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Waltzing More Than Matilda

~ Names with an Australian Bias of Democratic Temper

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Tag Archives: Nameberry Nine

Famous Name: Winsome

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by A.O. in Famous Names

≈ Comments Off on Famous Name: Winsome

Tags

Abby Sandel, American names, english names, famous namesakes, historical records, locational names, modern names, name history, name meaning, Nameberry, Nameberry Nine, nicknames, rare names, surname names, virtue names, vocabulary names

giovanni_boccaccio_women_playing

If you were in Sydney in early October, you could have attended the Royal Australian Navy International Fleet Review, celebrating one hundred years of our navy. Or, if you were of a more musical bent, you could have been there for The Renaissance Player’s 35th Runnymede Pop Festival. Held at Sydney University in its Gothic-style Great Hall, this is a unique concert of music, mime and poetry from medieval Europe, performed in brightly-coloured costumes.

The Runnymede Pop Festival has been going since 1973, and from the beginning has featured early music specialist Winsome Evans. Winsome is the director of the Renaissance Players, Australia’s oldest early music ensemble, and she is a professional harpsichordist, composer, and arranger. She conducted the first Renaissance Players concert while still a student.

Winsome is a recipient of the British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, The Order of Australia, and a NSW Jaycees Award for services to music.

Winsome is an English word meaning “charming in an innocent manner”. A winsome person is cheerful and open-hearted, engaging, and perhaps slightly naive, in a completely delightful way. The word comes from the Old English for “joy”, and is ultimately from an ancient root meaning “wish, love”.

Winsome is also an English surname, coming from the village of Winchcombe in Gloucester, or from Winscomb in Somerset. In either case, the name is Old English, and means “remote valley”. However, in some cases, the surname may have come directly from the Old English word winsom, meaning “attractive, lovely”, used as a personal name. If so, it means that the first name Winsome could date back to medieval times.

The first name Winsome can be found in records from the middle of the 19th century in North America, and seems to have been especially associated with Ontario, Canada. The reason for this may be Winsome Lake, which is one of the many thousands of smaller lakes in the Great Lakes region of Ontario, but why it inspired baby names is something of a mystery to me. I have been unable to discover how Winsome Lake received its name, because it is relatively obscure.

There are over one hundred women named Winsome in Australian records, most of them born around the turn of the twentieth century. There is another famous Winsome in Australia – Winsome McCaughey, who was Lord Mayor of Melbourne in the late 1980s. And another Australian musical connection too – Peggy Winsome Glanville-Hicks was a Melbourne-born opera composer and music critic who flourished in the middle of the 20th century.

Other successful Winsomes include British playwright Winsome Pinnock, and US Republican politician Winsome Sears. Interestingly, Sears was born in Jamaica and Pinnock’s parents were Jamaican, so there seems to be a West Indian connection. There was a grassroots playwright in Jamaica who wrote under the code name “Winsome” about 20-30 years ago. You can still find the name Winsome in use in Jamaica today, including singer Winsome Benjamin, and prize-winning cook Winsome Murphy.

Although Winsome is a secular virtue name like Felicity or Honour, the word winsome has come to have a particular meaning for evangelical Christians. The book Winsome Christianity by Henry Durbanville was published in 1952, and Winsome Evangelism by Ponder W. Gilliland came out in 1973.

I can’t pretend to be an expert on the subject, but my understanding is that the general message is to be winsome in your Christianity in order to attract more converts, and that some evangelists even use the word winsome to mean “capable of winning souls to Christ”. Author Neil Gaiman is apparently a big fan of the meaning of language changing over time, so I expect this example would be of great pleasure to him. It does give the name Winsome a special meaning for some Christians, so that it could become a religious virtue name in this context.

Winsome is a name I find very intriguing – the meaning of the word winsome seems very feminine to me, and Winsome is overwhelmingly used as a female name. Yet the name itself isn’t frilly in the least, having a similar sound to the male name Winston (which also comes from the Old English for “joy”). It’s a strong-sounding name for a girl, but with a dainty meaning.

Winsome isn’t a name I’ve ever seen on a baby or a child, and its heyday (if it can ever be said to have had one) was over many years ago. However, Winnie is becoming hip once more, and Winsome would be a rare and unusual way to reach it.

POSTSCRIPT: Abby Sandel mentioned Winsome in her Nameberry Nine column, and I was surprised and pleased at how many Berries liked or even loved the name Winsome.

POLL RESULT: Winsome received an approval rating of 61%. 21% of people thought it was an interesting modern virtue name, while 19% loved the idea of Winnie as the short form. However, 18% were reminded too strongly of the phrase win some, lose some. Only one person thought the name Winsome was too cutesy.

Never Out of Season: Different Varieties of Classic Name

27 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Abby Sandel, classic names, Laura Wattenberg, name popularity, Nameberry, Nameberry Nine, popular names, The Baby Name Wizard

roberts_springtime

Classic baby names are a perpetual subject for discussion. This week Abby Sandel wondered in her Nameberry Nine column what makes a classic name, and Laura Wattenberg at The Baby Name Wizard shared her “magic formula” for turning classic names into pure gold (unfortunately her mathematical formula doesn’t work in Australia – either we don’t have a big enough population, or enough data, or both).

“Classic baby names” are a popular search term too, but it didn’t seem helpful to just write down a list of classic names. I sorted them into categories, so you can see what kind of classic each classic name is.

I counted as a classic any name which had charted in Australia for a century, never disappeared from the charts for more than a decade at a time, and never did so more than twice. After some experimentation, I found this was the most generous definition I could work with that didn’t become meaningless.

Contemporary Classics

These classics have a very modern feel to them, because they are more popular now than they were a century ago, and didn’t experience a peak of popularity in the middle. Choose one of these, and you get a name that feels both traditional and up to date.

  • Amelia
  • Charlotte
  • Ella
  • Emily
  • Eva
  • Grace
  • Hope
  • Isabella
  • Lily
  • Lucy
  • Sophia
  • Stella
  • Alexander
  • Angus
  • Darcy
  • Harry
  • Jack
  • Lachlan
  • Leo
  • Lewis
  • Marcus
  • Max
  • Oliver
  • Samuel
  • William

Up and Coming Classics

These classics are currently rising in popularity. It’s hard for a classic name to seem surprising or original, but these mostly manage to feel quite fresh. I think these classic names would make stylish choices – they’re names that we’re subconsciously primed to want more of.

  • Adele
  • Alice
  • Amelia
  • Angela
  • Audrey
  • Daisy
  • Elaine
  • Eva
  • Evelyn
  • Gloria
  • Irene
  • Josephine
  • Leah
  • Lillian
  • Rosalie
  • Rose
  • Sophia
  • Stella
  • Victoria
  • Vivienne
  • Arthur
  • Frank
  • John
  • Lawrence
  • Leo
  • Leon
  • Lewis and Louis
  • Patrick
  • Theodore
  • Vincent

Ready Steady Classics

Name nerds often talk about “timeless classics”, and these classic names are truly timeless. Their position has remained relatively stable, and over the course of the last century, they haven’t risen or fallen more than 250 places. I call them the Ready Steady Classics because they are maintaining a steady course, and ready to be used at any time. You can’t go wrong with a Ready Steady – they’re a very safe choice.

  • Angela
  • Annie
  • Catherine and Katherine
  • Christina
  • Claire
  • Elizabeth
  • Esther
  • Georgina
  • Josephine
  • Julia
  • Katie
  • Laura
  • Maria
  • Mary
  • Naomi
  • Rachel
  • Rebecca
  • Rose
  • Sarah
  • Adrian
  • Alexander
  • Andrew
  • Angus
  • Anthony
  • Charles
  • Christopher
  • Daniel
  • David
  • Edward
  • Eric
  • Harry
  • Hugh
  • George
  • Kevin
  • James
  • John
  • Joseph
  • Leon
  • Louis
  • Marcus
  • Mark
  • Martin
  • Matthew
  • Michael
  • Nicholas
  • Patrick
  • Paul
  • Peter
  • Raymond
  • Richard
  • Robert
  • Samuel
  • Stephen
  • Thomas
  • Timothy
  • Vincent
  • William

Underused Classics

These classic names have remained in use, yet haven’t become popular during the past century (the highest any has been is the very bottom of the Top 100). Choose one of these and you get a name which seems “normal”, but also slightly “unusual”. It’s a very attractive quality.

  • Adele
  • Beth
  • Bridget
  • Christina
  • Cecilia
  • Erica
  • Estelle
  • Faith
  • Georgina
  • Greta
  • Helena
  • Hope
  • Leila
  • Louisa
  • Lydia
  • Martha
  • Miriam
  • Rosa
  • Rosalie
  • Teresa and Theresa
  • Vivian and Vivienne
  • Carl
  • Duncan
  • Ivan
  • Leon
  • Lewis and Louis
  • Theodore
  • Wesley

Faded Classics

The Faded Classics have fallen more than 250 places since they peaked in popularity, and are currently at their lowest ebb. Is that any reason to reject these names? Definitely not! A classic never goes out of style, and as many of these names have hit the bottom of their cycle, they may be about to turn things around, and begin climbing in popularity in a decade or two. Some of these classics manage to have a funky vintage feel.

  • Clare
  • Linda
  • Louise
  • Marie
  • Mona
  • Nancy
  • Patricia
  • Ruth
  • Veronica
  • Shirley
  • Susan
  • Albert
  • Brian
  • Dennis
  • Edwin
  • Geoffrey and Jeffrey
  • Keith
  • Laurence
  • Leonard
  • Malcolm
  • Murray
  • Philip and Phillip
  • Roger

Under the Radar Classics

These classic names are not peaking, or rising, or fading, or maintaining a steady course. As a result, they may have escaped your attention. You may even be surprised to find some of these are classics. Don’t overlook them – these are all good names, and one of them may be perfect for you.

  • Alison
  • Amanda
  • Anna
  • Anne
  • Beatrice
  • Caroline
  • Eleanor
  • Ellen
  • Emma
  • Frances
  • Hannah
  • Helen
  • Iris
  • Isabel
  • Jacqueline
  • Jane
  • Joy
  • Joyce
  • Madeline
  • Margaret
  • Monica
  • Natalie
  • Sylvia
  • Valerie
  • Alan and Allan
  • Alfred
  • Bruce
  • Douglas
  • Francis
  • Frederick
  • Henry
  • Ian
  • Kenneth
  • Maxwell
  • Neil
  • Rex
  • Roy
  • Stanley
  • Victor

TRIVIA

  • The most contemporary of the Contemporary Classics are Sophia and Lachlan, who have the largest gap between their current position and their position in the 1910s. Sophia is 315 places higher, while Lachlan has gained 188 places.
  • The most up and coming of the Up and Coming Classics are Rosalie and Frank, who have risen highest in the last few years. Rosalie has risen 638 places since the mid-2000s, while Frank has risen 170 places.
  • The steadiest of the Ready Steady Classics are Elizabeth and James. Elizabeth has remained within 32 places throughout the past century, while James has remained within just 15 places.
  • The most underused of the Underused Classics are Estelle and Wesley. The highest Estelle has ever been is #222, and the highest Wesley has ever been is #165 – both in the 1920s.
  • The most faded of the Faded Classics are Susan and Keith, who have fallen the most from their peak. Susan went from #1 in the 1950s to its current position of 0, while Keith went from #8 in the 1920s to its present position of 0.

NOTE: I can’t guarantee I have included every classic name. If you believe one is missing, let me know.

POLL RESULTS

Question: What type of classic name do you like best?
Underused classic – 31%
Up and coming classic – 18%
Under the radar classic – 13%
Contemporary classic – 5%
Ready steady classic – 5%
Faded classics – 3%
None (classics are boring) – 3%
I can’t decide (I love so many) – 22%

(Painting shown is Springtime by the Australian artist Charles Conder – 1888)

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