named Archibald.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Kaleea
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 04:18 PM

I've only encountered the name Poindexter when I met a feller from the UK, but never in the USA. (except for that silly board game from the sixties, of course!)
Ah, Rowan, I was wondering if anyone would mention Archibald, as I've never met one from the USA.
What about Sterling, Eustace, Godfrey, Osgood, or Jocelyn?

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Santa
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 06:15 PM

Stirling as in Moss, Sterling is the currency but I wouldn't put it past someone to use it.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 06:28 PM

Endevour. aparantly, Neil D. Good name...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 06:44 PM

Thanks, BWL, for the link to "HowManyOfMe.com."

Since I have a relatively rare last name ~ there are more of us in County Mayo, Ireland, than in the entire US ~ I tried my name (first + last) and those of my immediate family.

They apparently don't know about one of my sons, since they turned up zero persons with his name. There are three of me and two-to-five each of the other family members.

When I Google my name, the person who comes up most frequently is a dead guy of about my age who was murdered in the early seventies; now I know why some old classmates I encountered at a reunion a few years back seemed so surprised to find me alive and kicking!

The next-most-prominent bearer of my name is a high-ranking Catholic priest in the Maryknoll order. I appear once or twice, but only if you go as far as the second or third page of search results.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: GUEST,ythanside
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 07:55 PM

Mycroft Cholmondeley-Featherstonehaugh (the latter encumbrance pronounced Chumley-Fanshaw) could only be of British parentage.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 04:06 PM

That site confirms that there are no clones of me in the US as far as they know, first or surname.

That only leave one measley semi-detatched brick ediface in Cheltenham and me. It's a lonely old world.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 11:00 AM

Good job Dave.