BS: Appropriate names

Subject: BS: Appropriate names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 01:50 AM

I have long collected names particularly appropriate to their owners' positions or attributes:

e.g. Queen Victoria, figurehead of the main period of British expansion; Sir Walter Scott, great North British writer; Charles Birchenough, author of several histories of British education; (one of particular interest to Mudcatters) John England, the first man from whom Cecil Sharp collected an English folksong.

Further examples gratefully received.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 03:37 AM

I don't get the premise, MichaeltheGM. Other than John England's name, what makes their names appropriate? I can see that if Victoria had been named 'Regina', say, it would have been appropriate but what does 'Victoria' mean - other than a female victor? And Sir Walter Scott- is his name appropriate because he was of northern British extraction? I haven't a clue as to Birchenough.

My sis in law's surgeon's name is Dr. Schneider. And I know a very small woman whose last name is Kurtz.

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 03:46 AM

Like child molester Dr. Louis Poetter? Or a dentist I had, Dr. Payne?
(:-( ))=

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 04:01 AM

A few in this article for you!

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 04:14 AM

Ebbie, to birch a pupil is to cane them with a birch rod. So Birchenough means to cane the boys sufficiently. Reminds me of 'Dotheboys Hall', the school in Nicholas Nickleby. My dentist is called Mr Wigglesworth. Good if you've got a loose tooth.

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 04:32 AM

I've seen several lists of such names but I suspect that you're not particularly interested in the rather common coincidental ones usually reported in those, and at the moment I can't recall any that were particularly memorable.

A vaguely similar compilation was started by some students (associates of mine) decades ago to collect the "corruptions" of textbook titles and authors names for books in common use at the school, but I don't think it ever got very far. Most of the inputs they got were from the profs who knew what the students called their stuff.

Top of that list was a book on Lubrication and Friction by Hunsaker and Rightmire, universally called something else. My MS Thesis advisor (Dr. Rightmire) once commented to his class while I was there "But I'm not the obscene one," if that suggests the kind of stuff in their collection.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 04:42 AM

Jimmy Sa vile.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 05:21 AM

New Scientist magazine covered this topic at length. Their parting shot: "Let the last word go to Andrew Lover, who writes to us expressing the earnest hope that nominative determinism is a real phenomenon."

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 07:49 AM

Ebbie ~~ Victoria = female victor indeed; just as the Brits were out conquering the world!*

Another which occurs to me is the Romantic Poet Laureate, Wordsworth.

~M~

*(Apart from you obstinate lot!)

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Becca72
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 10:04 AM

Best I can do is my high school Biology teacher - Mr. Blood. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Newport Boy
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 11:00 AM

I posted this much earlier, but it must have gone to Mars!

A firm of estate agents in Newport - Crook & Blight (later Darlow & Crook, then just Darlows).

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 11:11 AM

I remember a fishmonger in Northampton where we lived during WWii with the unfortunate name of Allbone.

And a notable one, though not particularly appropriate: there was once a firm of estate agents in Cambridge called Hymans & Cox. Someone must have said something, because they changed it to Jackson Cox...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 11:31 AM

Couple of doctors: one at Bath hospital about 12 years ago, Dr. De'Ath, the other my GP when I lived near Bedford, Dr. Janet Butler, who had a personalised number plate with her initials - JAB. Dr. Jab!

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 12:53 PM

One in reverse, Thomas Crapper, the plumber who improved on an early flush toilet.

(I know, he did not invent that receptacle, nor is crap derived from his name)

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Bert
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 01:03 PM

I used to know an electrician named Flicker.

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Tiger
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 02:33 PM

We have Dr. Wilterdink.

A urologist.

Subject: RE: BS: Appropriate names
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 02:51 PM

My last name translates to "Keeper of the Sacred Places." In modern Dutch I'm told that it means "goalie."