BS: Were you named after anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 11:15 AM

Similar sort of thing to Ole, Ole, Ole and Ivar except involving a single mother in Glasgow who -

Goes tae the social tae register fur child benefit.
"How many children?" asks the civil servant.
"10" replies the girl.
"10???" says the civil servant. "What are their names?"
"Alec, Alec, Alec, Alec, Alec, Alec, Alec, Alec, Alec
and.....eh...Alec
"Doesn't that get confusing?"
"Naw..." says the girl "its great because if thur oot playin in the street, ah jist huv tae shout ALEC, YER DINNER'S READY or ALEC, GO TO BED NOW 'n' they aw dae it..."
"What if you want to speak to one individually?" says the perturbed civil servant.
"'at's easy," says the girl... "Ah just use thur surnames"

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 12:13 PM

As I know now since two weeks, I was named after a German war criminal.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: GUEST,jOhn
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 02:26 PM

I was named after my uncle Albert's favourite ferret.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 03:01 PM

I wasn't named after anyone but Paul and I named our son after our maternal grandfathers....he has their middle name which is Walter.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Jun 07 - 10:07 PM

My mother's mother's full name was Magdalena Carolina Wilhelmina Augusta Opperman Hughes. There must be a song in that.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: HuwG
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 06:20 AM

I presume fictional characters count.

Apparently, my Geordie father and Welsh mother had quite a tussle over my names before I was born. They agreed on what the names were to be, but not which way round. My mother, who had been deeply affected by the book "How green was my Valley", won the coin toss. Thus, my first name is Huw, after Huw Morgan, the central character of the book. My father gave me the middle name "Lindsay" (his own first name and that of my paternal grandfather) as a consolation prize.

(My mother also won the battle over the name of the family dog, a retriever bitch who became "Bronwen", or "Bron" for short.)

I don't think either had quite foreseen the future course of events. At the age of five, I found myself in the middle of Yorkshire with a set of forenames which infant school teachers insisted were a combination of a misspelling and an impossibility as it was a girl's name. (These were the same narrow-minded conformists who insisted that Kishor Solanki put down his Christian names on various forms.)

I suspect that my mother's insistence gave me my predominantly Welsh outlook and accent. When I was briefly engaged in my late twenties, my Welsh fiancee and I discussed what names we were to give any fruit of our union. We decided that we would take great pleasure in giving them names unpronounceable by English schoolmarms, both the traditionalist and PC variety. The first arrival would be "Dafydd" if a boy and "Meillin" if a girl.

Oddly, in spite of everyone's insistence that "Hugh" is the correct spelling, I have not met one single "Hugh" in my lifetime, though about twenty "Huws". (To be fair, I went to University in Wales, and spend much time with my mother's relations in Wales; but nevertheless, the correct spelling from that sample is the Welsh version, nem. con.)

As for my middle name, would anyone care to tell the Earl of Crawford that he is a girl ? Apparently, "Lindsay" is, or was, quite popular as a boy's name in Geordieland (the counties of Northumberland and Durham), as well as in parts of Scotland.

I refuse to give my last name here. That's too embarassing.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Alice
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 07:47 PM

I was named after my aunt Alice who was named after her aunt Alice who was named after her aunt Alice...

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Gurney
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 09:21 PM

Saint Christopher.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 09:40 PM

I was named after a hairlipped dog.


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 09:19 PM

I was named after John Wayne, All-American Hero. Or maybe Knute Rockne. One or the other.

Now my middle name is my one brother's first name and another brother's second middle name. My second middle name is the same as one brother's middle name and the second middle name of the other. One brother's oldest son has as his first name my middle name and his brother's middle name is the same as my first name. Another brother's youngest son has the same first name as the other brother. My sister has the same middle name I do, only feminized. One brother's oldest son has a first name which is the same as my second middle name.

There are no "juniors" in our family.

I can make this worse, if you want to do the logic of it all....

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Gurney
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 01:37 AM

My dad and I have the same initials, and that caused some abrupt words about opening each others letters when I lived at home. Rapaire's family must have had lots of moments like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 04:09 AM

My father wanted to call m Alec, after Alec bedser - a famous cricketer. My mother disagreed, she said everyone would call me 'Smart Alec'. 'Alan' was the compromise.

PS Thats a lovely story SharonA!

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 01:13 PM

I was named after a character in a series of children's books.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Janie
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 12:50 AM

Not that I know of. Unless it was the shoe.

Mary Jane

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 07:35 AM

I was named after all the people named before me!

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 05:39 PM

I'm named after my great grandfather on my father's side Neil Kenough MacMillan. Neil

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 08:45 PM

I was named after John Wayne, All-American Hero

I imagine it might have been quite hard at school at times, being called Marion, Rapaire...

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 03:58 PM

The French Republic!

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 05:54 PM

My Christian names are Richard Josef,richard is a family name but I was named Josef after ...Stalin.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 09 Dec 07 - 04:26 PM

The whole French Republic? I'm impressed. Neil

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 02:30 PM

I was intentionally NOT named after anyone else. Mother wanted me to have a unique name and she didn't know of anyone named Neil at the time. After Mr. Armstrong landed on the moon she was afraid that suddenly there would be a trend of parents naming children Neil but I don't think that actually happened. I still seldom ever run into another with my given name.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 04:58 PM

I once knew a young woman named Florian. I commented on her unusual name and she explained it thus - Her father had been a fighter pilot in WW2 and haad as his crew two Polish airmen. They all became such great colleagues that her father declared that when he had children he would name them after these two men. However, his two children turned out to be girls. Nothing fazed, he still named them after his Polish comrades, Florian, and Marion.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 06:41 PM

Not such a rare name as that, though for a girl it would be. There's a Prince Florian in a Philip Pullman book, Clockwork, or All Wound Up. Saint Florian is the patron saint of Poland, chimney sweeps and firefighters.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: GUEST,Seiri Omaar
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 11:18 PM

Florian is also the name of a silly hare who leads an acting troupe in onr of Brian Jacques' Redwall books. I rather like it.

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: goatfell
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 11:09 AM

My Sisters Margaret, Jean Joanne my Brothers John and Jim and myself were all named after someone in our family, Magaret was named after my Aunt Margaret, Jean was named after my Aunt Jean, Joanne was named after my Grandfather and Grand Mother John and Anne, they took the letters Jo from John and the name Anne and stuck them together, John named after my grandfather John Jim named after our father James and I'm named after my uncle Tom.

Tom (not Thomas)

Subject: RE: BS: Were you named after anyone?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 09:24 PM

Should look to see if I've already posted before I post... again...