Category Archives: Waltzing with …

Waltzing With … Eve

25 Sunday Sep 2016

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The Spring Equinox has just passed, and I’m planning on doing lots of gardening in the school holidays. So here’s a name suited to the season of new life and growth.

Biblical Namesake
Eve is derived from the Hebrew name Hawwah (in modern Hebrew, Chavah) which comes from both the word for “breath” and for “life”. It can be translated as “she who lives” or “source of life”.

The goddess Asherah, who was the wife of God in early Semitic tradition, held the title Chawat, which is the source of the name. Interestingly the word is from the same root as the word for “snake”, as these creatures are symbols of wisdom, and serpents were sacred to Asherah.

As the first pages of the Old Testament tell us, Eve was the first woman, created by God as a wife for the first man, Adam. God fashioned Eve from Adam’s rib while he slept. The story is quite similar to a Sumerian myth: in this case, the word for “rib” was a pun on the word for “life”, which explains why Eve was made from this body part.

Eve and Adam began in complete harmony with nature, living in the Garden of Eden as caretakers to the plants and animals, and eating only fruit and other plants. The couple were in a state of blissful innocence, and wore no clothes, for the Bible tells us that they were “naked and not ashamed”.

Apart from the simple requirements of daily gardening and animal husbandry, a raw food diet, strict veganism, and total nudity, God really only had one major rule and that was not to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is an impressive way of saying The Tree of Knowledge of All Things, or even just The Tree of Knowledge. He decreed that the punishment for this crime would be an immediate death sentence.

The Tree of Knowledge was right in the middle of the Garden of Eden so you couldn’t avoid seeing it, and it was an especially beautiful tree, laden with the most delicious-looking fruit. This was the start of the original “trouble in paradise”.

The snake was said to be the craftiest and most cunning of all the animals God had created, and in those days it walked upon legs. It was also able to talk, or perhaps Eve and Adam had the innate ability to understand the speech of all creatures.

This crafty, leggy, chatty snake schmoozed up to Eve and, without ever actually suggesting this would be a good idea, or that she should do it, the snake cleverly planted the idea in Eve’s mind that eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge would open her mind to untold wisdom. It would make her the intellectual equal of God, and the experience wouldn’t lead to death after all.

So what with these cunning arguments, and the tree being so delectable and accessible, Eve ate the fruit. She handed it over to Adam, and he ate it as well. It’s worth pointing out that the Bible says that Adam was right next to Eve the whole time, and had presumably heard all the same crafty snake talk without butting in with any counter-arguments, or insisting they’d better leave right now. Nope, he just hoed right in on a forbidden fruit binge.

Their minds now open to all knowledge, the first bit of information they received was they were walking around in the nude, and that made them feel suddenly ashamed. Hastily they sewed themselves loincloths out of fig leaves, and then hid from God, because another vital bit of info they’d gotten was that they’d done something incredibly bad, and now had this horrible gnawing feeling, which was guilt.

Part the knowledge they had imbibed was the ability to pass the buck, because once God started asking them a few probing questions Adam was quick to pin it all on Eve, and Eve was just as fast shifting all the blame on the snake.

Of course when God learned the truth, the proverbial hit the fan and there were major penalties handed out. The snake became legless so he had to crawl in the dust, and from now on humans would hate and fear him. Eve would suffer horrible pain during childbirth so that sexual desire would be its own punishment, and she would be subservient to her husband. The earth itself would turn against Adam, so that he would have to work and suffer for every mouthful he ate.

Finally God banished Eve and Adam from the Garden of Eden, because he was afraid that now they knew everything their next step would be to eat from the Tree of Life, which was right next to the Tree of Knowledge, and gave immortality to those who ate from it. Mysteriously, this tree wasn’t mentioned before and God never warned them off it. But he was worried now, and set some fiery cherubim to guard it.

It was only after all these events that Adam gave Eve her name, to show that she would become the mother of all humanity. Before this, Adam just called her Woman. It’s food for thought that Eve’s name came only after she had lost her innocence, and that Adam only knew her name when he had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. Eve is a name born out of hard-won wisdom.

According to Christian tradition, Adam and Eve repented of their sin and were forgiven by God. They ascended into Heaven upon the Resurrection of Christ, and have been canonised as saints, with their feast day being Christmas Eve, aptly enough.

There has been a tendency to see Eve as responsible for the Fall of Man. She is often cast in the role of temptress, and the phrase “the wisdom of Eve” refers to feminine wiles. It is further extrapolated that all women are somehow more sinful by nature, and the Bible is sometimes used to justify women being kept in submission, even though hardly anybody seems to think that men as a sex should have to struggle and suffer for every bite of food.

Eve is a fascinating character. Unlike Pandora, she was not given to man to plague him, but made to be his companion, “flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone”. She is the first mother yet she isn’t primarily a fertility figure, but one who is hungry for wisdom and brings knowledge to the world. In a sense, her act made the world as we know it – not the natural world created by God, but the human world of thoughts and ideas, of good and evil, of choices and consequences.

Name Information
Eve has been used as an English name since the Middle Ages, and was introduced by the Normans; there is a French saint named Eve who is the patron of the city of Dreux. The Latin form Eva was more common, but in everyday life the person might have been called Eve. The name has remained in use ever since, and in Ireland was sometimes used to Anglicise the name Aoife.

Eve first joined the charts in the 1950s at #409. The award-winning drama All About Eve came out in 1950, starring Anne Baxter as the scheming Eve Harrington. In the film, the name Eve is deliberately chosen to evoke a sense of deception. Another film of this decade was the 1957 The Three Faces of Eve, with Joanne Woodward winning the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a woman with multiple personality disorder.

The name Eve stayed around the 400 mark for decades, but began climbing steeply in the 2000s. It joined the national Top 100 last year. Currently it is #87 nationally, #95 in New South Wales, #65 in Victoria, and #46 in the Australian Capital Territory Territory. Last year it was one of the fastest-rising names for girls, going up 14 places, and was a fast-rising name in Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory.

In the US the name Eve was almost continuously on the Top 1000 from the late 19th century until the mid 1980s, peaking in the early 20th century around the 400s. The name went off the charts in 1985, but reappeared in 1998 – the same year that rapper Eve Jeffers-Cooper, who performs under her first name only, began her career. Since then it has risen, and is now #475 and fairly stable.

In the UK, Eve joined the Top 100 in 1999, the same year British actor Clive Owen welcomed a daughter named Eve, and peaked in 2001 at #50. It left the Top 100 in 2010, the same year American rapper Eve began dating British entrepreneur Maximillion Cooper, now her husband. It is currently #161. Eve is still popular in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, and is in common use in France.

Eve is an ancient name, but one that has gained a very modern image, as it’s a favourite in sci fi to give to a “first woman” of some kind (the first gynoid or clone, for example), and also works well as an acronym, such as the robot EVE – Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator – in Wall-E.

This is a slim and trim modern classic underused for centuries due to the association with the biblical character, who is both our mother to revere, and blamed for our fall from grace. It is interesting that both Adam and Eve joined the charts in the 1950s, but Adam became popular almost immediately while Eve languished.

It’s never been able to match classic Eva (its Latin form) or popular Zoe (the Greek version), but it feels as if Eve’s day might be arriving. It fits in so perfectly with current trends for names such as Ava and Evelyn, and is a possible formal name for the popular nickname Evie.

Based on overseas trends, you wouldn’t expect Eve to go very much higher than it is already, but as every country has its own profile for Eve, we’ll have to wait and see what happens here.

(Painting is Adam et Eve au jardin d’Eden by Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois, 1853-1923)

Waltzing With … Rio

21 Sunday Aug 2016

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Famous City
Today is the final day of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio – can you believe that London was already four years ago? This is the first time the Olympics have been held in South America, the first time the Summer Olympics took place in winter, and only the third time they have been hosted in the Southern Hemisphere. This was the first Olympics that a Refugee Olympic Team took part.

It’s been a rather controversial Olympics (although not as disastrous as the gloomy doomsayers predicted). However Rio has looked beautiful with its views of mountains and beaches, and the famous landmark of Christ the Redeemer overlooking the city and its surrounds. No wonder Rio is one of the most popular cities to visit in the Southern Hemisphere, and why Australian entertainer Peter Allen had to write a song about it!

Congratulations to all the Olympic athletes, and see you all in Tokyo in 2020!

Name Information
The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro means “River of January” in Portuguese, and received its name because Portuguese explorers first sailed into its bay on January 1 1502, mistakenly believing the harbour was the mouth of a river.

The city itself was founded in 1565, and first called São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro in honour of Saint Sebastian, the patron of the Portuguese monarch. Just as the São Sebastião got dropped, the city is now often known as simply Rio (“River”).

Rio has been used as an English name since the 19th century, although it is not always possible to tell from records whether Rio was the person’s nickname. It was given to both sexes, but mostly to males, and in the US may have been influenced by the great south-western river the Rio Grande, or various places named Rio.

In fiction, guys called Rio tend to be tough and gritty, rebellious and sexy, or even butch and bullying. Female fictional characters named Rio include the heroine of the YA undersea novel Atlantia: in the book, the characters all have names connected with water, so a name meaning “river” makes sense.

Rio is also a popular Japanese girl’s name. It can be translated in a variety of ways, including “white jasmine and cherry blossom”, and “village centre of cherry blossom”. An example of someone with the name is Japanese child star Rio Suzuki. You will find the name used fairly often in anime and manga, and confusingly, sometimes for male characters too – an apparent Anglicisation of the Japanese boy’s name Ryu, meaning “dragon”.

If you tend to think of Rio as a masculine name, it’s probably because in Romance languages an O at the end of a name usually signals it’s male – Rio even looks as if it could be short for Mario. Also, the English name River is more popular for boys, so it makes some kind of sense for Rio to be as well.

If you think of Rio as a feminine name, it might be because you’re an older parent or young grandparent, and you’re thinking of the song Rio by Duran Duran where her name is Rio and she dances on the sand. In the song, the girl’s name is linked to the Rio Grande; the band have said that Rio is a symbol of their love for the United States (originally the girl in the song was called Amy, short for America, but Rio sounded more exotic so Rule of Cool won out).

Rio isn’t an unusual name in the UK. It has charted for boys since the late 1990s, around the time English football star Rio Ferdinand began playing for the national team; he went on to captain his side. The name peaked in 2008 at #155, the year after Rio Ferdinand’s autobiography was published. The name Rio is now #213 for boys, and its popularity has almost certainly been influenced by Mr Ferdinand.

Rio also charts for girls in the UK, and before Rio Ferdinand became well known, was actually more common as a female name. This is a good example of how just one high-profile person can cause a less-common name to do a gender switch. Rio has only been in the Top 500 for girls once, in 1997 – ironically the same year Rio Ferdinand joined the English national side. In 2014, 11 baby girls were given the name Rio in the UK.

Rio is less popular in the US, but more common for boys there as well. In 2015, there were 103 boys named Rio, and 38 girls. Numbers are fairly stable for both genders, but it does seem to be gradually falling for girls, and very slightly rising for boys. I have seen Rio on both sexes in Australia, but more boys than girls.

Whether you think of it as inspired by the city, or the Rio Grande, or simply an exotic nature name, Rio is a cool and spunky name for both boys and girls. It will be interesting to see if this year’s Summer Olympics will help bring about an increase in babies named Rio.

(Picture shows a view of Rio’s harbour from Mount Corcovado)

Waltzing With … Carter

19 Sunday Jun 2016

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Blonde

Famous Namesake
It’s cold and wet at the moment – just the right weather for curling up with a good book. But what if you want to curl up with a bad book? That’s what pulp fiction is for: cheap, disposable paperbacks that can entertain you for an hour or so.

Australia’s prolific prince of postwar pulp fiction was Carter Brown – the pen name of British-born Alan Yates. He came here during the war, and married an Australian woman he had met on leave. They lived in England for a while, but Alan’s articles and radio scripts kept getting rejected, so they returned to Sydney in 1948.

One of Alan’s jobs was producing the in-flight magazine for Qantas. In the evenings, he wrote a western, and went on to write horror, science fiction, and detective stories. At his publisher’s urging, he wrote his first full-length crime novel, Murder is My Mistress, which came out in 1954. It was so successful that Alan was contracted to become a full-time writer, turning out a novel every month for a weekly income plus royalties.

In the next 30 years, Alan wrote over 200 novels under the pen name Carter Brown, as well as 75 novellas. An individual title could sell up to 200 000 copies, and his total sales were 55 million. His books were second only to the Bible for the number of languages they were translated into.

His detectives included ditzy blonde private investigator Mavis Seidlitz, Hollywood screenwriter Larry Baker and his drunken assistant Boris Slivka, San Francisco lawyer Randy Roberts, and Lt. Al Wheeler, a policeman from fictional Pine County near LA.

The plots had beautiful, dangerous women, plenty of action, a bit of a laugh, and enough sex and violence to keep readers coming back for more. They could expect strippers, starlets, spankings, vampires, ghosts, aliens, witches, Satanists, psychiatrists, sexy Women’s Libbers, deadly yoga instructors, and rampant dwarfs.

There were loads of alliterative titles, like Bullet for My Baby, Honey, Here’s Your Hearse, Darling, You’re Doomed, and Cutie Wins a Corpse. Blondes were a favourite topic, featuring in Blonde Verdict, No Blonde is an Island, Blonde on the Rocks, and Blonde, Beautiful, and – BLAM!

The books were usually set in California, which was what readers expected. Alan hadn’t been to the United States when he first started, so wrote from his imagination, with some comic results. However, this didn’t bother his readership in Australia and Europe, most of whom hadn’t been to America either.

Once his books started being sold in the US in 1958, he did visit America and was able to add more realism. It was also America which fixed his pen name in place: he had sometimes published as Peter Carter Brown or Peter Carter-Brown, but it was felt Carter Brown would do better in the United States. A helpful rumour circulated that Carter Brown was the favourite author of President John F. Kennedy, which boosted sales.

Alan’s life was very different from that of his heroes, as he was a devoted family man who enjoyed a beer and a joke with friends. He spent nearly all his time writing, living in dread of deadlines, and surviving on coffee and Benzedrine to maintain the relentless pace. He dreamed of one day publishing a serious work, a historical novel set in Australia, but there was too much writing to be done.

Alan was no Raymond Chandler, but although he wrote pure pulp, it wasn’t complete trash. He was able to keep readers addicted through constant inventiveness while sticking to the same formula the publisher insisted on, and his humour, puns and literary allusions added sparkle to the text. Some of his works are still in print, and he has a loyal readership among fans of vintage crime fiction.

Alan won his only literary award a dozen years after his death, when he received the Ned Kelly Award for lifelong contribution.

Name Information
Carter is an English occupational surname for someone who transported goods, or who made a living building carts. It’s a very old surname, and may pre-date the Norman Conquest.

There are many people with the surname. Jimmy Carter, former American president; archaeologist Howard Carter who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen; writer Angela Carter; country singer June Carter from The Carter Family, wife of Johnny Cash; Lynda Carter, who played Wonder Woman; Rubin Carter, the boxer known as “The Hurricane” who later worked to help people wrongfully convicted; and Shawn Carter, the rapper known as Jay Z, married to Beyoncé.

Famous Australian Carters include ornithologist Thomas Carter who found many bird specimens; entomologist Herbert Carter, beetle expert; physicist Brandon Carter, known for his work on black holes; photographer and film-maker Jeff Carter; influential businessman Bruce Carter; and high jumper Doris Carter, the first Australian female track and field athlete to make the Olympic finals.

Carter has been used as a personal name since at least the 17th century, and usually given to males. Famous namesakes include Carter Braxton, one of the signatories to the United States Declaration of Independence, and Carter Woodson, the African-American historian considered to be the father of Black History Month in the US.

An influential fictional character with the surname Carter is John Carter of Mars, an immortal Southern Virginian gentleman created by Edgar Rice Burroughs: practically every sci-fi adventure story since owes a debt to him. There’s also dime novel detective Nick Carter, and mob enforcer Jack Carter, from the cult film Get Carter.

Fictional characters with Carter as a first name include superheroes such as Carter Grayson from the Power Rangers, Carter Hall, otherwise known as the Hawkman, and Carter Slade, the original Ghost Rider. There’s also Carter Kane from Rick Riordan’s Kane Chronicles, a powerful teenage magician and the human host of the Egyptian god Horus.

In the US, Carter has been on the Top 1000 almost continuously for boys since the late 19th century. It has been climbing since 1980, joined the Top 100 for the first time in 2004, and is currently #24.

Carter began charting for girls in 2013, and is currently #533. Two female Carters from popular culture are tomboy Carter Mason in the Disney movie Princess Protection Program, played by Selena Gomez, and rebellious Carter Wilson, on the teen drama series Finding Carter.

In the UK, Carter has been in the Top 500 since the late 1990s and has been generally rising since 1999, rising steadily since 2010. It is currently #118, so not far outside the Top 100. Carter is a popular name in Northern Ireland, and is most popular in New Zealand, where it is #20 and rising. It only charts as a female name in the US.

In Australia, Carter debuted in the Top 100 in 2014, and last year went up 19 places to #79, making it one of the fastest rising names of 2015. Carter debuted at #83 in New South Wales, being one of the fastest rising names in the state, and was #39 in Queensland.

Carter fits right in with the surname trend, as well as with the other rising AR names, like Archer, Arlo, and Harvey. It sounds sleek and tailored, but also rugged and manly – a tough-talking guy who looks good in a suit. Like Carter? Join the club.

Waltzing With … Dami

15 Sunday May 2016

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Famous Namesake
Yes it’s Eurovision time again! Australia was allowed to compete for a second time in 2016, and we entered popular singer Dami Im. Dami was born in South Korea, and grew up in Brisbane, where she studied music and became a piano teacher; her first public performances were as a gospel singer at Christian youth camps in South Korea.

Fame came for Dami when she won X-Factor Australia in 2013 and received a recording contract. Her self-titled album went platinum after debuting at #1 in the charts, as did the single from the album, Alive. Since then she has released two more albums, the second one going gold, and her albums also chart in South Korea. Apart from her other recognitions, she has been named the cultural ambassador for her home town of Logan City.

Unlike Guy Sebastian, who was given automatic entry into Eurovision as a special guest, Dami had to compete for her position at Stockholm. Would she get through? (nail bite, nail bite). Yes of course – she gave a stunning performance which earned her a standing ovation and thunderous applause from the crowd. Australia thus became one of the countries to win a place in the finals, and was immediately tipped as a strong contender.

In the finals, it looked as if Australia was going to win in a landslide victory, as the juries from each country thought Dami had given the best performance. However, when the televotes from the audience came through there were several upsets: countries given little encouragement from the juries stormed ahead in the audience vote, while some which the juries had judged a solid performance were suddenly flailing.

In the end, the Ukraine’s Jamala won with a haunting political song, while Australia came a close second with Dami Im’s power ballad Sound of Silence. Russia, which was the favourite to win, came in third. Australians were allowed to vote in Eurovision, and as you aren’t allowed to vote for your own country, they mostly voted for Belgium – perhaps influenced by Dami picking it as one of her own favourites in the competition.

There’s been lots of complaints about Australia being allowed to compete, but at the very least we’ve proved we have what it takes to do well at Eurovision without needing special treatment, and can be popular with both juries and audiences.

It’s not known yet whether we will be invited back for Eurovision 2017, but in any case SBS has another card up its sleeve. They now have the rights to produce their own version of Eurovision for the Asia Pacific, and the first one may be launched in Sydney next year. Not coincidentally, China broadcast Eurovision for the first time in 2016.

It’s interesting that the United States also broadcast Eurovision for the first time this year, because Justin Timberlake was selected as a surprise interval act. As that’s how Australia joined the Eurovision glamour train, pundits are wondering if the United States will be the next nation to be invited to compete. Grab your sequins and thicken your skins, would be my advice – it will be a bumpy but fun-filled ride to the finals.

Name Information
Dami is an Anglicised form of the Korean name Da-Mi, meaning “of great beauty, very beautiful”. The name is pronounced DAH-mee – Dami Im’s fan base is called The Dami Army, which makes the pronunciation obvious. By coincidence, dami is also a Korean vocabulary word, a verb meaning “to put in”.

Dami’s name demonstrates the usual pattern for Korean names: a one-syllable family name, and a two-syllable personal name (of course in Korea Dami’s name would be Im Da-Mi). Dami’s surname Im is the equivalent of the English name Forest or Woods, so her name altogether makes for a very attractive image.

Dami is a name that works well cross-culturally because it is used by Europeans as a short form of girl’s names such as Damiana. The name Dami is used in Nigeria for both sexes, short for names such as Damilola, meaning “God has rewarded me”. It also seems familiar to English-speakers as we have similar-sounding girl’s names such as Demi and Dani.

An international name suitable for an Australian woman performing on the world stage!

 

Waltzing With … Mars

13 Sunday Mar 2016

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Music legend David Bowie passed away early this year, with fans both grief-stricken and shocked at the news, as he had kept his final illness private. I covered the name Bowie last year because of his touring exhibition, which we now know was his way of saying goodbye.

At the time, there were many tributes to David Bowie taking place, with radio and TV stations taking the opportunity to play his music (my local radio station kept playing Starman non-stop, as if this was the only Bowie record they owned).

My favourite was from Weatherzone, who put out a weather report for the planet Mars, so that we could see what “life on Mars” was actually like.

Having already covered Ziggy and Bowie, there was no choice but to cover the name Mars in the month named after it.

Name Information
In Roman mythology, Mars was the god of war, and second only to Jupiter in importance. He represented military power as a method towards peace, rather than a destructive force, and was a father to and guardian of the Roman people themselves. His worship was central to Roman society, and he was an important symbol of the Roman Empire.

Mars was also an agricultural deity. Masculine, aggressive, and virile by nature, he was equally adept at defending soldiers from attack, and protecting crops. He is described as wild and savage, with a connection to woodlands, and may originally have been a god of the wilderness that needed to be mollified lest he destroy farmland. The animals sacred to Mars were wild ones, like the wolf, bear, and woodpecker, but the list also includes the domestic goose.

In art, Mars was either depicted as a youthful warrior, or as a handsome mature man with a beard, the dignified general who has won many victories. He is often nude or semi-nude to show that he is brave enough to enter battle with little to protect him. Mars is nearly always shown with a helmet and a spear, to symbolise warfare. However, when his military victory brings peace, his spear is draped with laurel.

The origin and meaning of the name Mars has been debated, with no agreement being reached. Two suggestions are that it is related to the Etruscan god Maris, or to the Hindu gods the Marutas, but both sides rubbish the opposing theory. We know that the worship of Mars was very ancient, because one of his hymns was in such archaic language that the Romans could no longer understand it, so it is safe to say that the meaning of the name Mars is lost in antiquity.

More certain are the words derived from Mars, such as martial, meaning “of war”, the month of March, which was sacred to Mars, and names such as Marcus and Martin.

The Romans named the fourth planet from the Sun after Mars: they were not the first to associate the planet with a god of war, which had been traditional ever since the Babylonians. It is speculated that the red colour of Mars brought to mind bloodshed – if so, the ancients were not far wrong, because the iron oxide that gives Mars its distinctive colour is the same thing which makes our blood red.

The planet Mars has captured the human imagination for years, and as soon as we had telescopes able to view the surface of it, we began seeing things. Astronomers thought they could see regular channels on the planet’s surface, which were called canals, and inspired a belief in intelligent life on the planet. Sceptics correctly identified this as an optical illusion caused by using a 19th century telescope which wasn’t good enough – nobody can see the “channels” today using modern instruments.

Astronomers of the 19th and early 20th centuries also thought they might have received radio signals from Mars, and even a mysterious bright light appearing to emanate from the planet was considered to be some sort of message. The idea that there were intelligent Martians, and they wished to contact us, was an idea humans had trouble shaking.

In science fiction, Mars is sometimes a Utopia, and sometimes a source of menace (most notably in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds). It is often a place of adventure and exploration, such as in the John Carter stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Later on, when it was accepted that Mars was uninhabited, sci-fi focused on the possibility of Mars becoming colonised by Earth, so that the Martian population was actually human.

Mars has been used as an English name since the 18th century. When director Spike Lee chose the name Mars for his character in She’s Gotta Have It, he took it from his own family history – Mars was the name of his great-great-grandfather, a freed slave and successful farmer. Mars was the kind of mythological name often given to slaves in America, but records show both white and black people with the name Mars.

In some cases it may not necessarily have been inspired by the god or the planet. Mars is also an English surname, a variant of Marsh: it’s most famous from Frank Mars who developed the chocolate Mars bar, which is still owned by the Mars family. The singer Bruno Mars (born Peter Hernandez) took his stage name as a symbol of being “different”. The name Mars has been more commonly used in Scandinavia and Central Europe, a variant or contraction of the name Marius.

Despite the ultra-masculine vibe of the god Mars (the symbol for the planet ♂ is the same as the one for male), Mars was sometimes given to girls, right from the start. Perhaps the surname was more influential, although girls are also given Mars-type names, such as Martina and Marcella – Mars even looks as if it might be short for Marsia or Marsha.

Recently two American celebrities have given Mars publicity as a girl’s name. Singer Erykah Badu welcomed a daughter named Mars in 2009, and comedian Blake Anderson in 2014. Two pop culture aids to seeing this as a girl’s name are TV girl detective Veronica Mars, and Sailor Mars from the Sailor Moon anime series (in the show, Sailor Mars is named after the planet and associated with fire and passion, as the planet Mars is in Japanese culture).

This is, and has always been, a rare name. In the US in 2014, 34 boys were given the name Mars, and less than 5 girls (we know there must have been at least one!). In the UK Mars does not show up in the data at all as a baby name.

Mars is an out of this world baby name, but it has millenia of history, taking in a god of protection and a red planet that has loomed in our imagination since time immemorial. Granted, there’s some teasing potential due to the Mars bar, and the fact your child would literally be a Martian, but there could be life in this name yet (in the middle for those worried about the curiosity factor). At least Mars is distinctive and will be easy to recall. Totally.

Waltzing With … Sydney

07 Sunday Feb 2016

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Sydney-Circular-Quay-2012Famous City
On Australia Day, January 26, we celebrate the start of European settlement in Australia, when the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove in 1788. Not much was actually done on this day – the ships landed, they ran up a flag, and drank a toast to the king. Few people went onshore, and convicts did not begin disembarking until the following day.

It was on February 7 1788, 228 years ago today, that the colony was proclaimed by Governor Arthur Phillip. Everyone gathered for a ceremony where possession was formally taken of the east coast of Australia by Britain – although the description of offshore territories was left sufficiently vague that it’s possible they also took New Zealand at the same time.

They did not acknowledge the Indigenous population as owners of the land, but Governor Phillip did intend to treat them humanely and kindly. Unfortunately these good intentions didn’t work out that well in the long term, mostly due to cultural ignorance and the fact they were about to unknowingly decimate the local population with a bunch of diseases.

People love to make myths about the founding of nations and cities, and in the case of Sydney, it has a strange and salacious foundation myth. It states that when the convict women were finally allowed off the boat on February 6, there was such a burst of pent-up sexual excitement that the day ended with a drunken orgy. How an orgy works when there are many more men than women is left to our imaginations.

Male historians and writers seemed to be especially fond of this urban legend, apparently loving the idea that Sydney was founded on a hotbed of drunken gang rape. They helped spread it even when they knew it wasn’t true, because there is barely a shred of evidence to support it. The soldiers’ wives were allowed off the ships not long after their husbands, and a few hand-picked convict women on February 5.

The next day, the rest of the convict women disembarked in small groups, surprising one commentator who found them cleaner and better-dressed than expected. There were no drunken convicts, because they weren’t given any alcohol. The big event was the weather, alarming to the British but entirely normal for a Sydney summer – a hot, muggy day ended with a spectacular thunderstorm, including a massive lightning strike which killed a handful of sheep. Thankfully the sheep have been left out of the orgy legend.

There was certainly plenty of sex in early Sydney, but probably most of it was between people who were already in partnerships, or at least knew each other previously. Instead of a mass orgy, there was a burst of weddings which took place in the new colony, as people settled down together and raised families – these came quickly, as everyone appeared to get pregnant easily in Sydney, even those considered barren, so that the land seemed healthy and fertile.

That was the start of Sydney as we know it – not the boozy party town you might have thought, but still a place of love and hope, new life and fresh beginnings, myths and legends, sunshine and storms, and minor miracles. Not to mention the occasional lightning-struck sheep: surely the progenitor of the traditional lamb chop on the barbie.

Name Information
Captain Arthur Phillip’s first idea for the city’s name was New Albion, a poetic way to refer to England. However, he soon changed his mind, and named it Sydney after Thomas Townshend, Baron Sydney, who was the Home Secretary. This wasn’t a first – Sydney in Nova Scotia had been named after Townshend three years earlier.

The choice of Sydney made a lot of sense, because Thomas Townshend was recognised as the originator of the plan to colonise New South Wales (at that time, the whole eastern seaboard of Australia).

He also gave the colony its first constitution and judicial system – a sign that he did not want New South Wales to be a mere penal settlement, but a colony of free citizens under English law. Although his ideals may not have always worked out in the reality of colonisation, his determination that slavery be illegal here was at least a promising start.

Townshend had originally wanted his title to be Baron Sidney, after his ancestor Sir Algernon Sidney, the famous republican, patriot and martyr, whose revolutionary ideas would help bring about the founding of the United States.

However, Townshend worried that other family members might stake a claim to it (even barons have to worry about name stealing!), so he thought about making his title Sydenham, the name of a village near his home in Kent which is now a suburb of London.

Sydnenham may mean “Cippa’s village”, which is sometimes translated as “drunkard’s village” (there are many places in England derived from Cippa, so that adds up to a lot of drunk Anglo-Saxons!). Others prefer the less controversial “market village”.

Eventually, Thomas Townshend managed to find a compromise with Sydney. To make it clear he wasn’t trying to steal Algernon Sidney off any relatives, he said it was in honour of his ancestor Sir Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester, the brother of the poet Sir Philip Sidney, who brought us the name Stella. Sir Robert was a poet as well, a diplomat and patron of the arts in Elizabethan and Jacobean times.

In the days when people were more relaxed about spelling, the Sidney family often spelled their name Sydney. The aristocratic surname Sidney is from a place name meaning “wide island” – in this case, island refers to a dry patch in a wetland. It can also be loosely translated as “at the watermeadow”. Folk etymology connects it with the suburb of St. Denis in Paris, named after the city’s patron saint. The surname originates from Kent, where the Sidney family had a seat at Tunbridge Wells.

Sydney has been used as a personal name since at least the 16th century, and was in use by the Townshend family. The name was originally given to both sexes fairly evenly, and then gradually became more common as a girl’s name, although still given to boys. By the 19th century, the situation reversed and it became much more common for boys – a variant of Sidney, rather than a feminised form of it.

Famous people named Sydney include Sydney Smirke, the architect who designed the famous Carlton Club in London; witty author Sydney Smith, whom Henry Tilney in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is said to be based; actor Sydney Greenstreet; Sydney Silverman, the British MP whose efforts helped bring about the abolition of the death penalty in that country; American astrologer Sydney Omarr; and Hollywood director and producer Sydney Pollack.

Two famous actors named one of their children Sydney. Comic genius Sir Charles “Charlie” Chaplin had a son named Sydney, named in honour of Chaplin’s brother, actor Sydney Chaplin. Distinguished Hollywood star Sir Sidney Poitier has a daughter named Sydney, apparently named after himself. Both Sidney Earle Chaplin and Sydney Poitier entered the acting profession.

The most famous Sydney in fiction is Sydney Carton, from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Although a flawed character, he redeems himself through an act of heroism, and Dickens gives him some farewell lines that are among the most quoted in English literature.

In Australia, Sydney charted as a unisex name from 1900 to the 1960s. It peaked in the 1910s at 222 births per year, but by the 1950s registered only 4 births per year. Although recent data is hard to come by, it would seem that Sydney is still given to both sexes, with perhaps more girls with the name overall. It is in steady but unobtrusive use.

In the UK, Sydney was a popular name for boys from the 19th century until the 1940s. Since the mid-1990s, it hasn’t been popular for either sex, and consistently charts higher for girls. Currently it is in the 300s for girls, and the 800s for boys. The name peaked for both sexes in 2001, the year after the Sydney Olympics, when it was #206 for girls and #805 for boys.

In the US Sydney charted for boys steadily from the 19th century until the 1950s, after which use became sporadic. It was last on the Top 1000 as a boy’s name in 1996, and has never charted higher than the 300s.

As a girl’s name, Sydney had a burst of use from the 1930s to the 1960s, but at lower levels of use than for boys named Sydney. After coming back in the early 1980s, the name was been consistently on the Top 1000 as a girl’s name, and was a Top 100 name from 1994 to 2013. it peaked in the early 2000s at #23 (around the time of the Sydney Olympics) and is currently just outside the Top 100.

It’s interesting that even though the name Sydney came well before the city of Sydney, the city inspired the name to peak at the time of the Summer Olympics in 2000.

Sydney may have passed its Olympian peak, but this is an appealing vintage unisex name that could honour someone named Sidney, or the city of Sydney. Despite being an “American-style” name, it will always have an undeniable Australian connection.

(Picture shows Circular Quay in Sydney, the area where the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove in 1788)

Waltzing With … Paris

22 Sunday Nov 2015

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Like everyone else, I watched in horror and disbelief as the news unfolded in Paris last week. A place where I had briefly lived as a student, my heart went out to my Parisian friends, and to all those in this beautiful but troubled city.

Abby from Appellation Mountain wrote how it sometimes feels almost wrong to write about baby names when the world is torn by tragedy. How can I keep blogging about celebrity babies, birth announcements, birth data, and so on in the face of human suffering?

Not only would it fail to help anyone if I gave up blogging, I believe it is our duty to continue our normal routine as much as possible during dark times. This goes for my own private tragedies as well, having lost a loved one just days before the Paris attacks.

Babies will keep being born, and named, and I will keep writing about it as my small effort towards hope and healing. As memorials all over Paris say – la vie continue. Life goes on.

Paris – The Legend
Before Paris was the name of a city, it was the name of a person. In Greek legend, Paris was a prince of Troy, infamous for starting the Trojan War by abducting the beautiful Helen away from the king of Sparta. There was plenty of warning, because before Paris was born, his mother was told in a dream that he would cause the downfall of Troy.

He was supposed to be killed to avoid this fate, but the king and queen were unable to do it, and handed the job over to their cowherd. Rather like the plot of Snow White, the cowherd reared him as his own, and Paris became an organiser of bull-fights (bulls fighting other bulls, not people).

He impressed the gods with his sporting honesty enough that he was asked to judge a beauty contest between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Paris chose Aphrodite, and his prize was the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. Aphrodite neglected to mention that Helen was already married, and that’s when all the trouble began.

The meaning of Paris‘ name isn’t known. It’s thought to be a Greek rendition of the Luwian name Pari-zitis, which has been found as the name of a scribe. The meaning of the first part isn’t understood, but the –zitis part means “man”.

Legend gives Paris the nickname of Alexander, meaning “defender of men” – he gained this while still a child, by saving his foster-father’s cattle from thieves. It’s tempting to wonder if Pari-zitis has a similar meaning to Alexander, such as “protecting man” or “guardian man”, and the Greek authors looked for a name which was a close equivalent.

The Greeks explained Paris’ name as being from the backpack that the cowherd brought him home in – the Greek word for the bag is pḗra. However, this is just folk etymology.

The Paris of legend is described as intelligent and extremely handsome, but he isn’t a very attractive character. He seduced another man’s wife, brought about the destruction of his homeland, and wasn’t a gallant or skilful warrior. Mind you, he was tricked by Aphrodite, and as he was doomed to die by his city you can’t blame him for his lack of patriotism, while being brought up by a cowherd would hardly equip him with courtly manners or battle skills. Nonetheless, he’s generally thought of as rather weak and selfish.

This did not stop people from naming their sons Paris, and there is even a Saint Paris listed as a 4th century bishop of Teano, near Naples. According to legend, he was born in Greece and performed that well known saintly show-stopper of killing a dragon. Another famous Paris was a 1st century actor in Rome who became enormously popular and influential. Unfortunately he followed the legendary Paris too closely by having an affair with the emperor’s wife: he was murdered, and the emperor killed anyone who mourned his death, and even someone who looked like Paris.

Paris is a Shakespearean name, as Count Paris is Juliet’s unwanted fiance in Romeo and Juliet. Handsome, wealthy, and well-connected, Paris is an eminently suitable husband, and little wonder Juliet’s parents are thrilled at this opportunity. Of course any audience member worth their salt is barracking for Juliet’s choice of romantic Romeo, and almost no one sheds a tear for poor Paris at the end.

Paris – The City
The place where Paris is today was settled by a Gaulish people called the Parisii – it is their tribe that the city is named for. The city’s original Latin name was Lutetia Parisiorum, which probably means “swamp or marshland of the Parisii”. The tribal name Parisii could be from the ancient Celtic word par, meaning “boat” – as the Parisii lived on the River Seine, it would make sense for them to be skilled in using boats. Other ideas are that their name means “commanders”, “”fighters”, “workers, artisans”, or “cauldron, kettle”. In other words, nobody really knows.

Interestingly, there was a British tribe with the similar name of the Parisi in Yorkshire. It is unclear whether there was any connection with the Parisii in Gaul, but there is just enough vague evidence to support it that it can’t be ruled out.

Situated between trade routes on land and water, the Parisii had a thriving town on one of the islands of the Seine. After being conquered by the Romans, Lutetia Parisiorum became a prosperous Roman city with a military camp on the island, but the main part of the city where the Left Bank is now. The city became known as Parisius, and in French, Paris.

Paris was claimed as their centre of operations by both the Frankish kings, and the first king of France (the islands were good for defence), and by the Middle Ages Paris was not only the capital of France, but the largest city in the western world. Now we know it as the City of Light, the City of Love; famous for art, fashion and food, its monuments become icons. A cultural centre which remains, even after tragedy, a beacon of light.

The city of Paris provided another inspiration for the name. It is generally felt that when Paris is a boy’s name it is after the legendary character, while girls called Paris are named after the city connected with romance and fashion. However, in practice it is not possible to be so cut-and-dried (the surname Paris makes it even more complicated).

Girls have been named Paris since at least the 18th century, and although Paris was already a fashion capital by then, the French Revolution may have been an inspiration for American parents in particular.

In the US, Paris has charted as a boys name on the Top 1000 intermittently since the late 19th century. Its longest continuous stretch was from 1979 to 2000, and its highest peak in the 20th century was in 1991 at #592. It hasn’t charted as a boys name this century, but last year 96 boys were named Paris in the US, with numbers continuing to fall.

Paris has been on the US Top 1000 as a girls name since 1985. It peaked in 2004 at #157 when socialite Paris Hilton was in the reality TV show, The Simple Life. Paris Hilton’s own name was just ahead of the curve, as she was born in 1981 – although the name Paris had been gradually rising for girls for some time. Incidentally, Paris Hilton was once engaged to a man named Paris – Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis. Currently the name Paris is #269 and relatively stable.

In the UK, Paris has charted for both sexes since the mid-1990s, peaking for boys and girls in 2004 during The Simple Life. At that point, it was #119 for girls, and #717 for boys. Currently it is #463 for girls, while last year just 3 baby boys in the UK were given the name Paris.

Paris has been a Top 100 name for girls in Australia and New Zealand, the only countries where the name has ever been popular. The name was on the Top 100 from 2002 to 2004, peaking in 2003 at #58 when The Simple Life was first on air. In New Zealand it peaked in that fateful year of 2004 at #35, making it the most Paris-loving place on earth. Currently Paris is around the 500s for girls in Australia, while it doesn’t chart for boys.

It is a strange fact that tragedy can help inspire baby names – I reflect on this knowing that the name Boston became more popular outside the US after the bombings at the Boston Marathon. Could an even larger set of terror attacks in another beloved city cause an uptick in the number of babies named Paris?

POLL RESULTS
As a boy’s name, Paris received an approval rating of 52%. 32% of people disliked it, and 11% loved it.

It did slightly better as a girl’s name, receiving an approval rating of 55%. 27% of people thought it was okay, while only 6% loved it.

(Photo of Paris street memorial from the BBC)

Waltzing With …. Lucinda

11 Sunday Oct 2015

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Famous Fictional Namesake
I’ve been away on holiday, hence the lack of posts. Whenever we go somewhere, I always take tons of books with me, in the fond belief that I will have lots of free time. I rarely get much reading done, as holidays take up more of your time and energy than you think they will, but in the spirit of my good intentions I’m covering a name from a modern Australian classic.

Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda won the 1989 Miles Franklin Award and the 1988 Booker Prize. Set in the nineteenth century, Lucinda is a young orphaned heiress who forms an unlikely and intense relationship with an Anglican priest named Oscar.

These eccentric redheaded soulmates are bound together by their mutual passion for gambling. Lucinda is the owner of a glass factory on Sydney’s Darling Harbour, and she and Oscar make a crazy wager that he will transport a glass church by river to the town of Bellingen in New South Wales; Lucinda stakes her entire fortune on the bet.

Peter Carey’s first idea for his heroine’s name was Hermione; however he went off the idea as he realised how difficult Hermione was for him to say. Not fancying the idea of constantly talking about Hermione at book festivals and so on, and thinking how awkward Oscar and Hermione sounded as a title, he cast about for something else. His wife at the time suggested Lucinda, and he immediately liked it, as it felt both modern and Victorian.

Only later did he realise that Lucinda had a connection with light, which fit the themes of the novel. Lucinda is obsessed with glass, while Oscar has a deadly fear of water, which makes his transporting of the glass church upriver a nightmare on many levels. The novel brings together the imagery of glass and water very beautifully: as Lucinda knows, both are liquids. There is a great shimmer of light on this novel which constantly plays with the idea of chance.

Oscar and Lucinda was made into a film in 1997, with Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes in the title roles. The film is beautiful, and Blanchett suitably luminous as Lucinda, but readers (especially ones trying to cheat their way through book club) should be aware that the novel’s ending has been altered for the film.

Name Information
Lucinda is an elaboration of the Roman name Lucia, the feminine form of Lucius, meaning “light”. The name appears to have been the invention of Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, in his masterwork Don Quixote. In a farcical subplot, Lucinda is in love with one man, but forced to marry another; she manages to escape her husband and be with her true love.

Cervantes may have gotten the name from another 17th Spanish writer, the poet Lope de Vega. Lope de Vega used the name Camila Lucinda as a pseudonym for some of his most romantic and passionate poems – a near anagram of Micaela de Luján, an actress who was de Vega’s mistress. Their relationship began in 1599, and his first poems written to “Luzinda” were published in 1602.

Although Cervantes had been an admirer of de Vega, they became rivals enough that Don Quixote contains verses which satirise de Vega. It is even possible that the foolishly romantic Don Quixote himself is a sly allusion to ardent ladies man Lope de Vega. Could it be that Cervantes “stole” the name Lucinda for his novel as a sarcastic in-joke?

Don Quixote was published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, and these were translated into English in 1612 and 1620. The name Lucinda begins to appear in 17th century records after the publication of Don Quixote, both in Spain and English-speaking countries.

Lucinda became something of a literary favourite. English poet Henry Glapthorne wrote a series of romantic poems addressed to “Lucinda” in 1639. French playwright Moliere included a character named Lucinde in his 1666 farce, The Doctor in Spite of Himself, and English playwright Samuel Foote’s 1782 farce The Englishman in Paris had a Lucinda. German poet Karl von Schegel published an autobiographical romance named Lucinde in 1799 – considered scandalously erotic in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but tame by today’s standards.

In all these works Lucinda is attractive, and involved in romantic situations that generally work out to her advantage. In von Schegel’s work, Lucinda stands for the ideal woman who is passionate and intellectual in equal measure. Even in Glapthorne’s poems, where the relationship between he and Lucinda doesn’t last, it seems to be by her own choice that she leaves.

Martin Boyd’s classic Australian novel Lucinda Brayford is rather less upbeat. Set mainly in the first half of the 20th century, Lucinda is a beautiful woman of the Melbourne upper class who marries a dashing English aristocrat and moves to Britain. Disillusionment swiftly follows. (Peter Carey has been quick to correct reviewers who imagine he had in mind any connection with Lucinda Brayford when writing Oscar and Lucinda).

In contemporary fiction, Lucinda is often used in fairy tale and fantasy works: she is the well-meaning fairy godmother in Ella Enchanted, the good little witch in Sofia the First, a stepsister of Cinderella in Into the Woods, an elderly lady who finds her own personal fairyland in The Spiderwick Chronicles, and the heroine of the young adult fantasy romance series Fallen by Lauren Kate. Princess Lucinda is both a Groovy Girls doll and a powerfully magical comic book character.

Lucinda first charted in the 1960s, debuting at #342, and peaked in the late 2000s at #126. It is currently around the middle of the 100s, making it an attractive choice for someone wanting a name that has never been popular, but isn’t too far off popularity either.

Lucinda is more popular in Australia than anywhere else. In the United States, Lucinda was in the Top 1000 until the late 1980s, and peaked at #153 in 1881. Last year, 143 baby girls were named Lucinda in the US, and numbers seem to be still falling. In the UK in 2014, 29 baby girls were named Lucinda, with numbers in decline after a peak in the 200s during the late 1990s.

Famous Australian namesakes include ballerina Lucinda Dunn, principal dancer at the Australian Ballet for 23 years; sailor Lucinda “Lu” Whitty, who won silver at the 2012 Olympics; equestrian eventer Lucinda Fredericks, who also competed at the 2012 Olympics; actress Lucinda Cowden, who was on Neighbours; Lucinda “Cindy” McLeish, Liberal politician in the Victorian parliament; and Lucinda “Lucy” Turnbull, former Lord Mayor of Sydney, and wife of the current Prime Minister.

There is also a small coastal town in Queensland called Lucinda, named after a paddle steamer. The Lucinda was named after Lady (Jeannie) Lucinda Musgrave, daughter of prominent American lawyer and law reformer David Dudley Field II, and the wife of Sir Anthony Musgrave, a governor of Queensland. The little town of Lucindale in South Australia is also named after her, as Sir Anthony was previously a governor of that state.

Lucinda is a pretty and elegant literary name linked to love and romance, and with a fairy tale feel to it. In Australia it is an underused modern classic, often thought of here as having a rather upper class image. Among its attractions are nickname options, such as Lucy, Lucie, Lu, and Lulu, with Lux and Lucky as fun possibilities. While Cindy might recently have been thought of as too dated, I’m seeing an increasing number of babies named or nicknamed Cindy, so this cute retro name may be coming back into style.

POLL RESULT
Lucinda received an outstanding approval rating of 96%, making it one of the highest-rated names of 2015. 40% of people loved the name Lucinda, and nobody hated it.

Waltzing With … Lachlan

06 Sunday Sep 2015

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Famous Namesakes
The name Lachlan has a long history in Australia because of Lachlan Macquarie, a British military officer born in the Hebrides who served as the fifth and last Governor of New South Wales. While still a teenager, he served during the American War of Independence, and saw active service in India and Egypt, eventually being promoted to the rank of Major-General.

Lachlan served his term as Governor from 1810-1821, and he had plenty to cope with, as the colony was disorderly following the Rum Rebellion against the former Governor, William Bligh. There was also a severe drought during his term, which brought about a financial depression, and the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 led to a huge increase in Australia’s population from both settlers and convicts. Despite these challenges, Lachlan loved Sydney’s climate and setting, and saw the colony in very positive terms.

This was the period of Australia’s history where it was in transition from a penal colony to a free settlement. Lachlan held liberal views towards convicts, pardoning them as often as possible. He scandalised settlers by accepting freed convicts into society, and appointing them to government positions – even as magistrates. He sponsored massive exploration, and established Bathurst, the first inland city.

He spent lavishly on public works, which the British government strongly opposed, as they still saw Australia as a dumping ground for convicts, to be run as cheaply as possible. Sydney’s layout is based on Lachlan’s street plan for the central city, and the colony’s most prestigious buildings were on Macquarie Street. He designed the Georgian-style Rum Hospital, which today is the state’s Parliament House, while its stables house the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He also designed the city centre of Hobart in Tasmania.

So much of the modern Australia we know was first begun by Governor Macquarie. He established the British system of justice, and the first Supreme Court. He encouraged the creation of the colony’s first bank, The Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac), and produced Australia’s first official currency. Towards the end of his term, he decreed that all traffic should keep to the left in New South Wales in line with British custom.

Perhaps the most important change he made was a symbolic one – he recommended that the name Australia be formally adopted, giving the seal of approval to Matthew Flinders’ choice. Little wonder that on Lachlan Macquarie’s tomb on the Island of Mull in Scotland he is called The Father of Australia.

Happy Father’s Day! And Happy Father’s Day to Lachlan Macquarie, the father of our country.

Name Information
Lachlan is a Scottish name from the Highlands. It is from the Gaelic Lochlann, meaning “land of the lochs” (land of the lakes). It was originally given as a nickname for someone from Norway: Norway has almost half a million freshwater lakes, so it well deserves this epithet. The name is pronounced LOK-lun.

The word Lochlann was first used to indicate “a Viking, a raider”, but gradually came to mean anyone of Norse descent. There was a strong link between the neighbouring lands of Norway and Scotland during the Middle Ages, as both battled for control of the Western Isles of Scotland. As part of the effort to improve the Scotland-Norway relationship, there were diplomatic missions between the two nations, and even intermarriage between the royal houses.

The name Lachlan (or Lochlann) was commonly used amongst the noble families of Scotland, who were often of part Norse descent. The name was traditional in the Clan Maclean, an old Highland clan who owned land in Argyllshire and the Hebrides. (Lachlan Macquarie’s mother was the daughter of the chieftain of the Clan Maclaine, another spelling of Mclean, and his father was the chieftain’s cousin). The current chief of Clan Maclean is Sir Lachlan Maclean of Duart and Morven, 12th Baronet of Nova Scotia.

The name Lachlan is only popular in Australia and New Zealand (it is #27 in New Zealand). In the UK Lachlan was #546 in 2013, while Lochlan was #709; the name is fairly stable there. In the US, the name Lachlan first joined the Top 1000 in 2013, and is currently #902 – a long way off being popular, but gaining in popularity. In the US, the name was given to 14 girls last year, which seems very wrong from an Australian viewpoint!

The name Lachlan was #173 in the 1900s, and went off the charts altogether during the 1920s and ’30s. It returned in the 1940s at #220, and gradually increased in popularity. There was a surge in popularity during the 1970s, most likely because media magnate Rupert Murdoch named his eldest son Lachlan in 1971. Rupert’s grandfather was from Scotland, and the choice of Lachlan’s name may have been inspired by his Scottish heritage as much as a tribute to Lachlan Macquarie.

Lachlan first joined the Top 100 in 1982 at #96, joined the Top 50 in 1989, and the Top 25 in 1996 – fairly brisk progress up the charts. It suddenly leapt into the Top 5 in 1997, the year after Lachlan Murdoch joined the board of Newscorp. However, it never made #1, peaking at #2 in 2002 and 2005, and has now left the Top 10. Currently it #11 nationally, #15 in New South Wales, #10 in Victoria, #12 in Queensland, #7 in South Australia, #12 in Western Australia, #6 in Tasmania, #8 in the Northern Territory, and #4 in the Australian Capital Territory.

This is a strong handsome Australian classic with a connection to Australian colonial history. A popular name for many years, it is by no means fresh or original, but still a worthy choice.

POLL RESULT
Lachlan received an outstanding approval rating of 91%, making it one of the highest-rated names of 2015. 39% of people loved the name Lachlan, and only one person hated it.

(Picture shows a 2010 stamp booklet issued in honour of Lachlan Macquarie’s bicentenary as governor)

Waltzing With … Felix

02 Sunday Aug 2015

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Famous Namesake
I think many Australians would readily associate this name with Felix the Cat, the silent film era cartoon. One of the most recognisable cartoon characters in film history, he was the first animated character to become popular enough to attract a cinema audience.

Felix the Cat was created by Sydney-born Pat O’Sullivan, who arrived in the United States in 1910 and began working as a cartoonist. By 1916, he had opened his own cartoon studio, and around 1917 he created Felix the Cat, inspired by a cat his wife Marjorie brought into the office. Under contract to provide one cartoon a month to cinemas, by 1921 Felix was in sixty percent of North American cinemas.

Pat O’Sullivan was fiercely protective of his creation, successfully gained royalties from pirated merchandise, and took action when Walt Disney made a Felix carbon-copy called Julius. Unfortunately for Felix, Disney then went on to create a certain Mickey Mouse, who starred in early talkie Steamboat Willie in 1928. This spelled the beginning of the end for Felix, and by 1931 it was obvious that Walt Disney was going to be the big success story of cartooning.

After Pat O’Sullivan’s death in 1933, his lead animator Otto Messmer took credit for the creation of Felix. Messmer’s claim is still accepted in the United States, even though O’Sullivan was acknowledged as Felix’s creator during his lifetime. Australian film curators have pointed out that it is O’Sullivan’s handwriting on the early Felix sketches, and that kittens in an early film are given Australian accents, saying ‘lo, Mum! ‘lo Ma!

The cartoon cat that Felix was based on was called Thomas or Tom (a fairly obviously cat-related name), but Pat O’Sullivan changed his name to Felix. Apparently this was after the Australian boxer Peter Felix, who was born in the West Indies, and won the heavyweight title in the 1890s – he often wore black and was a flashy dresser. Pat had seen Peter Felix in his last big fight in 1908, shortly before he left Australia. O’Sullivan had a strong interest in boxing, and when he first arrived in New York he himself boxed for prize money.

The name Felix was a very Australian choice, because in 1836 Scottish explorer Thomas Mitchell called the lush pastureland of western Victoria Australia Felix, meaning “happy Australia, fortunate Australia”. In 1845 English travel writer Richard Howitt’s lively Impressions of Australia Felix was published, and in 1849 the Australia Felix magazine was founded.

After the colony was named Victoria in 1850, the name Australia Felix gradually dropped out of use. However, 19th century Victorian politician Jonas Australia Felix Levien provides an example of it being used as a name, and he wasn’t born until the 1870s. (I have also found someone named Australia Felix Drake in historical records).

Despite all these Australian references, I can’t help wondering if Pat O’Sullivan was also thinking of Felis, the scientific name for the cat genus, from the Latin word feles, meaning “cat”.

Pat O’Sullivan gave Felix a lucky name, and the cat brought Pat luck and success. He did not have a very happy end to his life though. His marriage became increasingly strained (it probably got off to a rocky start, as they wed while he was on bail for raping a teenage girl; he was subsequently imprisoned for 9 months), and Marjorie fell to her death from their second floor apartment in 1932. O’Sullivan’s mental faculties deteriorated due to syphilis, and he died of alcoholism a year after his wife’s death.

Name Information
Felix is a Latin name meaning “lucky, fortunate”. It was first given as a nickname to the 1st century BC Roman general and statesman Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a free translation of the Greek nickname he acquired during his military campaigns – Epaphroditos, meaning “beloved of Aphrodite”.

Whether the goddess Aphrodite was taking care of him or not, Sulla was very successful, holding the position of consul twice, and being awarded the Grass Crown, the rarest and most prestigious Roman military honour, given only to those whose actions saved an entire legion or the whole army. Like Alexander the Great, he achieved many of his victories before his thirtieth birthday, and provided the model for later Roman leaders to gain power by force.

After him, the nickname became a common one for Roman leaders to take, and several emperors adopted it as a title. The Roman procurator Marcus Antonius Felix is mentioned in the New Testament, although not in a positive way – he imprisoned Saint Paul.

Felix was a favourite name amongst early Christians, as the name can imply being in the favour of God, or blessed by God. There are masses of saints named Felix, including quite a few martyrs, and three popes with the name. Saint Felix of Burgundy was sent as a missionary to East Anglia in the 7th century, and there are several churches dedicated to him in Yorkshire and East Anglia. The village of Felixkirk in Yorkshire is named after him, and so might be Felixstowe in Suffolk.

Although more common in Continental Europe, Felix has been in use as an English name since the Middle Ages, in honour of these various saints. It is particularly associated with East Anglia and south-eastern England in general, showing the legacy of Felix of Burgundy.

Felix was #172 in the 1900s, and left the charts in the 1920s (Felix the Cat didn’t do it any good). It returned in the 1980s at #396 and climbed steadily; it’s been on and off the Top 100 since 2011. Currently it is #89 nationally, #86 in New South Wales, #78 in Victoria, #36 in Tasmania, and #54 in the Australian Capital Territory. It was one of the fastest-rising names in Tasmania and Victoria last year, and one of the nationally fastest-rising names of 2013.

In the US, Felix is #267 and rising steeply, while the UK has a similar popularity to Australia, at #91 and rising. Felix is #66 in New Zealand and fairly stable – the highest popularity of any English-speaking country. Felix is well used in Western Europe and Scandinavia, and is most popular in Austria at #4.

Handsome, intelligent, and upbeat, Felix is a name with an irresistibly positive meaning and strong Australian associations. Once seen as rather hipster, this retro name is growing in popularity, and fittingly it’s rather a favourite in the state of Victoria.

POLL RESULT
Felix received an outstanding approval rating of 93%, making it the highest-rated boys name in the Waltzing With … category for 2015. 45% of people loved the name Felix, and only 3% hated it.