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

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:38 AM

"Aaron pronounced Arran"

Only pronounced Arran since it became popular with the Brickies-Arse-With-Thong-Showing, Tyler-Morgan and Chardonnay-Madonna types, Penny. Where and when I grew up it was 'Air-ron'.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:34 AM

"There was the jockey Lester Piggott, but apart from him, the only Lesters I've ever heard of have been North American - for example the jazz musician Lester Young, and the Canadian prime minister Lester Pearson."

What about my erstwhile sailing-and-singing pal, Lester Simpson? Derbyshire born and bred. Thought you were supposed to be a bit of a Folkie, McG? :-) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:02 AM

On the other side of the family, I have an aunt Mopsy. Other than Peter Rabbit's sister, does anyone have a clue to the origin?

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:50 AM

Yes, Hermione tops the list.

Now that we have exhausted the British list, how about Scandanavian names?

My Danish grandmother was Sina and one of my aunts was Walborg. I've never heard either name in N.A.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 May 08 - 08:04 PM

Alistair and Georgina?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 May 08 - 07:36 PM

Duane, no - but spell it Dwayne and it's all over the place. At least that's probably how it's spelled.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Penny S.
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:56 PM

Having taught for forty years, I can safely say I've never come across an Elvis or a Duane. Aaron pronounced Arran, after Elvis, but not the King himself.

When I started teaching, boys had boring standard names, John, Peter and so on, and girls had pretty names, Natalie and Gemma. Boys then got a little more different, and girls became very American. One year we had four Alicias, all spelled differently. Elysha (It began with E anyway), Alisha, and I can't rememeber the other one. Life has got hard for teachers, because this children are a) insulted if it's their name, and b) think the teacher's daft if the teacher can't pronounce it.

There has been a class difference in names abservable until recently. Posh families have fancier boys names, and especially those names which the lower classes think are girls' names. Evelyn, Jocelyn, Hilary, Vivian, and a few others which escape me for the moment. Their girls tended to be more ordinary. Apart from the odd Penelope.

In the days of service for young women, there would be renaming of young women who were thought to be bearing names above their station. I have heard of it in my own family, but can't remember who - perhaps my grandmother Rhoda, and it also happened to a friend's relative. I would certainly have been renamed.

Penny (short for?)

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:31 PM

I'm a bit puzzled where little Hawk got the idea that Lester is a name you'd ever be likely to find in England, or even in Scotland or Wales.

There was the jockey Lester Piggott, but apart from him, the only Lesters I've ever heard of have been North American - for example the jazz musician Lester Young, and the Canadian prime minister Lester Pearson.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 04 May 08 - 04:53 PM

I used to know a labor lawyer named Lynnville G. Miles, known as "Lynn".
This is in the US, Indiana to be exact. He would have been born in Indiana or Illinois, I think, probably not earlier than 1910 and not later than 1920.

I started to write this post thinking his name was Lynn, because that's how everyone actually addressed him, but only thought of "Lynnville" in writing that first paragraph.

Does that count?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Gurney
Date: 04 May 08 - 04:37 PM

Thread creep.   Has anyone else ever noticed that most Trevors seem to be boffins? I've never met one less than clever. Sometimes odd, or even peculiar, but not stupid.

My parents were Cyril and Doris, but they caught religion, so I'm Christopher, my siblings are named after saints, too.

I understand Elvis and Duane are English names too, But not much used there.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 04 May 08 - 03:02 PM

Actually my daughter in named Penelope and called (by me at least ) Penelope......

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Stu
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 10:52 AM

Abernathy

Welsh I would hazard a guess, as the prefix 'Aber' means 'mouth of'. Not sure what a Nathy is though.

"Also, while the Celtic peoples of those two nations endured conquest, and a degree of discrimination, by England, their subjugation was hardly as severe nor as long-standing as that suffered by Ireland."

Not as long standing? Where did you get that from? Wales has suffered incursions and invasions by the Irish, Romans, Scots (invited by Vortigern), Normans and finally the English. The idea that the Welsh 'got away' with less severe subjugation than the Irish is ridiculous - just because it happened a long time ago and Meibion Glyndŵr stopped burning down holiday cottages years ago doesn't mean that everything's hunky dory in the most oppressed kingdom in the Isles.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Rowan
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 04:22 PM

And was the name of my paternal grandmother, who pronounced it Maybelle

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Blowzabella
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 02:59 PM

Slightly off-topic but I think that one of the most badly done to names in the history of the UK is Mabel.

It speaks to us of nhs spectacles and pinnies but is, in fact, a Norman name, originally pronounced Ma-belle. How different and how lovely.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: PoppaGator
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 02:14 PM

I know several real-life American Hanks. No Elvises or Daisy Maes, though.

"Tex" is almost invariably a nickname, and I've known a few characters who occasinally answer to "Tex," but for whom that is not their primary identification.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Celtaddict
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 12:57 PM

I had understood the original question to be, what given names sound the most 'British' to people (presumably, non-British English speakers, such as Americans & Australians). I do understand that names that sound 'teddibly teddibly' British to us are likely to sound quite dated to you on the Eastern side of the Pond, and in fact may never even have been all that common.
On the other hand, I don't think I have ever met a Tex, Hank, Daisy Mae, or Elvis, though I do not doubt that those names shout 'American' to someone over there. (I do have a nephew named Zeke, though he is the only Zeke I have ever known.)

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Anne Lister
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 12:28 PM

Are we talking past or present? Because you're highly unlikely to find any Agathas or Cicelys these days, and I suspect still fewer Percys!

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: GUEST,Nancy King at work
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 12:12 PM

Santa, my Dad, who was born in Canada, was named Sterling. Named for a favorite uncle.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 07:30 AM

FWIW
I typed-in Felicia and that name is 518th in popularity in the US.

Which did surprise me. The one I know used to get a bit of stick (sic) over it. So rare I have never seen it in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 07:20 AM

Any Percys yet?.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 12:19 PM

My (British) father-in-law's middle name was Welborn.   How does that rate?

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Celtaddict
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 10:29 PM

Besides Cyril, Nigel, Trevor, and Cecil, I always think Malcolm sounds very British. Agatha and Cecily do too.
And in the US, naming daughters by names traditionally male or traditionally surnames has been enormously popular for a generation and more, so there are plenty of females called Hunter, Tyler, Madison; also names fairly commonly in the US go from male to female (Vivian, Frances, Leslie) but almost never go from female to male.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Michael
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 08:33 AM

Can't remember if we've had Ralph, with its two pronunciations:- Ralf and Rafe (as in Ralph Vaughan Williams).

Also the difference between the UK & US pronounciations of Colin:-
US- Colin Powell was Coalin where as in the UK the Coll rhymes with doll.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Rowan
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 06:39 PM

PoppaGator, while what you say is generally true, I sometimes wonder about the self identification of those in Northern Ireland. On top of that, I also suspect the particulars of self identification of people living in the various parts of the British Isles have changed over the last 2-3 generations, which is long enough to capture such changes but still be within the living memory of any family member.

And, although the notions of self identification have been so thoroughly canvassed elsewhere, in other threads, that we don't need to get into such diversions on this thread, I also suspect that parents choose names for their offspring for a huge variety of reasons; self identification (in the "wishing to" as well as "wishing to avoid" senses) will be only one.

Using my daughters' naming process as a personal example, both their mum and myself have single-syllable family names (OK "surnames") and hers is particularly percussive; we wished to avoid given names that might have effectively augmented the percussiveness. We also wished to avoid names that easily became diminutives, those that led to unfortunate combinations of initials and those with initials that might cause confusion on letterrs addressed to them in our household; we weren't too keen on feminised male names either.

Being in Oz, ethnic or other forms of self identification received no conscious consideration at all (though, if the Japanese had won in 1942 I might be writing differently) but I can imagine that, where self identification (in terms of 'allegiance' to a particular subgroup) is taken seriously, it might receive slightly higher prominence when choosing names.

Aliases chosen in adulthood are a different matter.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 05:29 PM

Most Irish do not self-identify as "British," but I believe that the average Scot or Welshman readily accepts that designation (although, of course, they would balk at being described as "English").

Scotland and Wales, of course, share the same island with England. Perhaps that helps them feel British.

Also, while the Celtic peoples of those two nations endured conquest, and a degree of discrimination, by England, their subjugation was hardly as severe nor as long-standing as that suffered by Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 04:11 PM

Richard - so how come you left the Irish (who have revelled in classical allusions) out of your post on quintessence?

I read "MOST British" in the thread title as meaning the most concentrated essence of British, not English.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Richard in Manchester
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 05:10 PM

My brain is still fighting a losing battle trying to grasp Herga Kitty's phrase "quintessentially British". Something that is equally typical of the English, the Welsh and the Scots? I'll take the quest to find the Holy Grail, any day....

Subject: RE: BS: The MOST British given name of all is...
From: Rowan
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 04:36 PM

Kaleea, I've come across a couple of Oz Godfreys and more than a couple of Jocelyns but the most frequent occurrences in Oz of the ones you mention (excepting Jocelyn) are as surnames. And, again, it's Stirling rather than Sterling.

More generally, although Little Hawk asked for names that were British, from a US perspective, the examples on the thread indicate the influence of British heritage in Oz names is still extensive. When we had our first child, a daughter, her mum wanted names from out of our joint family trees; she'd been genealogically ferreting around hers between proper jobs. The two we liked most had already been picked by my brother (who, at that stage, knew nothing about the family beyond our grandparents) for his two daughters; such is life.

What we noticed about our ancestries (hers 4th generation Oz with lots of English and Irish, mine First & Second Fleet with some English, some Scottish and a bit of French) though, was how limited was the range of names for the male parts by comparison with the female parts, pace Dariel Fo. The range of women's names was at least twice and almost thrice the range of men's names.

At least, we found that interesting.

Cheers, Rowan

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.

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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: robomatic
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 08:20 PM

Ethelred
Abernathy

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.