24 November, 2011
Lou @ Mer de noms
Name Spot of the Wek
Agnes, Aphrodite, Apollo, Assumpta, Britannia, Bryn, Cashel, Cassandra, Cassie, Christy, Churchill, Concepta, Cyril, Danita, Dougal, Elyon, Fintan, Geraldine, Hebe, Hettie, Imelda, Kailua, Kelyan, Kit, Lilac, Maeve, Makélélé, Mandeville, Michael, Ned, Noémie, Noel, Ollie, Polly, Romeo, Rosalind, Rudi, Sorrel, Ted, Thomas, Wenlock
Father Ted logo, from fatherted.org.uk
Marks&Spencers have re-opened an outlet in France this week, which makes my standard M&S chocolate box gift to any French friend feel somewhat threatened. The store is also colloquially named Marks and Sparks, and was predictably founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer. Marks originally came from the area now known as Belarus and Spencer married a lady named Agnes. The last time I was in M&S was over the summer, when I was served as the till by a lovely lady named Hettie.
There are several models which M&S use on a regular basis for promotion; the one with my favourite name is also French. Her name? Noémie Lenoir, who has a son named Kelyan Makélélé.
I’m sure you’re all probably aware by now that the mascots for London 2012 are called Wenlock and Mandeville, but another recent sporting find of mine is that one of the leaders of the failed Qatar bid for the 2017 World Athletics Championships was called Aphrodite. Speaking of sporting events, how is this for patriotic? A guy in my littlest sister’s maths class is called Churchill.
In what a former teacher of mine called ‘webby-land’, I somehow ended up looking at Yahoo’s article on Where do the best baby names come from?. Whilst most of the comments weren’t perhaps the best examples of how to wield the English language, there were several fascinating names brought up by a few of the commenters:
- Britannia
- Brook-James
- Bryn
- Cashel
- Christy
- Elyon
- Hebe
- Kailua
- Lilac
- Maeve
- Rosalind
- Rudi
- Sorrel
- Talia
- Ted
Speaking of Ted, I watched an episode of Father Ted quite by chance the other day, in which Dougal spelt his name sans g. The character of Dougal is played by a man named Ardal, who has also appeared in the comedy series My Hero, in which he was the father of Apollo ‘Ollie’ and Cassandra ‘Cassie’. The name of some of the backing characters from the Father Ted series are notable, however:
- Assumpta
- Concepta
- Cyril
- Danita
- Fintan
- Imelda
- Ned
- Noel
- Polly
- Romeo
Another religion-based sitcom in the UK is called Vicar of Dibley, for which script contributions were made by a man named Kit Hesketh-Harvey – but Kit is short for Christopher. The lead character in Vicar of Dibley is a female vicar called Geraldine.
1 June, 2011
Lou @ Mer de noms
Sport Names
Alain, Alan, Ayrton, Damon, Denis, Denny, Emerson, Fernando, Gerhard, Gilles, Jack, Jackie, Jacky, Jacques, James, Jean, Jenson, Jim, Jody, John, Kimi, Lewis, Mark, Masten, Michael, Michele, Mika, Nelson, Nigel, Pedro, Peter, Ralf, René, Robert, Thierry
2010 Podium l-r Maclaren Mercedes Team Principal, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, from f1-gp.info
We’ve got a little longer to wait for the Canadian Grand Prix, since it isn’t until next weekend: 13th June. There’s been a Canadian Grand Prix on the Formula 1 race calender since 1961, bar ’75, ’87 and ’09. That’s a lot of winners, albeit, there have been 8 drivers who have won it multiple times. Some names you may recognise, some you may not, and they range from the distinctive Ayrton, to the not so unusual Peter:
1961 – Peter Ryan
1962 – Masten Gregory
1963/1964 – Pedro Roderígez
1965 – Jim Hall
1966 – Mark Donohue
1967 – John ‘Jack’ Brabham
1968 – Denis ‘Denny’ Hulme
1969/1970 – Jacques ‘Jacky’ Ickx
1971/1972 – John ‘Jackie’ Stewart
1973 – Peter Revson
1974 – Emerson Fittipaldi
1976 – James Hunt
1977 – Jody Scheckter
1978 – Gilles Villeneuve
1979/1980 – Alan Jones
1981 – Jacques Laffite
1982/1984/1991 – Nelson Piquet
1983 – René Arnoux
1985 – Michele Alboreto
1986 – Nigel Mansell
1988/1990 – Ayrton Senna
1989 – Thierry Boutsen
1992 – Gerhard Berger
1993 – Alain Prost
1994/1997/1998/2000/2002/2003/2004 - Michael Schumacher
1995 – Jean Alesi
1996 – Damon Hill
1999 – Mika Hakkinen*
2001 – Ralf Schumacher
2005 – Kimi Raikkonnen*
2006 – Fernando Alonso
2007/2010 – Lewis Hamilton
2008 – Robert Kubica
* There should be umlauts on some of the letters in their names. I can’t do them, apologies.
2011 – Jenson Button
15 March, 2011
Lou @ Mer de noms
Sibset of the Week
Fortuné, Holbrook, Michael, Mika, Paloma, Yasmina, Zuleika
I’m trialling a new feature here. Give me your thoughts, I’m not sure whether or not I’m competant enough to keep it up, so some encouragement may be needed to keep going.
This week’s sibset is one I’ve always had some admiration for, the product of an American father and Lebanese Mother, it is the sibset of singer Mika, and breaks down as such (in vague order of age):
Yasmina
Paloma
Michael Holbrook ‘Mika’
Fortuné (male)
Zuleika
- I can’t get over the genius of Fortuné for a lad, there are some really interesting picks here, for sure. Anyone wish to add an extra sibling? I’d go for another male being a Prosper, and another female being an Ophelia, peut-etre.
8 January, 2011
Lou @ Mer de noms
Real Babies
Aidan, Aiden, Alexa, Alexander, Alexandra, Alice, Alicia, Alisdair, Alistair, Amy, Ana, Andrew, Anne, Ashley, Beatrice, Beatrix, Ben, Benjamin, Bryn, Cara, Caroline, Catherine, Chloe, Christopher, Clara, Clare, Connor, Conor, David, Eleanor, Eliza, Elizabeth, Ellen, Emily, Emma, Esme, Esther, Eugenie, Finn, Frances, Freddie, Frederick, Hannah, Hayley, Helen, Helena, Hugh, Hugo, Huw, Jack, Jacob, Jakub, James, Jennifer, Jessica, Joanne, Joe, John, Jonathan, Joseph, Joshua, Karolina, Kathryn, Katie, Laura, Lauren, Leanne, Liam, Lila, Lilia, Lillian, Lily, Lucy, Maria, Marie, Matteaus, Matthew, Michael, Mollie, Molly, Natasha, Olivia, Rhian, Roxanne, Ryan, Sara, Sarah, Sasha, Sophie, Theo, Theodore, Thomas, Vanessa, William
Let’s number-crunch. Courtesy of my sister, I got my hands on the class lists for her year (grade) at school. The names totalled around 150, and when we factor in the sixth form class list, who are two years older, we have a reasonably sized data covering popular baby names for catholics (catholic school) in England in the early 1990s:
British Babies Born Circa 1990-1994
BOYS – ALPHABETICALLY
Aidan +Aiden
Alexander x3 +Alistair +Alisdair
Andrew x2
Ashley x2
Benjamin x2 +Ben
Bryn +Finn
Christopher x2
Connor +Conor
David x4
Hugo +Hugh +Huw
Jack x5
Jacob +Jakub
James x7
John +Jonathan
Joseph x7 +Joe
Joshua x2
Frederick + Freddie
Matthew x2 +Matteaus
Michael x4
Ryan x2
Theodore +Theo
Thomas x7
William x2 +Liam x2
BOYS – NUMERICALLY (3 or more)
Joseph et al = 8
James = 7
Thomas = 7
Daniel = 6
Alexander et al = 5
Jack = 5
Michael = 4
William et al = 4
Benjamin et al = 3
Hugo et al = 3
Matthew et al = 3
GIRLS – ALPHABETICALLY
Alexandra x2 +Alexa
Alice x2 +Alicia
Amy x2
Ana + Anne +Joanne +Leanne +Rhian +Roxanne
Beatrice +Beatrix x2
Cara +Clare +Clara
Caroline +Karolina
Chloe x3
Eleanor x3 +Ellen x2 +Helen x2 +Helena
Elizabeth +Eliza
Emma x2 +Emily
Esther +Esme
Eugenie x2
Frances x2
Hannah x2
Hayley x2
Jennifer x3
Jessica x3
Kathryn +Catherine +Katie x2
Laura x5 +Lauren
Lucy x4
Lily x2 +Lila +Lillian +Lilia
Maria x2 +Marie
Molly +Mollie
Natasha +Sasha x2
Olivia x3
Sarah +Sara
Sophie x3
Vanessa x2
GIRLS – NUMERICALLY (3 or more)
Eleanor et al = 8
Ana et al = 6
Lily et al =5
Kathryn et al = 4
Lucy = 4
Alexandra et al = 3
Beatrice et al = 3
Cara et al = 3
Chloe = 3
Emma et al = 3
Jennifer = 3
Jessica = 3
Natasha et al = 3
Olivia = 3
Philippa = 3
Sophie = 3
MALE/FEMALE
Daniel x6 +Danielle
George x2 +Georgina
Harry +Hattie +Harriet
Phillip +Philippa x3
Valentino +Valentina
THE IRISH GANG
Sean x2 +Shaun +Sian
Sinead +Seamus +Roisin +Bronagh +Lorcan +Ciara x2 +Niall
Patrick x2
THE NOTABLES
The prevalence of Irish names is not taken as uncommon in a catholic school.
Jack was outnumbered by several names: Joseph, James and Thomas. He began his stay at the top of the UK Top 100 list at the end of the decade. Two of the Jacks had the same surname.
Both of the Ashley’s, born when America embraced the name as a female one, were male.
The Eugenie’s were born just after Princess Eugenie, and the Beatrice/trixes born after Princess Eugenie’s sister: Princess Beatrice.
Non of the Lucy’s were a Lucille, Lucienne etc. They were all just Lucy.
The Emma’s outnumbered the Emily.
From personal knowledge:
-None of the Philippa’s in the list shortens their name to Pippa.
-All of the Eleanor’s were nicknamed Ellie.
* In the interests of not boring you all to death with an endless list of data, any name on the class lists which appeared once, without a similar name has been omitted from the data. This accounts for around 30 names out of the roughly estimated 240 names.
26 April, 2010
Lou @ Mer de noms
1920s Names
Anna, Arthur, Bernard, Betty, Catherine, Charles, Donald, Dorothy, Edward, Elizabeth, Frances, Frank, George, Gladys, Harold, Helen, Irene, Irving, John, Josephine, Katherine, Kenneth, Lillian, Louis, Mary, Michael, Norma, Norman, Opal, Oscar, Paul, Pauline, Queen, Quentin, Robert, Ruth, Sarah, Stanley, Thelma, Thomas, Ulysses, Una, Vernon, Virginia, William, Willie, Yoshio, Yvonne, Zach, Zelma
Occasionally, I find a need to peruse some data. Here is the product of just that. I looked at the Top 1000 for the USA from 1920 and created this list. Out of the Top 1000 names on the 1920 name list, this is a list of the name that appears first with each beginning letter.
A – Arthur and Anna
B – Bernard and Betty
C – Charles and Catherine
D – Donald and Dorothy
E – Edward and Elizabeth
F – Frank and Frances
G – George and Gladys
H – Harold and Helen
I – Irving and Irene
J – John and Josephine
K – Kenneth and Katherine
L – Louis and Lillian
M – Michael and Mary
N – Norman and Norma
O – Oscar and Opal
P – Paul and Pauline
Q – Quentin and Queen
R – Robert and Ruth
S – Stanley and Sarah
T – Thomas and Thelma
U – Ulysses and Una
V – Vernon and Virginia
W – William and Willie
X – N/A
Y – Yoshio and Yvonne
Z – Zach and Zelma
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