Tag Archives: Banjo Paterson

Famous Name: Jasper

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

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1024px-Edward_Burne-Jones_-_The_Adoration_of_the_Magi_-_Google_Art_Project

Name Story
Yesterday was Epiphany, which commemorates the Adoration of the Magi in western Christianity. According to The Gospel of Matthew, the magi were learned men from the East who followed a mysterious star to kneel before the baby Jesus, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Although the Bible does not specify a number, it is usually assumed there were three, because there were three gifts. The Magi were Zoroastrian priests from Persia, and the word magi has been traditionally translated as “wise men”, although modern translations of the Bible use the word “astrologers”, as Zoroastrians studied the stars.

Christian legend sometimes calls them the “three kings”, due to a Psalm which says May all kings fall before him. In some countries, January 6 is known as the Feast of Kings, and it is most famous from the Epiphany carol, We Three Kings of Orient Are.

The date of January 6 is purely symbolic – the Magi are supposed to have arrived some time in the two years after the birth of Jesus, and although they are often included in Nativity scenes, the Bible says they visited Mary at her house, not in the stable. Tradition says that after the Magi returned home, they became Christians and were martyred: they are thus regarded as saints.

The Bible being so short on details, legend has filled in the blanks with imaginative flair. The Magi are given names, usually said to be Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Gaspar is identified as a middle-aged brown-skinned Indian who brings the frankincense; Melchior as an elderly white-skinned Persian who carries the gold; and Balthasar as a young black-skinned Arabian who bears the gift of myrrh.

Perhaps you think it is far-fetched that a group of men would cross the desert (a difficult journey of many months) in order to worship a foreigner of a religion that isn’t even theirs. However, history records that it did happen, at least once.

King Tiridates of Armenia, a Zoroastrian priest of Armenian, Greek, and Persian ancestry, travelled to Rome in 66 AD on a visit to the Emperor Nero with a huge retinue of followers, including his magi. As his tribute king, Tiridates knelt before Nero, proclaiming that he worshipped him as a god (this was mere diplomacy; Tiribates was apparently disgusted by Nero). Unlike the Bible story, it was Nero who gave gifts to Tiridates, and paid for all his travel expenses.

It has been suggested that this state visit may have provided the inspiration for the Adoration of the Magi in the Gospel of Matthew. However, it’s also evidence that the journey of the Magi as described in the Bible has some degree of plausibility.

Epiphany is the traditional date for the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and in the past, its eve was celebrated as Twelfth Night, with much feasting and tomfoolery. William Shakespeare wrote his comedy Twelfth Night as an entertainment for the end of the Christmas season: its theme of cross-dressing is appropriate, for it was the rule that everything had to be topsy-turvy. If you went to a Christmas pantomime, you’ll know this tradition continues.

Most people say your Christmas decorations have to come down by Epiphany, and many people will go back to work by this date. I’m not back at work yet – but I am back at blogging! Hope you had a great Christmas and New Year.

Name Meaning, History and Popularity
Jasper is the English form of Gaspar, derived from the ancient Chaldean word gizbar, meaning “treasurer”; the modern Hebrew word for treasurer is still gizbar. These days the word treasurer doesn’t sound too glamorous (if you’ve ever been treasurer of your local tennis club or something, you’ll know it’s essentially a boring, thankless job), so the name is sometimes translated as “master of the treasure house”.

The traditional names for the three Magi date back to at least the 6th century, and Gaspar is the only one whose name may be inspired by a real person. The apocryphal Acts of Thomas mentions a Zoroastrian king named Gudnaphar, and Gondophares was a traditional name and title in the House of Suren – they were kings of Iranian background who ruled in the area around northern India.

According to tradition, Saint Thomas the Apostle travelled to India as a missionary. Gondophares was identified in medieval texts as the Indian king who brought incense to the baby Jesus as one of the Magi, and was converted to Christianity by Saint Thomas. Gondophares is the Greek form of the Pashto name Gandapur, meaning “may he find glory”.

Jasper is also the word for a gemstone which is usually red, yellow, brown or green in colour. The word comes from the Old French for “spotted stone, speckled stone”, and may be Semitic in origin. It was a favourite gemstone in ancient times, especially the green variety, although the ancients probably called many different minerals “jasper”; it is mentioned in the Bible. Because of the gemstone, Jasper has occasionally been used as a name for girls.

Jasper has been used as an English name since the Middle Ages, in honour of the saint, although it was never highly popular. It has also been used as a slang term – in England, it is an old country term for a wasp (because it sounds a bit similar), and in America, it has been used as slang for a simpleton or hick (perhaps because it sounded a backwoodsy sort of name there).

There is a Lake Jasper in south-west Western Australia; it has very clear fresh water and is popular for picnics. It’s named in honour of Jasper Bussell, who died in infacy, and was the brother of the famous Grace Bussell, who we met earlier. Its use by the wealthy and prominent Bussells suggests a rather upper class image in the 19th century.

There is also a small village in the mountains of New South Wales named Wee Jasper, where Banjo Paterson once had a country home. Folklore relates the village got its name due a Scottish settler who came home with a “wee jasper” in his pocket, the gemstone found in some stream amongst the hills.

Jasper has ranked in Australia since the 1990s, when it debuted at #237. It joined the Top 100 in 2009, at #98, and since then has remained around the bottom of the Top 100. Currently it is #82 nationally, #87 in New South Wales, #77 in Victoria, #87 in Queensland, #22 in Tasmania, and #80 in the Australian Capital Territory.

In the English-speaking world, Jasper is most popular in Australia, as it is not yet Top 100 in the US or UK, although rising, and has just joined the New Zealand Top 100 at #85. It isn’t popular in many other countries, but ranks highest in Belgium, at #55.

Jasper is a handsome and sophisticated choice related to gifts, gems, and treasure that will please many parents for not being overused. It isn’t highly popular anywhere in the world, and in Australia has never been higher than the bottom quarter of the Top 100; nor does it show signs of rising alarmingly. The name has its detractors, due to some image problems from popular culture, but no doubt that’s one of the factors keeping use down. I think it helps make Jasper seem a bit quirkier.

And the name commemorates one of the most beautiful Christmas stories – who could resist the magic of a star guiding your way?

POLL RESULTS
Jasper received an excellent approval rating of 89%, making it the most highly-rated boy’s name in the Famous Name category for 2015. People saw the name Jasper as hip and quirky (29%), handsome or cute (22%), and cool and sophisticated (19%). However, 3% thought the name seemed creepy and evil. Only one person thought Jasper was too old-fashioned, and just one thought it was too posh.

(Picture shows The Adoration of the Magi, an 1890 tapestry by Edward Burne-Jones)

Questions About “Waltzing Matilda” Answered

16 Sunday Mar 2014

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Down_on_his_luck

When I decided to call my blog Waltzing More Than Matilda, I wasn’t prepared for the number of people who would come here searching to find out more about the name Matilda. Every once in a while, the number of searches builds up to the point where I start feeling guilty that I’ve lured people to my blog under false pretenses, and I answer their questions. These are specifically about Waltzing Matilda.

What are the words to Waltzing Matilda?

That’s a harder question to answer than you might think, because there aren’t any “official” lyrics, and there are a few slightly different versions. You can see Banjo Paterson’s original version here.

Does Waltzing Matilda rhyme?

Yes – it has an ABCB rhyming pattern, so that the second and fourth lines of each stanza are exact rhymes, and all the B lines end with a word that rhymes with bee: eg tree, me, glee, three. Mostly it’s the word me, which several times rhymes with itself.

Name of the guy from Waltzing Matilda/What’s the boy’s name in Waltzing Matilda?

He’s never mentioned by name, but he’s said to be based on a real man named Samuel Hoffmeister, originally from Germany, whose nickname was “Frenchy“. Presumably by the same Australian logic whereby a red-haired man will be nicknamed “Blue“.

There’s a familiar Australian witticism that the jolly swagman’s name must have been Andy: “Andy sang as he watched, Andy waited ’til his billy boiled”. As Banjo Paterson’s real first name was Andrew, perhaps a laboured attempt to put him into the song.

Can “waltzing Matilda” mean to be hung?

No – it means to travel by foot, carrying your belongs on your back. A swagman’s rolled sleeping blanket was his “Matilda”, and to “waltz” your Matilda was to take it on a long walk.

Is “waltzing Matilda” a euphemism?

No, it’s slang.

Is there a Waltzing Matilda Hotel?

Yes, it’s not a particularly unusual name for hotels. Here’s an example.

One or more islands named Waltzing Matilda?

I don’t think there’s even one, let alone more than one.

[Did] Ansett use [the song] Waltzing Matilda?

Yes, Ansett Australia Airlines used the song in their advertisements to mark the centenary of Waltzing Matilda in 1995. They also had a scene from the song painted on their 737s the year before, and the first 737 aircraft they ordered in 1986 was named Waltzing Matilda.

Was there ever a warship named Waltzing Matilda?

No. The Royal Australian Navy usually names its vessels after Australian place names, animals, Aboriginal words, and famous people from history, rather than works of fiction. Besides, the song ends with someone drowning, which hardly seems appropriate for a ship (although it doesn’t seem to have put other people off naming their boats Waltzing Matilda).

A 1950s horror movie which has the song Waltzing Matilda in it?

It’s not strictly a horror movie, but could you be thinking of the 1959 post-apocalyptic film, On the Beach? The song is used to great effect in a particular scene.

Waltzing Matilda – the national disgrace – America owns it

That’s not quite true, but it’s a complicated story. Banjo Paterson sold the rights to Waltzing Matilda to Australian publishing house Angus & Robertson for 5 pounds. Banjo died in 1941, and under Australian copyright law, as in most of the world, once the creator has been dead for 50 years, a creative work is in the public domain, so Waltzing Matilda has been copyright-free here since 1991.

However, in the United States, Waltzing Matilda was falsely copyrighted as an original composition by Carl Fischer Music in 1941. This came as a horrible shock to Australia when they found out in the 1980s, although Carl Fischer Music claimed most of the royalty money went back to Australia, to the Australian music publisher Allans Music (they may have bought the copyright from Angus & Robertson). Since copyright in Australia expired in 1991, Carl Fischer Music obviously didn’t give any money to Australia after that.

A bitter pill for Australians to swallow was that they had to pay a licensing fee to Carl Fischer Music to have Waltzing Matilda played at the closing ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, since it was on American soil. It sounds rather mean and money-grubbing to have charged us for own anthem, probably because it was.

So Waltzing Matilda was never “owned by America”, but only by one American company. And as all good things come to an end, and all bad ones too, eventually copyright ran out in the US, which doesn’t happen until 70 years after the creator’s death, and Waltzing Matilda has been in the public domain worldwide since 2011.

If it was a national disgrace that it occurred, I can’t see that the disgrace is attached to our own nation. We didn’t steal it, and our shonky copyright laws didn’t allow it to happen.

Why isn’t Waltzing Matilda the [Australian] national anthem?

There was a plebiscite to choose a national anthem in 1977, and more than 43% of people voted for Advance Australia Fair, while only around 28% voted for Waltzing Matilda. (Almost 19% voted for God Save the Queen, and less than 10% for Song of Australia).

God Save the Queen is our royal anthem, to be played whenever someone royal shows up. Waltzing Matilda is an unofficial national anthem, and is a particular favourite at sporting events – especially the Olympics and Commonwealth Games.

In any case, it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea to have a national anthem under copyright in another country.

[Is] Waltzing Matilda no longer sung at AFL [Grand Finals]?

I think the 1980s was the only decade where it was sung almost every year; it didn’t start out like that in the 1970s, and seems to have become hit-and-miss in the 1990s. The last person to sing Waltzing Matilda at an AFL Grand Final was probably Guy Sebastian, about ten years ago.

Some people feel outraged that this “great tradition” has been neglected, but their memories have probably made it seem more frequent than it really was. I suspect these people were children and teens during the 1980s, so that they grew up with a general impression of Waltzing Matilda being played each year.

Why did Senator [Bob] Kerrey sing Waltzing Matilda after being elected?

Robert Kerrey was elected to the US Senate for Nebraska in 1989. He didn’t actually sing Waltzing Matilda after his election: he sang And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, written by Australian folk singer Eric Bogle.

The song is written from the point of view of an Australian soldier who loses his legs at the Battle of Gallipoli, and sees the war he participated in as bloody and futile. Because the song was written in 1971, it can be seen as a criticism of the Vietnam War, which was similarly gruesome and pointless.

Senator Kerrey served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War, and lost the lower half of one leg in combat. He suffered some traumatic experiences during the war, and must have identified with the narrator of And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. He also used the first line of the song for the title of his autobiography, When I Was A Young Man.

The song has been frequently covered by folk singers in the UK and the US, and is internationally famous as an anti-war song.

(Painting shown is Down on His Luck, by Frederick McCubbin – 1889)

Famous Name: Charlotte

19 Wednesday Jun 2013

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Charlotte-Pass-NSW-AustraliaThe Winter Solstice is just a couple of days away, and the weather has been noticeably chillier in most places for about a month. I like lots of things about winter, but find I have to keep reminding myself of them as the weather gets colder. To convince myself it wasn’t so bad, I looked up the coldest temperature ever recorded in Australia, and found it was minus 23.4 degrees Celsius (around minus 10 Fahrenheit), on June 29 1994, at Charlotte Pass in New South Wales. That made today seem more bearable.

Charlotte Pass is in the Snowy Mountains, and nearby Charlotte Pass Village is the highest permanent settlement in Australia at 1760 m (5777 feet). It is in this region you will find the country that Banjo Paterson wrote about in The Man from Snowy River, although you are far more likely to be hurtling down a ski slope than mooning over poetry here, because Charlotte Pass is Australia’s oldest and snowiest ski resort. It can snow at any time of year, and snow may lie on the ground for days, even in the middle of summer. The pass and village are named after Charlotte Adams, who became the first European woman to climb Mount Kosciuszko in 1881.

Charlotte is a feminine form of Charles; I think technically it’s the feminine form of Charlot, a French short form of Charles (it ends in an -oh sound, like Carlo). Charles is derived from a Germanic name meaning “man”, and it is something of a puzzler whether Charlotte should be translated as meaning the same thing, or does a feminine ending on the name turn it into its opposite, so that it now means “woman”? Is a man-ette a woman, I wonder? I’m not so sure (it doesn’t seem at all flattering to women, if so), but I will leave you to figure this gender confusion out for yourselves, dear readers.

Charlotte has been commonly used amongst European royalty; one was Charlotte of Savoy, who married Louis XI of France and was the mother of Charles VIII. The name became popularised in Britain in the 18th century because of Charlotte of Mecklenberg-Strelitz, who married George III, and whose daughter was named Charlotte after her. George III’s son, George IV, had only one legitimate child who was named Charlotte, and she died young, deeply mourned by the British public. Since then, the British royal family hasn’t seemed as keen on this name for its heirs to the throne.

Princess Charlotte Bay in far north Queensland is named after this unfortunate royal, and another Australian connection is that one of the First Fleet ships was named Charlotte. Rebel convict Mary Bryant named her daughter Charlotte after the ship she came here on. The Charlotte was later lost in the Canadian Arctic, and it recently had a fictional resurrection in the adventure film National Treasure, where the first clue to the treasure is found on the Charlotte.

Famous Australians named Charlotte include Charlotte Barton, who wrote the first children’s book to be published in Australia. Charlotte “Lottie” Leal and Charlotte Austin were both community leaders and benefactors, while Charlotte Sargent was a pastry-cook and co-founder of Sargent’s Pies. Charlotte “Lottie” Lyell was Australia’s first film star, and a pioneering film-maker.

Another exciting namesake is Charlotte Badger, a convict regarded as Australia’s first female pirate. She was a member of the notorious crew who commandeered the Venus and took it to New Zealand. The bawdy drinking song, The Good Ship Venus, references this historical event, and also refers to Charlotte … born and bred a harlot. Because of this, it is often surmised that Charlotte Badger is the original “Charlotte the Harlot“. This connection to Charlotte makes some parents uneasy, but I would be chuffed to share my name with an infamous pirate.

Some other musical connections to the name are Perth band Charlotte’s Web, who named themselves after the classic children’s book about the touching friendship between a pig and a spider. Similarly, US band Good Charlotte named themselves after a children’s book about an unlucky little girl named Charlotte, whose positive qualities are not discovered for some time.

Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden is currently living in Australia and a judge on The Voice, so you’ve probably been hearing of them a lot. For some reason, the band name’s always reminds me of the thriller Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte, where Bette Davis plays the mentally fragile Charlotte Hollis.

Charlotte was #96 in the 1900s, and left the Top 100 in the 1910s. It disappeared from the charts completely in the 1940s and ’50s; it’s rather surprising that Charlotte isn’t strictly a classic, but rather a retro name in Australia.

In the 1960s, Charlotte made a return at #513, representing just 2 babies named Charlotte per year. The name climbed steeply during the 1980s, and by 1995 was Top 100 at #87. By 1998, Charlotte had made the Top 50 at #37. By 2001 it joined the Top 20 at #17, in 2003 it debuted in the Top 10 at #10, and in 2005 it made the Top 5 at #2. In a decade, it had risen 85 places.

Nationally, Charlotte is #1, and it is #2 in New South Wales, #2 in Victoria, #1 in Queensland, #1 in South Australia, #1 in Western Australia, #2 in Tasmania, #10 in the Northern Territory, and #1 in the Australian Capital Territory. From the birth notices I have seen so far this year, it looks likely to wear the crown again in 2013.

Charlotte is extremely popular, and no wonder. It’s pretty and elegant, yet sounds sensible and professional. It’s been worn by a tragic princess, a snowy mountain climber, a mystery ship, a coral bay, a genius spider, a pie maker, a film star, a deranged Southern belle and a saucy pirate wench.

That’s an impressive diversity of Charlottes, and I haven’t touched upon Charlotte Bronte, Charlotte Church, Charlotte Rampling, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, or the various Charlottes from Sex and the City, McLeod’s Daughters, All Saints, Rugrats or Revenge. I haven’t even mentioned the pudding named Charlotte, which has a fascinating history of its own.

Baby name style queen Elisabeth Wilborn picked Charlotte as her favourite Top 100 name, which is an impressive commendation. She can’t get past the popularity, but maybe you can, because despite its rapid ascent, Charlotte seems like a name that will wear well. The unisex nickname Charlie had a surge of popularity which now seems to be dying down, but vintage Lottie is the current fashionable short form.

POLL RESULT: Charlotte received an approval rating of 69%. 33% of people saw the name Charlotte as elegant and classy, but 23% thought it was much too popular.

(Photo shows the sun rising over Charlotte Pass)

Waltzing with … Orange

17 Sunday Feb 2013

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Orange jacket Postcard autumn leavesToday is Banjo Paterson’s birthday, and as we have already covered his name, I thought it would be interesting to look at the name of his birthplace.

At the time of Paterson’s birth, his parents were living at Buckinbah Station, near the town of Yeoval (then known as Buckinbah). Because of the station’s isolation, Banjo’s mother Rose went to stay with her aunt and uncle, Rose and John Templer, at their homestead Narrambla, and it was here that she gave birth to her son. Narrambla is about 2 miles from the centre of Orange, and today lies on the city’s outskirts. Rose herself was born on a homestead near Orange, so it was rather a family tradition.

Orange is a city in the Central West region of New South Wales. It was founded in the early 1820s as a convict settlement, and farmers began settling in the area in 1829. The first discovery of gold in Australia was made in 1851 near Orange, leading to the gold rush. Orange became a trading centre for gold, and continued growing due to its good position for agriculture. It was declared a city in 1946. Orange is known for its fruit growing, especially apples, pears and stone fruits; ironically it is too cool to grow oranges in Orange. It is also a thriving wine making area, and has both gold and copper mining. It is a sister city to Orange in California.

Orange was first called Blackman’s Swamp, after John Blackman, the guide who brought the first explorers there. The name was changed to Orange by the Surveyor-General Sir Thomas Mitchell, in honour of William, Prince of Orange. Mitchell and the Prince had both been aides-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular War in Spain in the early 19th century. The Prince of Orange later became the first King of the Netherlands.

The Prince’s title originally came from the Principality of Orange in the south of France. It began life as a settlement called Arausio, named after a local Celtic water god; the god’s name is said to mean “temple”, meaning the temples that are on the forehead, not a temple as in a building for worship.

The town’s name was corrupted into Orange, and by the Middle Ages, conflated with the word orange, which comes from the Sanskrit for “orange tree”, naranga. The colour was named after the fruit, and first used this way in the 16th century.

As a personal name, Orange has a longer history than you might imagine, for the girl’s names Orenge and Orengia are found in the 13th century. As this predates the name for the fruit, their etymology is extremely uncertain, and possibly has the same source as the French town, which first became a principality of the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th century.

The surname Orange is either from the place name, or derived from the female name, and when the English name Orange appears in the early 17th century, it may have been after the surname. The name first arises in Devon, and in the beginning was exclusively given to girls, although the name became unisex after William III of England, or William of Orange, gave it a masculine feel.

As a first name, Orange is extremely rare in Australian records, and given to only a few girls, but as a middle name is much more common, and given to boys in almost equal numbers as girls (the middle name Orange was sometimes combined with William in the case of boys, showing that William of Orange still had some naming clout).

Colour names for girls are popular at the moment, with many little girls named Scarlet or Jade; tree names such as Olive and Willow are in the girls’ Top 100, surnames such as Marlowe and Quinn are fashionable for girls, and it’s not unusual to see baby girls named after European cities, such as London or Vienna. Orange seems a more vibrant continuation of these trends. Indeed, you could see it as a hyper juiced-up Clementine.

Orange is such a bright, outgoing, fun colour that it seems very cheerful as a person’s name, but it also has a more serious side, because orange is connected to religion and spirituality. There’s a real yin/yang, East/West dichotomy with the name Orange. Is it as crazy as a clown’s wig? Or as serene as a meditating Buddhist monk?

Orange fruit gains its colour from carotenes, the same thing which makes deciduous leaves turn orange. By chance, the city of Orange is known for its spectacular displays of autumn leaves, and it is therefore known as “The Colour City” (also a play on its name). You might see Orange as a name that evokes the changing of the seasons, and the turn of the year.

Although Orange started life as a girl’s name, it did become unisex, and is so rare that it could be worn by either boys or girls. If you are shy about using this vivid name, it would make an eye-catching middle.

Orange is a bold choice as a baby name, though not without shades of subtlety, and it celebrates Australian geography and history. I think Orange is one of the more distinctive of the patriotic names, and has a real tang to it.

Name Combinations for Orange

Orange Beatrice, Orange Eliza, Orange Lily, Orange May, Orange Ruby, Orange Victoria

Brothers for Orange

Eden, Hartley, Fitzroy, Paterson, Sunny, Tennyson

Sisters for Orange

Audley, Breeza, Corindi, Junee, Kendall, Marinna

Note: Name combinations from historical documents; just for fun, sibsets include names of other towns in New South Wales

POLL RESULT: Orange received an approval rating of only 27% – the lowest-rated featured name of 2013, and the only one to score less than 50%. 40% of people hated the name Orange, and nobody loved it.

(Picture shows a postcard from the city of Orange)

Famous Name: Winton

30 Wednesday May 2012

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The small town of Winton in outback Queensland has played a pivotal role in Australian literature and the development of an Australian legend, for it was at a cattle station named Dagworth Homestead, just to the north of the town, that A.B. “Banjo” Paterson wrote Waltzing Matilda, and it was set to music (based on a traditional tune) by Christina Macpherson in 1895.

Indeed, the very plot of the song is said to have been inspired by events which took place at Dagworth Homestead during the Great Shearer’s Strike of 1891, when three policemen gave chase to a swagman named Samuel Hoffmeister, who shot and killed himself at the waterhole rather than allow himself to be arrested. It is thought that Christina and her brother Bob told Banjo Paterson the story during his stay at the station.

The folklore of the song and its creation is the pride of Winton, which has its own museum, the Waltzing Matilda Centre. Waltzing Matilda received its first public performance in Winton’s North Gregory Hotel, on April 6 1895, and this year, the town of Winton held its inaugural Waltzing Matilda Day on April 6, to honour and celebrate our national song.

In fact, the town’s mayor, Ed Warren, has asked that Waltzing Matilda Day be declared a public holiday. A worthy notion, but even someone as keen on holidays as me cannot help noticing we already have Easter and Anzac Day that month, so April seems a little full up.

The town of Winton was named by postmaster Robert Allen, supposedly after his birthplace in England, a suburb of the seaside town of Bournemouth in Dorset. The suburb is named after Winton Castle in Scotland, home to the Earl of Winton, a relative of local Dorset family, the Talbots. Winton Castle is near Edinburgh, and was originally owned by one of the oldest families in Scotland, the Setons; it was built in 1480 on lands the family had acquired in 1150. It is now an award-winning hotel and conference centre.

However, as it turns out, Robert Allen was actually born in Winchester in Hampshire, which was also known as Winton. This lovely cathedral town’s name is a mixture of British-Roman and Anglo-Saxon, and means “market town”.

The surname Winton is famous in Australia as belonging to Western Australian novelist Tim Winton. He has won a swag of literary prizes, including the NBC Banjo Award for Cloudstreet. He has been named a Living Treasure by the National Trust, and awarded the Centenary Medal for services to literature and the community.

While writers who have found literary acclaim aren’t always popular with the ordinary reading public, nearly everyone I know who reads at all lists Tim Winton as one of their favourite authors. He manages to combine wonderful storytelling with a uniquely spare prose style

As well as writing and winning awards, Tim also finds time to support the environmental movement. As a patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, he has raised awareness about sustainable seafood consumption and campaigned against shark finning; he is also patron of Stop the Toad Foundation and has contributed to The Last Whale website. He has been prominent in the campaigns to save Moreton Bay and Ningaloo Reef.

Mr Winton writes novels for grown ups, and also children’s books, most notably the Lockie Leonard stories, about young surf rat Lockie who moves from the city to the coastal south-west of Western Australia (probably not coincidentally, this is exactly what Tim Winton did when he was twelve). The TV series based on the books is filmed in Albany, where Tim grew up, and has also won a stack of well-deserved awards.

The English surname Winton can come from Winton in Lancashire, whose name means “willow wood farm” – a place where willow trees were farmed for their extremely useful wood. Winton in Westmoreland, however, means “Wina’s pasture”. The name Wina meant “friend” in Old English. It is from this personal name that Winton Castle in Scotland is also named, which seems to have brought us full circle.

I saw the name Winton on a baby boy who competed in the Bonds Baby Search. It’s very similar to the aristocratic Winston, yet with its own connections to the world of Australian literature, the Australian coast and the Australian outback. It seems like an unusual yet stylish choice.

(Photo above shows the statue of the Jolly Swagman in Winton, sculpted by Daphne Mayo)