Waltzing With … Darwin

26 Sunday Aug 2012

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Anglo-Saxon names, english names, famous namesakes, locational names, name history, name meaning, surname names, UK name popularity, US name popularity

This blog post was first published on August 26 2012, and revised and re-posted on May 18 2016.

Famous City, Famous Namesake
Today is the last day of the Darwin Festival, a Top End cultural extravaganza of art, music, dance, comedy, film, theatre, cabaret, and festivities. The city of Darwin is known for its laid-back lifestyle and unique multicultural mix, with people of over fifty nationalities living side-by-side and intermingling.

If you attended the festival, you could have learnt how to make Chinese dumplings, watched an Aboriginal drag queen, got a make-over at an African beauty salon staffed by children, picnicked with teddy-bears, been seduced at a Bollywood burlesque show, swum at a pool party, gone to a Rio-style cabaret, and attended a rock concert in someone’s back yard.

Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory, the smallest Australian capital, and the most northerly of our capital cities. It looks towards Asia, across the Timor Sea, and is geographically closer to the capital cities of five other countries than it is to the capital of its own.

It has the highest Indigenous population of any capital city, with perhaps 10% of the city’s residents being Aboriginal, and has a significant Asian population from China, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Darwin swelters in tropical heat year-round, and is one of the most lightning-prone areas of the world. Having been bombed by the Japanese in World War II, and flattened by Cyclone Tracey in 1974, it’s been rebuilt twice and looks very modern.

The first British person to see Darwin harbour was Lieutenant John Stokes in 1839, who was on HMS Beagle. The ship’s captain, John Wickham, named the port after naturalist Charles Darwin, who had sailed with them on the Beagle‘s previous voyage. Charles Darwin had spent almost five years sailing the world on the Beagle, and it was his adventure of a lifetime.

He accumulated enough specimens to make his reputation and keep him occupied for years, not to mention surviving an earthquake and discovering a new species of dolphin. In Australia, he found the platypus and kangaroo-rat so odd that it seemed to him two distinct Creators must have been at work making life on earth – a radical thought for someone who had just finished studying to become a clergyman (not surprisingly, he went with a scientific career instead).

Darwin returned to England a celebrity, but what he didn’t do on his trip was discover evolution, for that idea was decades old, and familiar to Darwin’s own grandfather, Erasmus. What he did (when he got home) was come up with natural selection as a means to help explain the mechanism behind evolutionary theory.

His masterwork On the Origin of Species proved a bestseller, but Darwin avoided using the word evolution in case it proved too controversial, and only vaguely alluded to humans being part of the evolutionary framework. However, it resonated with both the scientific community and popular imagination, inspired the ideas of others, and made evolutionary theory an established part of the modern world-view.

Name Information
The English surname Darwin has two separate meanings. Originally it was from the Anglo-Saxon personal name Deorwine, meaning “dear friend”. Later it was taken from the town of Darwen, which stands on the river of that name in Lancashire. The river’s original name seems to have been Darwent, from the British meaning “valley thickly grown with oaks”. The surname Darwin is most often found in the north of England, suggesting the origin from the town is more common.

Darwin has been used as a personal name since at least the 18th century, and in England was first associated with Lincolnshire. Charles Darwin was descended from the Darwins of Lincolnshire, and he inherited the family estate there, which came down to him through his grandfather.

Even in the 19th century, a link with Lincolnshire continued, but the name became more common in the Midlands, a focal point for the Darwin family as it married into the Wedgwood family, famous for its pottery. So many Darwins went on to do interesting and worthy things that it isn’t possible to say everyone called Darwin had their name inspired by Charles Darwin – it might well have been another admired family member.

The name Darwin has always been more common in the United States, where it was first associated with the New England area. Although some of the towns and natural features in America called Darwin are named in honour of Charles Darwin, unlike in other countries, several are named are local people whose first name was Darwin.

The name Darwin has been on and off the US Top 1000 since the 19th century, with a long continuous stretch from the early 20th century until the mid 1990s. It peaked in 1938 at #279. It has been on the Top 1000 again since 2001; it is currently #876 and generally fairly stable. In the UK, the name Darwin has been generally rising, and 27 baby boys were given the name Darwin in 2014.

In Australia, Darwin is extremely rare as a first name, and only slightly more common as a middle name. Although it can be found a handful of times in records, most Australians probably think of it as a “modern” name. While Adelaide and Sydney are accepted as baby names here, I suspect for many people Darwin seems more of a “place” name than a “person” name. However, Darwin is genuinely Australian, and honours a wonderful namesake – a great thinker and humanitarian scientist who changed our world forever.

POLL RESULT
Darwin received a decent approval rating of 68%. 26% of people thought the name was okay, and 14% hated it.

(Picture of a storm over Darwin from the NT News; the photo was snapped from Darwin’s Evolution Building)

Names of Australian Male Olympic Medalists

19 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by A.O. in Name Themes and Lists

≈ 9 Comments

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American slang terms, aristocratic names, Arthurian names, Australian slang terms, Babylonian names, Biblical names, epithets and titles, famous namesakes, French names, Gaelic names, Greek names, hebrew names, Indian names, Irish names, Italian names, Korean names, Latin names, locational names, meteorological names, mythological names, name history, name meaning, name popularity, nicknames, Norman names, Norman-French names, Old Irish names, Old Norse names, Pictish names, popular culture, popular names, royal names, saints names, Scottish names, surname names, tribal names, unisex names, Welsh names

Bevan (George)

Bevan George is a hockey player who won gold at the Olympics in 2004, and bronze in 2008. Bevan is a Welsh surname meaning “son of Evan”; as Evan is a Welsh form of John, this is the Welsh form of Johnson. One of the most prominent people with this surname was Aneurin Bevan, a Welsh Labour Party politician most active in the 1950s. Recognised as one of the leaders of the party’s left-wing, he was a champion of social justice and the rights of working people. As Minister of Health, he was responsible for bringing in the National Health Service – that wonderful institution celebrated so effusively in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. For reasons unclear to me, this name seems to have been used more often in Australasia than anywhere else, and unfortunately, familiarity seems to have bred a certain amount of contempt, for in Queensland especially, Bevan is seen much in the same way that Kevin is perceived in the United Kingdom, the word bevan used to denote a lower-class person. As such, parents would rather use the name Evan.

Deveraux (Mytton)

Deveraux “Dev” Mytton won a bronze medal in sailing at the 1956 Olympics. The surname Deveraux is a variant of Devereux, and it’s Norman-French, meaning “from Évreux” in Normandy. The city of Évreux gained its present name from the Gallic tribe the Eburovici, whose name may be related to the word for “yew tree”, so the French city could have a similar meaning to that of York in northern England. According to the BBC, so many of the gold medal-winners from Team GB were from Yorkshire that if this historic county was its own nation, it would have finished 15^th on the Olympics medal tally – ahead of South Africa and Brazil. The city of Évreux has its own Olympic champion – Didier Courrèges, who won gold as an equestrian in 2004. The surname is one with an aristocratic air to it, and in the early twentieth century would have been considered a very upmarket, perhaps even pretentious, name to bestow upon your son (a 1920s version of a “preppy” name). Pronounced DEV-er-oh, I cannot see this name coming into use, despite the fashionable ending, but Dev has a brisk sound to it.

Eli (Matheson)

Eli Matheson is a hockey player who won bronze at the 2008 Olympics. Eli is a Hebrew name which means “ascension”, and in the Old Testament, Eli is a judge and high priest of Israel who is the teacher and mentor of the prophet Samuel. Eli himself is regarded as a prophet also in Judaism. According to how it is written in Hebrew, Eli can also be a separate name which means “my God”. In Hebrew, it is said EH-lee, but English-speakers tend to pronounce the name EE-lie (probably so it doesn’t get confused with the girl’s name Ellie). One well known person with this name is Hollywood actor Eli Wallach, who starred in the westerns, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and The Magnificent Seven. As Old Testament names for boys gain increasing momentum, Eli continues to rise and rise. It first entered the charts in the 1970s, and joined the Top 100 in 2009. It’s already #45 and still forging ahead.

Fergus (Kavanagh)

Fergus Kavanagh is a member of the men’s hockey team, and won bronze medals in 2008 and 2012. Fergus is the Anglicised and Old Irish form of Fearghas, a Gaelic name meaning “man of vigour, strong virile man” – very apt for an Olympian. It was a name common amongst royalty in both ancient Ireland and Scotland, and is still often used amongst Scottish nobility. One of Queen Elizabeth II’s uncles was named Fergus, and another royal connection is Fergus Boyd, a friend and former flatmate of Prince William. There is a Saint Fergus, an 8^th century Irish bishop who was a missionary in Scotland. King Arthur also had Sir Fergus as one of his knights, and he appears in a witty 13^th century romance in which he appears valiant but lacking in sophistication. The name Fergus is currently gaining favour with the sort of parents who love Angus and Hamish, but are dismayed by their popularity. Aristocratic Fergus seems so much more select.

Hector (Hogan)

Hector “Hec” Hogan was a sprinter who was Australian champion seven times over in the 100 metres, and was able to equal the world record in this event. He attended the 1956 Olympics, and although he was already feeling strangely fatigued, still managed to win bronze. He was afterwards diagnosed with leukaemia, and died in hospital a few years later, while listening to the 100 metre sprint race at the Rome Olympics. In Greek mythology, Hector is a Trojan prince, and the greatest warrior of Troy, who slays Achilles in battle. A leader noted for his brave and noble nature, he is seen as far more worthy than his younger brother Paris, who caused the war. In Greek, Hector means “to hold”, and is interpreted as “holding firm, holding everything together”. It may be an epithet or title rather than a real name. In Scotland, Hector is used to Anglicise the Gaelic name Eachann, meaning “horse lord” or “brown horse”. Sir Hector is one of King Arthur’s knights in the legends, and is the brother of Sir Lancelot, while Arthur’s foster-father Sir Ector shows another form of the name. In Australia, Hector is the name of a cloud which forms each afternoon in the Tiwi Islands during certain months. This name is fast becoming seen as hip and quirky.

Ji (Wallace)

Ji Wallace is a gymnast who won a silver medal for trampolining at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He later came out as gay, and was the first Australian to be an ambassador for the Gay Games; while attending the 2012 Olympics, he revealed that he is HIV-positive. Ji is a unisex Korean name which means “wisdom”; it’s also the word for an ancient Korean flute. This name sounds similar to the Indian name Jai, but manages to use even fewer letters, and is suitable for both boys and girls.

Kenneth (Wallace)

Kenneth “Ken” Wallace started out competing in Ironman, and switched to sprint canoeing while still in his teens. He won gold and bronze medals at the 2008 Olympics, and last year took part in Channel 7’s Australia’s Greatest Athlete. He came third, with Shannon Eckstein beating him to second place. Kenneth is the Anglicised form of two separate names. One is the Pictish Coinneach, meaning “handsome”; the other is Gaelic Cináed, meaning perhaps “born from fire” or “fire-head”, possibly to denote someone red-haired or hot-headed. According to tradition, the 9^th century Kenneth MacAlpin was the first king of Scotland, and is known as Kenneth I (during his lifetime, he would only have been known as king of the Picts, however). There also two legendary saints named Kenneth, one Irish, one Welsh. For some reason, Kenneth became a “funny name” – perhaps because of uber-camp comic actor Kenneth Williams, from the Carry On movies. Kenneth was #38 for the 1900s, and peaked in the 1920s at #6. It left the Top 100 in the 1980s, and is currently #409. It rose last year, so things may be looking up for this attractive name.

Nimrod (Greenwood)

Nimrod Greenwood won bronze for rowing at the 1952 Olympics. In the Old Testament, Nimrod is a great-grandson of Noah, and king of several Mesopotamian cities. He is depicted as a man wielding great political power, a warrior, and a mighty hunter. Although the Bible never states this, according to tradition, he is the king for whom the Tower of Babel was constructed. This hubristic piece of engineering sought to build a tower into heaven itself, and so alarmed God that He scattered humanity over the globe, and made them speak different languages, to prevent further outbreaks of co-operation and harmony. It’s obviously a story to explain cultural differences, and there are similar myths around the world. The name Nimrod is traced to the Hebrew for “rebel”, but as he was Sumerian, this seems unlikely. The most convincing theory is that he is based on the Babylonian god Bel Marduk, one of whose titles was Bel-Nimrod, meaning “to pursue, to make someone flee before him”. Nimrod has entered our language to mean either a tyrant, a warrior, or a huntsman; however, in the United States it is slang for “idiot” – perhaps due to a 19^th century play with a character called Nimrod Wildfire. It is still an Olympian name, for one of the Israeli swimmers at this year’s Olympics was Nimrod Shapira-Bar-Or.

Ralph (Doubell)

Ralph Doubell had a brief career in athletics, but was lucky enough to peak just as an Olympics came around. He won gold in 1968 in the 800 metres, and set a world record of 1:44.3. No other Australian has ever managed to equal this, and it’s stood as the Australian record for more than 40 years. Ralph is a contraction of the Old Norse name Ráðúlfr, meaning “wolf counsel”, which was introduced to England by Scandinavian settlers. When the Normans arrived, they brought with them their own form of the name, Radulf, and English Ralph can be seen as a continuation of both these names. Ráðúlfr is pronounced ra-THOOL-fer, and Radulf is said RAD-oolf; in the beginning Ralph was spelled Ralf and pronounced RAYF. By the 17^th century the spelling had been changed to Rafe to reflect the pronunciation, and the Ralph spelling appeared in the 18^th century. You are now free to pronounce this name either RAYF or RALF, but as far as I know, only one Ralph seems to say his name like Rafe, and that’s English actor Ralph Fiennes. The name was favoured by the ruling classes during the Middle Ages, but American pop culture has not been kind to it, often assigning it to comic or dim-witted characters. In American slang, ralph means “to vomit”, which can’t have done its image any good. Ralph was #91 in the 1900s, and peaked in the 1920s at #89. It left the Top 100 by the 1950s, and hasn’t ranked since the 1980s.

Verdi (Barberis)

Verdi “Vern” Barberis was a seven times Australian champion in weight-lifting, and took the bronze medal in the Lightweight category at the 1952 Olympics. He was the first Australian lightweight to clean and jerk over 300 lb (140 kg), which at that time exceeded his state’s heavyweight record. The name Verdi is an Italian surname, common in the north of Italy, and best known as that of the composer, Giuseppe Verdi. One of the most influential composers of the 19^th century, he is famous for such operas as Rigoletto, Aida and La Traviata. The name means “green”, from the Latin viridis, related to the word virere, meaning “to bloom and flourish”. In the same way, the English word verdant, from the same Latin root, means “green”, but also has connotations of lush vegetation. It’s very much a name of freshness, spring time and new life. I think this rare unisex name is very appealing, and also begins with the fashionable V.

(Photo shows Ken Wallace after winning gold at the 2008 Olympics)

Names of Australian Female Olympic Medalists

12 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by A.O. in Name Themes and Lists

≈ 11 Comments

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Chantal (Meek)

Chantal Meek is originally from Britain, and won a bronze medal in 2008 for sprint canoeing. The name Chantal was originally given in honour of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal (her non-saint name was Jeanne-Françoise Frémiot, Baronne de Chantal). Jeanne-Françoise was of the nobility, and married a baron; she devoted herself to prayer and charity, and later in life founded a religious order. Not only kind and sensible, she was known for her great sense of humour. The place name Chantal is from Old Provençal cantal, meaning “stony”, but people often imagine it is from the French word chant, meaning “song”. Chantal was first used as a personal name in France in the 1920s, and was most popular there during the 1940s-60s. The name entered the US Top 100 in 1968, the same year Marie-Chantal Miller was born to American millionaire and socialite, Robert Warren Miller (Marie-Chantal later became Crown Princess of Greece). Chantal (shan-TAHL) has never charted in Australia, with the preference here being for the variant Chantelle (shan-TEL).

Clover (Maitland)

Clover Maitland has won gold twice for hockey, in 1996 and 2000. Although usually thought of as a nature name, Clover was originally from the surname. It was an occupational name given to an official mace-bearer (a mace was called a clavia), or to a timber-worker, with the origin being from the word cleave. This accounts for boys named Clover. The plant of this name plays a role in folklore, for it is said that to find a four-leafed clover is lucky. The shamrock is a clover variety which is one of the symbols of Ireland, and proudly displayed on Saint Patrick’s Day. The word clover ultimately goes back to a Proto-Indo-European word meaning “sticky” – quite apt, as white clover flowers make excellent honey. Clover is also used in farming and gardening to enrich the soil, and so good for stock to eat that we say someone is living in clover if their life is one of ease and prosperity. So many positive things attached to this fresh green plant – another one is that it contains the word love. Clo, Cloey, Clove and Lola could all be used as nicknames.

Maree (Fish)

Maree Fish is a hockey player who won gold at the 1988 Olympics. The name Maree is typically Australasian, and so little known elsewhere that Abby at Appellation Mountain even asked about it, as she was puzzled why so many baby girls in Australian birth announcements had Maree in their names. There are several possibilities. The original pronunciation of Maree was MAH-ree, so it could be an Anglicisation of the Scottish Màiri, which is a form of Mary, and can be pronounced the same way. On the other hand, MAH-ree is how the name Marie was pronounced in England until the early twentieth century, and is also a common Gaelic and Irish pronunciation of the name. There is a Loch Maree in the Scottish Highlands, named after Saint Maree – however, he was a man, and his name is the Anglicised form of Máel Ruba, which roughly means “red haired monk” (sometimes it’s Anglicised as Rufus). These days, Maree is usually pronounced muh-REE, as a variant spelling of Marie. Maree entered the charts in the 1920s and was Top 100 by the 1940s. It peaked in the 1960s at #62, and left the Top 100 the following decade. It hasn’t charted since 2009. Like Marie, it’s much more common as a middle name.

Nova (Peris-Kneebone)

Nova Peris began her sporting career in hockey, becoming the first Indigenous Australian to win an Olympic gold medal when the Australian team won at the 1996 Olympics. She then switched to athletics, and although she won gold twice at the Commonwealth Games as a runner, she never received another Olympic medal. The name Nova is from the Latin word for “new”, and the word nova is well known in astronomy to describe a nuclear explosion in a white dwarf star. This makes it another “star” name. Although a rare name here, it has been on the US Top 1000 since the 1880s, and last year returned at #882, after not being seen there since before World War II. It now seems very usable, with its fashionable O and V sounds – it fits right in with popular girls’ names such as Ava and Eva, and can also be seen as an unusual nature name. It may remind some Australians of the radio station, Nova FM, but I’m unsure whether that would bother anyone.

Rohanee (Cox)

Rohanee Cox is a basketball player with the national women’s team who won silver at the 2008 Olympics. She is the first Indigenous Australian to win an Olympic medal in basketball. She has been awarded many sporting honours, including NAIDOC Sportsperson of the Year in 2010. Rohanee, pronounced ro-HAH-nee, is an Indian girl’s name which is a variant of Rohane, based on Rohana, meaning “sandalwood”. Sandalwood trees are native to southern India, and incense made from the tree is used in Hindu ceremonies, while devotees wear a paste made from it on their bodies, so the name has spiritual connotations. Another person with the name is Rohanee Walters, the sister of actor Brandon Walters, who served as his stand-in during the making of Baz Luhrmann’s Australia. Like Ms Cox, Miss Walters is from Broome in Western Australia, and I think is young enough to have been named after local sports star Rohanee Cox – although I don’t know if that’s what happened.

Shirley (Strickland)

Shirley Strickland is one of our most famous athletes, gaining more Olympic medals than any other Australian woman in track and field. She won silver and two bronze at the 1948 London Olympics, gold and bronze at the 1952 Olympics, and two gold at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. Shirley is a surname from a common English place name meaning “bright clearing”. It was a rare male name until Charlotte Brontë’s 1848 novel Shirley was published. In the story, the lively young heiress Shirley Keeldar has been given a boy’s name, because her parents had no son to pass the family name on to. The US Top 1000 shows Shirley as a unisex name from the 1880s onwards, with 1957 being the last year it appears as a male name. The name began steadily rising just before World War I, coinciding with the 1908 publication of L.M. Montgomery’s novel, Anne of Green Gables, with its imaginative red-haired heroine, Anne Shirley (in a later book, Anne calls her youngest son Shirley). In Australia, Shirley was in rare use in the 1900s, and skyrocketed in popularity to be #10 for the 1920s. It peaked in the 1930s at #3, and had left the Top 100 by the 1960s. It hasn’t charted since 2009.

Taryn (Woods)

Taryn Woods was a member of the women’s water polo team which won gold a the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Taryn is a name popularised by Hollywood matinee idol, Tyrone Power, and his second wife, Linda Christian. They gave the name to their second daughter in 1953, and the name Taryn first appears on the US Top 1000 in 1955. Her name is presumed to be a feminised form of the name Tyrone, which is the name of an Irish county. Taryn is found in ultra-ultra-rare use before that as a unisex name, and similar-sounding names such as Taren, Terrian, Toreen and Torunn were common in the 1940s and ’50s, so the Powers did seem to be tapping into a mid-century zeitgeist. Many of these names look to be inspired by Scandinavian links to the Norse god of thunder, Thor, or perhaps combinations of names, such as Terri and Karen. Taryn first entered the Australian charts in the 1960s, and peaked in the 1980s, at #230. It hasn’t charted since 2009. The name seems to have been more popular in Australia than anywhere else, although its only tenuous Aussie connection is that Linda Christian was one of Erroll Flynn’s lovers.

Tatiana (Grigorieva)

Tatiana Grigorieva was a national hurdler in Russia, but when she migrated to Australia in 1997 she took up pole vaulting. Within a year of picking up a pole for the first time, she won a medal at an international competition. After winning silver at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she became a household name, and her blonde good looks made her very marketable. Tatiana is the feminine form of Tatianus, derived from the Roman family name Tatius. The name may be of Sabine origin, and the meaning is unknown. Saint Tatiana is supposed to have been a 3^rd century Roman Christian who was martyred for her faith. She was venerated in Orthodox Christianity, and her name has been commonly used in Russia and surrounding areas. Although Tatiana is unusual in Australia, its forms Tania and Tanya both peaked in the 1970s in the Top 100. Last year, NRL star Akuila Uate welcomed a baby girl named Tatianna, and its short form Tiana peaked in the early 2000s.

Virginia (Lee)

Virginia Lee is a rower who won bronze at the 1996 Olympics. The name Virginia is the feminine form of the Roman family Verginius; the meaning may be “bend, turn toward”, but modern writers often spell it Virginius, to make it seem as if it is derived from virgo, Latin for “virgin”. According to legend, Verginia was a beautiful Roman girl murdered by her father to protect her honour. Virginia was the name of the first English colony in North America. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition to what is now North Carolina brought word of a Native American chief named Wingina. The first Native American leader to meet English settlers, he died by their hand soon after, setting an unhappy precedent for future cultural relations. Queen Elizabeth I called the new colony Virginia in her own honour, due to her status as Virgin Queen; it is thought that Wingina’s name may have helped inspire her choice. The original colony stretched from North Carolina into Canada, but the modern American state of Virginia is of more modest proportions. The first child born in the Americas to English parents was Virginia Dare, named after the colony, and her fate is a mystery, for all the colonists disappeared a few years later. Because of its origins, Virginia has been more popular in the United States than elsewhere. In Australia, it first charted in the 1920s, and peaked in the 1950s at #94 – the decade when Virginia McKenna starred in A Town Like Alice. It hasn’t ranked since the early 2000s.

Wendy (Schaeffer)

Wendy Schaeffer is an equestrian who won gold in eventing at the 1996 Olympics. The early history of the name Wendy is rather murky, and it’s usually suggested that it began as a pet form of Gwendoline or Wanda. Unfortunately for this theory, the first Wendy I can find was born in 1615 in Cambridgeshire, and was male. He may have been named after the Cambridgeshire hamlet of Wendy, meaning “island on the river bend”. In fact, boys named Wendy in 18^th century England did tend to come from Cambridgeshire. The earliest woman named Wendy I can find died in Essex, and is estimated to have been born around 1711. Wendy is also a surname which is most commonly found in Essex – as this county is next to Cambridgeshire, could it be inspired by the place name? Leaving aside this mysterious origin, the name’s popularity is due to author J.M. Barrie. He knew a wee lass called Margaret Henley, and she called Barrie “fwendy”, as a childish way of saying “friend”. Margaret died aged five, and Barrie named the heroine of his 1904 play, Peter Pan, Wendy Darling; the novelisation of the play was published in 1911. In Australia, Wendy first entered the charts in the 1920s, and was Top 100 by the following decade. It peaked in the 1950s at #15, and left the Top 100 in the 1980s. It is still in rare use.

(Photo shows Tatiana Grigorieva after winning silver at the Sydney Olympics in 2000)

Famous Name: Gale

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by A.O. in Famous Names

≈ 3 Comments

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astronomical names, Baby Name Ponderings, famous namesakes, idioms, legal terms, locational names, middle names, name history, name meaning, nature names, nicknames, Norman names, Norman-French names, Old English names, plant names, popularity, surname names, The Hunger Games, unisex names, US name popularity, vocabulary names, weather terms

On August 6 the Curiosity rover, which had been launched by NASA at the end of November last year, successfully landed on the planet Mars. As with the 1969 moon landing, Australian scientists played a crucial role in this international endevour, and NASA administrator Charlie Balden made special mention of the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex at Tidbinbilla, which is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network. Tidbinbilla was the only space station which was facing Mars for the descent, making it uniquely positioned to transit data from Mars to the Earth.

Curiosity landed on the Gale crater, which is believed to be more than 3 billion years old. The main goal of the mission is to determine whether life could ever have existed on Mars, and it is thought by some scientists that the Gale crater could have contained water at some point. If they are correct, this would make life on Mars a real possibility.

The Gale crater is named after Walter Frederick Gale, an early twentieth century amateur astronomer from Sydney. A banker by profession, Walter Gale made several important astronomical observations, including discovering seven comets. He also examined the surface of Mars, and was a keen supporter of the idea that the planet could contain life.

The surname Gale can be from an Old English nickname for someone who was cheerful, merry or fun-loving by nature. The Normans had a male personal name Geil, meaning the same thing, and that can be another source of the name. Another possibility is that is from the Norman-French word for “gaol”, perhaps denoting someone who worked as a gaoler, or even lived near a gaol. The surname Gale is mostly found in the southern coastal areas of England, but it is also commonly found in Yorkshire, leading to the possibility that there it may be from the Norse word geil, meaning “deep ravine”.

As a vocabulary word, gale has more meanings than you may suspect. It is an old dialect word meaning “to sing”, with connotations of “charm, enchant”, but also referring to birdsong. Gale Day is an old legal term, meaning the day that a tenant’s rent was due to be paid. Sweet gale is another name for the bog myrtle (Myrica gale); a shrub which typically grows in peat bogs. Its sweet scent has seen it used to flavour beer, and to make perfumes, and it’s one of the plants traditionally used in Royal wedding bouquets.

Of course, when we hear the word gale, we most likely think of a strong wind, especially those which feature in storms. It may also remind us of the phrase gales of laughter, which seems to tie in pretty neatly with its original meaning of “cheerful, merry”.

Gale was originally a male name, and taken directly from the surname. It isn’t found as a female name on the US charts until the 1930s – not surprisingly, this correlates with the rise in popularity of the female Gail, used as a short form of Abigail (Gail was also used for boys as a variant of Gale). In the US, despite the popularity of Gail as a girl’s name, male and female Gales existed together until the name disappeared from the charts for both sexes around the same time – 1969 for boys, and 1970 for girls.

In Australia, Gail was a popular girl’s name which peaked in the 1950s at #26, and I suspect for people born around that era, and perhaps a decade or so later, Gale would sound feminine to their ears. However, Gail hasn’t been on the charts since the 1990s, and Abby is the popular short form of Abigail today. If you look on the current Top 100 for the name that sounds most like Gale, it’s a male one – Gabriel.

Gale is an interesting name that by meanings, associations and sound, manages to present itself as both masculine and feminine, depending on how you think of it. I do like the idea of using it as a boy’s name, because English names are lacking male forms which have connotations of joy and happiness, compared to the numbers of female ones. Perhaps also because the Gale Crater is on the planet Mars, a name associated with masculinity for thousands of years.

However, this name is up for grabs by both genders, and does honour a great Australian star-gazer. If you can only think of this as meaning “a strong wind”, it would be on trend as one of the one-syllable nature name, which go so well in the middle position.

UPDATE: Blue Juniper from Baby Name Ponderings has reminded me that of course, Gale Hawthorne is one of the main characters in The Hunger Games trilogy. The best friend and hunting partner of protagonist Katniss Everdeen, Gale is played by Australian actor Liam Hemsworth in the film version. (Liam is the younger brother of Chris Hemsworth).

As Blue Juniper points out, this gives a current-day Gale much more of a masculine edge.

Melbourne Suburbs That Could Be Used as Boy’s Names

15 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by A.O. in Name Themes and Lists

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Ancient Celtic names, Anglo-Saxon names, Appellation Mountain, Australian Aboriginal names, birth announcements, birth records, British Baby Names, celebrity baby names, Celtic names, english names, fictional namesakes, Gaelic names, Gypsy names, Harry Potter names, Irish names, K.M. Sheard, locational names, mythological names, name history, name meaning, nicknames, Norman names, Norse names, Old English names, popular culture, Scottish names, sibsets, surname names, unisex names, Upswing Baby Names, Victorian name trends, virtue names, vocabulary names

Albion

Albion is right next to the suburb of Sunshine, and was developed by H.V. McKay as part of his Sunshine Estate. His own house was in Albion, showing that he was not too proud to live alongside his workers. Albion is the oldest known name for the island of Great Britain. The meaning, which comes from Ancient Celtic, may either mean “white”, perhaps referring to the white cliffs of the southern shores, or “hill”. According to K.M. Sheard, it should be interpreted as “white upper world”, to distinguish it from the dark Underworld (and thus similar to the Midgard of Norse mythology, which became the Middle Earth of Tolkien’s fantasy world). It’s related to a Welsh word which simply means “earth, world”. The Ancient Greeks and Romans knew of Albion, and even in their time, it was considered a name of great antiquity. Today Albion is often used as a poetic term for Britain, such as in our national anthem – “when gallant Cook from Albion sail’d”. In British mythology, Albion was a giant who ruled Britain and gave his name to the island. It’s an imposing heritage choice, very suitable for a baby born in a Jubilee year.

Baxter

Baxter is a rural locality on the Mornington Peninsula, and received its name because it was founded by pastoralist Benjamin Baxter, who came here as a member of the 50^th Regiment. The property he owned, and the cottage he and his wife Martha lived in, are both still in existence today. The township developed in the late 19^th century once the railway arrived. Baxter is an occupational surname from the English word bakester, originally referring to a female baker, as opposed to the male baker, but very soon accepted as meaning both men and women, and then as masculine only. The surname is most common in Scotland, and the northern counties of England, especially Yorkshire. There are several famous Australians with the surname Baxter, including the explorer John Baxter, who was killed on the expedition across the Nullarbor Plain. With its fashionable X and nickname Bax fitting in with Max and Jax, this now seems a pretty cool option as a boy’s name. This was chosen as a celebrity baby name last year by radio host Kate Dimond.

Brighton

Brighton is a beachside suburb named after the English seaside town. Brighton is from the Old English, meaning “Beorhthelm’s farmstead” (Beorhthelm is a man’s name meaning “bright helmet”). The suburb was bought by an Englishman named Henry Dendy in 1840, who got it for 1 pound an acre, sight unseen. He chose the name Brighton, hoping this would also become a fashionable seaside resort. Unfortunately, there was a depression at the time and Dendy was forced to sell the land to his agent. Dendy died a pauper, but his dream did come true, because very soon Brighton began attracting wealthy residents, and it remains a very exclusive address, full of luxury mansions. One of its most notable sights is the 82 colourful bathing boxes, which have been on Dendy Street Beach since the 19^th century. These can only be owned by rate-paying residents, and will set you back at least a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Brighton is the home of many of the rich and famous, including former athlete Catherine Freeman. I’ve been seeing this bright, right-on name quite a bit lately in birth announcements for boys, and the suburb does give it a swanky air.

Elwood

Elwood did not have the most glamorous beginning. A piece of swampland, the first settlers came here because of fever. It was Victoria’s first quarantine station, and the area’s first cemetery. Elwood became a working class suburb with such lovely features as an abattoir, a very smelly canal, and, before sewage, a dumping ground for human waste. However, today the Art Deco houses, pleasant beach, leafy streets, and busy cafe strip make it a very upmarket suburb. It’s thought to have been named after the Quaker poet Thomas Ellwood, because Governor La Trobe, who named it, had a thing for Quakers. The surname can be after Ellwood in Gloucestershire, which means “elder wood”, or derived from the Anglo-Saxon man’s name Aelfweald, meaning “elf ruler”. As elder trees play a big part in folklore, and The Harry Potter books feature the Elder Wand, it’s a very magical sort of name. I saw this at Mer de Noms and in a birth announcement, then it was covered by Upswing Baby Names, and then at Appellation Mountain. Perhaps because of the Blues Brothers, this name is seemingly now very hip. Please do not match it with a brother named Joliet or Jake though.

Fingal

Fingal is a rural suburb that may be named after the Irish county of Fingal; the county’s name means “foreign territory”, because the Vikings settled in the area. However, Fingal is also the Anglicised form of the Gaelic name Fionnghall, meaning “white stranger”. This also refers to the blonde Viking settlers, and Fingal mac Gofraid, a ruler in the Scottish Hebrides, was part of this same Norse dynasty. The name has a distinct literary air, as Fingal is the hero of James McPherson’s epic poem Fingal, and Irish author Oscar Wilde had Fingal as one of his middle names (Oscar is another name from McPherson’s poetry). McPherson claimed to have based Fingal on the legends of Irish folk hero, Fionn mac Cumhaill – Fionn’s name simply means “white”, and was a nickname; his real name was Deimne (meaning “sureness, certainty”). Fingal’s Cave in the Hebrides is named for the epic hero, and the sea echoes there so melodiously that it inspired a piece by composer Felix Mendelssohn. Irish names starting with Fin- are very fashionable right now, but I haven’t really seen Fingal in use. It seems poetic, musical, and quite fairytale to me.

Gilderoy

Gilderoy is a rural locality in the outer suburbs; it’s a rare variant of the Irish surname Gilroy, an Anglication of two possible Gaelic names which either mean “son of the red haired servant” or “son of the king’s servant”. As a first name, Gilderoy was used by British Gypsies, and a man who rejoiced in the name Gilderoy Scamp was King of the Kentish Gypsies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of course, this name will remind many of Gilderoy Lockhart, the vain and boastful fraud from the Harry Potter books. J.K. Rowling apparently named him after the handsome Scottish highwayman, Patrick Macgregor, whose nickname was Gilderoy (from the Gaelic Gillie Roy – “red-haired lad”). Both Lockhart and Macgregor had reputations for winning women’s hearts undeservedly, and one of Macgregor’s smitten female fans is supposed to have written the song Gilderoy about him. Perhaps Rowling was also thinking the name sounds like the English word gild, meaning to give a thin veneer of gold (to cheaper materials). I don’t know if anyone will actually use this name, but it’s a pretty fabulous one, with some very colourful namesakes.

Harkaway

Harkaway was settled by German immigrants, and is now an attractive suburb with large distinguished houses and extensive parkland. I first saw this name given to a minor character in Stella Gibbons’ hilarious novel, Cold Comfort Farm, and found it fascinating. Another famous literary Harkaway was Jack Harkway, from the Victorian era “penny dreadfuls” – a schoolboy who ran away to sea and had a life of adventure. There is also the novelist Nick Harkaway, although it’s a pseudonym; he’s a son of writer John Le Carre, and his real name is Nicholas Cornwell. Hark away! is a cry traditionally used in hunting to encourage the hounds; to hark means “to hear, heed, listen”. It’s a genuine, although rare, surname, and I presume an occupational one to denote someone who worked with fox hounds. I have seen this used as a man’s name in old records from the United States; I’ve only seen it used as a middle name in Australia. This is a really unusual vocabulary name which, with its meaning of “to listen”, almost qualifies as a virtue name as well. It isn’t much like any name on the Top 100, but it continues to fascinate me.

Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe is a suburb with many old homes and an Art Deco town hall, famous for the extravagant Christmas lights display it puts on each year. It was named by a Scottish settler after Sir Walter Scott’s 1819 novel, Ivanhoe. The book is a romance about one of the few remaining Saxon noble families at a time when the English nobility were almost all Norman. The protagonist is the Saxon Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who has sworn allegiance to King Richard I, and amongst the many characters are Robin Hood and his merry men. The novel is credited for starting the medieval revival of the 19^th century – hence the number of Victorian babies named Alfred or Edith. Although the book is set in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, the English village of Ivinghoe is in Buckinghamshire. The village’s name is Anglo-Saxon, and means “Ifa’s hill spur”. The Anglo-Saxon Ifa later merged with the Norman Ivo, both names meaning “yew bow”. It’s dashing and looks like Ivan with a fashionable OH sound, but will the -hoe at the end prove problematic? If you are stuck for sibling ideas, Elea at British Baby Names has many suggestions!

Skye

Skye is named after the Isle of Skye in Scotland, the largest island in the Inner Hebrides. It was at one time ruled by Vikings, and even the Gaelic clans who were chieftains here have Norse ancestry. The island’s name is an etymological tangle of several languages. However, the Norse referred to it as skuyö – “the isle of cloud” – and this looks a lot like the English name for the island. The ruggedly beautiful Isle of Skye has spectacular Highland scenery and abounds in wildlife such as red deer and golden eagles; a popular tourist destination, it was recently voted the fourth best island in the world. It is known for its castles, including Dunvegan, which has an ancient flag supposedly gifted by the fairies, and is the oldest Scottish castle continuously occupied by a single family (since the 13^th century). The island features in the lovely Skye Boat Song, which tells of the Jacobite heroine Flora McDonald helping Bonnie Prince Charlie escape “over the sea to Skye”, after the defeat of the Jacobite rising. This attractive unisex name is more often given to girls, but to me it seems equally suitable for boys.

Yannathan

Yannathan is a rural area in the Shire of Cardinia, and its name, from a local Aboriginal language, is translated as “to walk about, wander, travel, journey, roam”. Walkabout is a term from Indigenous culture which is understood to mean a journey undertaken as a rite of passage; a deeply meaningful spiritual quest which involves connecting with the traditional land and understanding cultural obligations. Australians of British descent also use the term loosely and colloquially to mean anything from going on holiday to escaping your customary obligations to disappearing without apparent cause (as in “the scissors seem to have gone walkabout”). I am not sure if yannathan was meant in any other way than just to take a walk or go on a journey, but it’s a word which may resonate with many Australians. Pronounced YAN-a-thun, it sounds like a variant of Jonathan, and seems very usable. It’s yet another name you could get the popular nickname Nate from.

(Photo shows the iconic bathing boxes in Brighton)

Famous Name: King

04 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by A.O. in Famous Names

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english names, famous namesakes, Gaelic names, illegal names, Irish names, name history, name meaning, surname names, title names, US name popularity, vocabulary names

It’s a big week in North America, because Canada Day was on July 1, and today is Independence Day in the United States. I thought we’d look at the name of someone from our history who hailed from the North American continent, and is one of the most colourful and mysterious characters in Australian politics – King O’Malley.

According to his own account, King O’Malley was brought up by an uncle and aunt in New York, and began working in their bank. He then became an insurance salesman, and according to him, was an extremely successful one who worked his way across the United States. In Texas, he founded his own church, with the extravagant title of the Waterlily Rockbound Church – the Redskin Church of the Cayuse Nation. The story he told was that he performed many miracles, and married a beautiful young devotee, who unfortunately soon died of tuberculosis.

O’Malley was told he had contracted the disease himself, and had six months to live. Apparently, going to Australia was #1 on his bucket list, and he arrived here around 1888, being perhaps thirty years old (there is no birth certificate to verify his age). Far from dying, he established himself (once again?) as a successful and well-known insurance agent. His interest in politics grew, and in 1896 he announced he would be running for the South Australian state parliament.

This was a bit awkward, because he had told everyone he was an American, which made him ineligible as a candidate. He changed his story, and said that, now he thought of it, he had actually been born in Quebec, Canada, making him a British citizen. He had merely been raised in the United States. It seems nobody asked to see any paperwork, and he was duly elected as an Independent.

Soon after the election, a man who had known him in the US claimed that O’Malley was an American citizen who had fled the country on embezzlement charges. O’Malley sued, but refused to allow himself to be cross-examined. He won his case, but people surely had to be a little suspicious that financial scandal was the cause of his migration to Australia. This might be why he had trouble getting re-elected.

Nothing daunted, he moved to Tasmania and joined the Australian Labor Party, where he began to make his mark, being elected to Australia’s first national parliament in 1901. In fact, one of his lasting legacies is that the ALP spells Labour the American way. He convinced them it looked more modern, and differentiated the party from the labour movement. He was also a leading proponent of the need for a national bank, and the government founded the Commonwealth Bank in 1911.

Made responsible for the planning of the national capital, he at first said that Canberra was so dry a crow on vacation would need to bring its own water bottle, but then became an enthusiastic supporter. He approved the designs for the city by fellow American, Walter Burley Griffin.

Today a suburb of Canberra, O’Malley, is named after him, and there is also an Irish pub in the capital named King O’Malley’s which sports a picture of him on its signboard. This is something of an inside joke, as O’Malley was a member of the temperance movement, and introduced prohibition to the city of Canberra – something which made him extremely unpopular.

His political career ended after World War I, at least partly because of his pacifist views. Although only 59, he retired, and spent the rest of his life building up and embellishing his own legend, telling tall stories of his feats that were eagerly believed by his trusting supporters. He died in 1953, which would make him ninety-five by his own reckoning – it’s hard not to wonder if he put his age up a bit in order to fit in more years in which his exploits could have occurred. He was honoured with a state funeral.

O’Malley was an arresting character with a mischievous, mocking personality that many people found almost instantly annoying. His politics were considered radical to the point of charlatanism, and his oratorical style was a cross between P.T. Barnum and a revivalist preacher, with a rich range of original expressions, such as calling alcohol stagger-juice, and pubs drunkeries.

The secret to his success was that he was a massive hit with the ladies, and had no trouble at all getting the female vote. Tall, fashionably-dressed, flamboyant and loquacious, women went slightly ga-ga around him. He also had a number of policies which appealed to women, such as trying to pass a law that barmaids couldn’t be too attractive.

His commitment to women’s interests was probably genuine. When he married, he bought his wife several cottages so that she could be financially independent and have her own career, and after his death, he left in his will a trust fund for scholarships for female students of Home Economics.

O’Malley told so many stories about himself that I’m not sure the truth about him can be found now; I don’t think we even know who he really was. He had the hubris to give himself American Independence Day, July 4, as his birthday, although at other times it seemed to be July 2. It is now believed that he was from Kansas, that place about which another American story-teller would create a dream of a magical land with a fraudulent ruler in its Emerald City. King O’Malley was our Wizard of Oz – a mountebank, but a harmless one. He was a bounder, a fraud, a rapscallion, and a politician. But I repeat myself.

The name King is usually taken from the surname, which comes directly from the English word king, originally meaning a tribal chieftain. It’s very unlikely the ancestors of people named King were actually royal – the name may have denoted people who worked in the king’s household as his servants, or given as a nickname to someone who acted in a regal and perhaps arrogant manner.

In America, the surname King was often given to Irish immigrants to Anglicise an Irish name, such as Conroy (although the –roy in Conroy sounds like the French roi, meaning “king”, the name means “son of the keeper of hounds” or “servant of the keeper of hounds” in Gaelic). This seems significant in light of King O’Malley’s Irish surname.

King O’Malley claimed to be the son of Irish immigrant William O’Malley and Ellen King, with the implication that he had received his mother’s maiden name as his first name. This cannot be verified, as no such people can be found in the US census of the time. King may have been his middle name, or he may have made it up. Soon after his arrival in Australia, he styled himself as the Arizona Kicker King – the Arizona Kicker was a newspaper that O’Malley purported to have worked for.

It may sound fantastically over-the-top to us, but the name King was on the US Top 1000 from 1880 until the mid-1960s, and recently made a comeback in 2006. Since then use has steadily increased, and it is currently #389 (just one position behind Phoenix).

Although King Vidor was a famous Hollywood director, I wonder whether use of the name might be inspired by iconic civil rights leader, Martin Luther King. Jesus Christ is also known as The King of Kings in Christianity, which might give it a religious connotation.

King is one of those names that are not permitted to be registered in Australia, as King is an official title as well as a word. It might be possible to use it as a middle name though, and if King is a name in your family, that could give you a personal connection to it.

(Picture of King O’Malley from the ACT Museum and Art Gallery)

MYTH: Australian Baby Names are Becoming Increasingly Influenced by American Trends

01 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by A.O. in Baby Name Mythbusters

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Australian names, Biblical names, classic names, created names, famous namesakes, fictional namesakes, flower names, French names, germanic names, Greek names, Irish names, Italian names, Mer de Noms, name data, name popularity, name trends, nicknames, Old English names, popular names, saints names, Scottish names, Spanish names, surname names, unisex names, US name trends, US popularity, Welsh names

Since I last went mythbusting, the 2011 name data from the United States has been released, and this week it’s American Independence Day. To celebrate both events, I decided to compare Australian and US name data. (Lou at Mer de Noms brought out her own comparison of the data for the United States and England/Wales in May, and did something pretty interesting with it.)

That Australians are becoming increasingly Americanised, including their choice of baby names, is something not debated, but accepted as a truism. It is often mourned by older generations that Australians used to call their children good solid Aussie names like Barry and Sheila, and now give them sleek American-style names like Logan and Scarlett.

It’s a myth which sounds very plausible – I certainly know far more children named Logan and Scarlett than I do Barry and Sheila (actually I don’t know any children called Barry or Sheila). But I thought we should try to get some numbers to back the myth up.

So I decided to look at the Top 100 names from both countries, in the years 1930, 1950, 1970, 1990 and 2011. If the number of names shared by both countries went steadily up, that could help support the theory that Australian names were becoming increasingly “American”. By no means conclusive proof, but it would be a start, and frankly I couldn’t think of any other way of doing it.

As I went through calculating the number of shared names, I also took note of those trends at work in Australia and the United States, where they were the same and where they differed. This gave me a picture of changing trends through the years. (The data is from Victoria, because theirs go back to 1929).

1930

MALE – 65% shared with US Top 100

1930 marked the highest percentage of shared names between the countries. This wasn’t because Australians were more “American” in 1930, but because in every year, the common denominator for both countries were classic names like John, Thomas and William, and these sort of names took up more space of both countries’ Top 100.

Trends noticeable on the Australian Top 100 were names from Ireland, Scotland and Wales, such as Kevin, Malcolm and Trevor, and aristocratic English surnames, such as Neville. Americans preferred prominent surnames of their own citizens, such as Elmer and Lee. Popular names from America we didn’t share were “cowboy” names – Wayne, Earl and Jesse. In America, nicknames for boys were all the rage, including Billy, Bob and Jimmie.

FEMALE – 51% shared with US Top 100

Popular girls names in both countries were homespun names such as Margaret and Dorothy, as well as plant names like Hazel and Rose.

Australian trends for girls included names from Ireland and Wales, such as Sheila and Gweneth, saints names such as Carmel and Veronica, and literary inventions like Doreen and Mavis. American trends were for Germanic names such as Emma and Clara, and the clunky Old English Mildred and Bertha. America’s Hispanic population meant that Delores and Juanita were Top 100 there.

1950

MALE – 59% shared with US Top 100 (down 6%)

American trends for boys we had picked up by 1950 include Gary, after Hollywood star Gary Cooper, and that supposed Australian favourite, Bruce, also popular in the US.

America continued its love of nicknames, with Bobby, Joe and Fred all Top 100. Several of the Irish boys names such as Kevin and Barry were now on the US Top 100 as well, but new Irish-style names such as Shane were still to gain American acceptance. Already in the US you can see a reluctance to use “feminine sounding” or unisex names such as Lindsay and Noel, which were Top 100 in Australia. In Australia, that same 1950s gender-anxiety produced the opposite result, with some unisex names like Leslie becoming male-only.

FEMALE – 47% shared with US Top 100 (down 4%)

The most noticeable shared trends for girls were those glamorous Hollywood names such as Marilyn (Monroe) and Rita (Hayworth). Even when Australians did take a name from America, such as Jennifer from Hollywood star Jennifer Jones, it didn’t always follow that Americans would embrace it as rapidly themselves. Jennifer was a 1950s name in Australia, but didn’t peak in the US until the 1970s.

Australian girls were being given French names like Annette and Jeanette, while Americans girls had Jacqueline. Another popular Australian “French” name was Lorraine, given in honour of St Joan of Arc, sometimes called The Maid of Lorraine. The American love of the nickname meant that names such as Judy and Peggy were Top 100 for girls.

1970

MALE – 56% shared with US Top 100 (down 3%)

Popular 1970 names which we think of as “American style” were in evidence on both charts, such as Bradley, Jason, Glenn, Darren and Craig.

Australian boys names not picked up in the US included Scottish-style names such as Ross, Graham, Stuart and Gavin, and the “feminine sounding” Ashley and Jamie. Differing ethnicities also made their mark, with Spanish Carlos in the US Top 100, and Italian and Greek names like Giovanni and Giorgio in the Australian Top 100. American nicknames powered on, with Larry, Terry and Jerry amongst them.

FEMALE – 51% shared with US Top 100 (up 4%, return to 1930 level)

It was the decade of those 1970s names Sharon and Tracey, although Sharon in particular had been popular in America for some time and we’d only just caught up.

Names such as Samantha and Amanda were already popular in Australia in 1970, but would have to wait until the 1980s to make it big in the US. Conversely, Amy was popular in the US, but wouldn’t be here until the 1980s. French Nicole was in vogue in both countries, and we’d caught up with Jacqueline; however Australia also had Danielle, Louise, Justine, Natalie, Simone and Josephine – typical 1970s girls names that were underused in the US. Scottish and Welsh names like Fiona, Megan and Bronwyn were popular here but didn’t get a look-in in the US. We were proudly using names of Australian origin, like Kylie and Narelle; naturally these were unknown in the US.

1990

MALE – 56% shared with US Top 100 (no change)

Trends from the US we were embracing were Old Testament names, such as Jacob and Zachary; and the new surname names, such as Ryan and Mitchell.

A new generation of “too feminine” boys names that were popular in Australia were ignored in the US, such as Shannon, Tristan and Leigh, as were more Scottish, Welsh and Irish-ish names, such as Lachlan, Rhys and Kane. Hayden and Jayden were already Top 100 in Australia, but not in the US. America had finally gone off nickname names, while Australia now had Jack, Jake and Ricky. American names Beau, Jackson and Tyson were popular then, as now, in Australia; of the three, only Jackson has hit the US Top 100 so far.

FEMALE – 56% the same as the US Top 100 (up 5%)

Names that both countries had in common were those typical 1990s names, like Tiffany, Brittany, Kayla and Caitlin.

Americana we were still to discover included unisex names for girls like Ariel, Shelby and Paige. Although the US had Danielle and Natalie by now, French names such as Monique, Elise, Renee and Madeleine which were popular here had apparently failed to make an impression. Although Welsh Caitlin was all the rage, the US were not on board with Tegan and Rhiannon, as we were. Most notably, Emma, Amelia, Charlotte, Sophie, Chloe and Zoe were missing from the US Top 100 – while American parents who chose these names in 1990 were ahead of the trends, in Australia, parents choosing these names in 1990 were just following the trends.

2011

MALE – 59% shared with US Top 100 (up 3%, return to 1950 level)

Congruence in popularity between the two nations has risen to 1950 levels, with many name trends in common, mostly a fresh crop of Biblical names, such as Elijah, and surname names, such as Mason.

American parents are now avoiding a new generation of Scottish names, such as Angus and Hamish, while Irish names like Declan and Flynn are also neglected in the US. Oddly enough, Kevin is still Top 100 in the US, while it’s considered a bit dated here. The scunner against nicknames continues as Americans shun Australian populars Charlie, Harry, Archie, Sam and Nate. No longer merely shying away from “feminine sounding” names for boys like Bailey and Riley, parents in the US have actually given these names to their daughters in such numbers that they are now Top 100 for girls, while Top 100 for boys here. Several names we have taken from the US, such as Jett, Hudson and Jasper, are still not popular in America.

FEMALE – 47% shared with US Top 100 (down 9%, return to 1950 level)

Girls names have also returned to 1950s levels. Many names are shared because America has caught up with our popular names from 1990, but Australian parents have also begun to use unisex names for girls like Madison and Addison.

America has abandoned many names as “outdated” such as Amy, Jessica, Holly and Amber that have taken on “modern classic” status here. While America has accepted Lily, it is less keen on our popular plant names Daisy, Ivy, Violet, Willow, Olive and Rose. British-style names such as Isla and Imogen cut no mustard in the States. Meanwhile, popular American virtue names like Genesis, Serenity, Trinity, Nevaeh and Destiny do not resonate here. Perhaps they will in the future.

CONCLUSIONS

I did not manage to bust this myth, but neither did I find much evidence to support it, so I will give its status as MYTH UNCONFIRMED.

As I compared popularity charts from the two countries, I realised more and more that it was a case of apples and oranges. Names took longer to gain popularity in the US, and it was harder for them to stay in the Top 100; name popularity was a competitive environment there. Australia has a much smaller population size, which means that name trends show up faster here. We’re also more likely to hold onto our favourite names once we’ve found them, sometimes for generations.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that American parents are absolutely obsessed with getting ahead of the current trends, and can watch the slowly rising popularity of their chosen names with almost comical anxiety. This makes some sense, because trending names can take so long to reach the Top 100 that they have a good chance of having ten to twenty years before that happens. In Australia, this behaviour makes no sense at all, because as soon as a name begins to show up in the data, it’s basically already quite popular. As we keep names around for longer, there’s no real rush to “catch” a name on the way up either; we can always wait until it’s a cosy, familiar “classic”.

In any given year, Australia and the US will share around half the names on their respective Tops 100s, and this has not changed across time. We share many name trends, and since at least 1950, Australia has been drawn to names from America. Sometimes it took us a long time to get onto a particular trend from America, and other times we took to it with greater enthusiasm than Americans did themselves.

Both countries also have their own styles of naming. Australia has always been fond of Irish-inspired names, and although Barry and Sheila have fallen by the wayside, we now have Finn and Molly. Scottish names continue to be a growth area, with Angus, Hamish, Callum and Isla seeming rather stylish to us. Through the years, there were many names unique to the Australian popularity charts. Names that I thought of as typical of their period, such as Dulcie in 1930, Glenys in 1950, and Jacinta in 1970 seemed to be unknown in the US.

Americans are slow to adopt Irish names, but often touchingly faithful to them, and are wary of Scottish and Welsh names. They have a deep suspicion of unisex names for boys or anything that even sounds remotely feminine, while comfortable with briskly masculine names for girls. Flower names are not popular there; perhaps they seem too girlish even for girls.

Due to going overboard on nicknames in the past, America has developed almost a horror of them, much in the same way I can no longer stomach gingerbread after overindulging on it a few Christmases ago. As nicknames are currently internationally popular, this has seen them unfairly branded as a bit stuffy on the issue, when they’re really just over the whole thing.

We don’t have to try to follow American trends, and in fact a couple of them would be downright foolish for us to imitate. But the United States has proved a rich source of name inspiration for many decades, and I know it will continue to be so for many decades to come.

Waltzing With … Lawson

17 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by A.O. in Waltzing with ...

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english names, famous namesakes, locational names, name history, name meaning, names of bands, nicknames, Norwegian names, surname names, UK name popularity, US name popularity

This blog entry was first posted on June 17 2012, and revised and re-published on April 6 2012.

Today is the birthday of the Australian poet Henry Lawson, who was born June 17 1867. Public celebrations to mark this event were held last weekend, to coincide with the Queen’s Birthday long weekend.

There are two festivals in his honour in the Western Plains region of New South Wales. The town of Grenfell has one because that’s where Henry Lawson was born, and so does the town of Gulgong because Henry’s parents moved there when he was just six weeks old, and spent his first five or six years there.

Willoughby council in Sydney holds a bush poetry reading every two years at Henry Lawson’s Cave, and this year it fell on Henry Lawson’s actual birthday. Henry Lawson’s Cave is a small cavern which the author used as an occasional refuge, and perhaps wrote some of his work there. Another site for Lawson-lovers to visit in Sydney is the statue of Henry Lawson near the Domain, an area that Lawson enjoyed walking in, and perhaps sometimes slept out in.

Henry Lawson is said to one of our three national poets, the other two being Banjo Paterson and C.J. Dennis, yet it is as a writer of short fiction that he really shone. His style is quite modern, being spare and unflinching, with plot being less important than powerful imagery. He has sometimes been compared to Hemingway and Chekhov in terms of a lean, raw writing style. His mother was the feminist Louisa Lawson, and the political bent of his work was greatly influenced by her and her radical friends.

His importance as an Australian bush writer is that he wrote of the realities of the Australian bush, rather than the romanticised version you get from Banjo Paterson. Henry Lawson was born to a struggling family on the goldfields, and his parents’ marriage broke up; as a man who greatly admired his mother, he had a deep appreciation of how hard bush life could be for women, and how strong they needed to be just to survive, let alone thrive. The outback frequently appalled Lawson, and he saw it as a place of suffering.

Yet his perceptions of the bush have helped to shape our identity, and he had a gift for capturing and evoking the national character in just a few words. He stressed the egalitarianism and mateship of the Australian psyche, and championed the underdog and the urban poor. He understood the laconic Australian sense of humour, with its sharp sense of irony.

Lawson’s life was a sad one; he was bullied as a child and never felt that he fit in, his little sister died, his parents split up, he went deaf early in life which increased his sense of isolation, he struggled to gain recognition and find steady work, his marriage was unhappy and mirrored his parents’ by ending in separation, and he drank to ease his sadness which made things worse. He spent time in gaols, convalescent homes, and mental asylums.

It’s tempting to think that he inherited a strain of Nordic gloom from his Scandinavian father, and that depression was at the back of many of his misfortunes. Because of this, last year two men did the Henry Lawson Walk, which re-enacted a walk Lawson took with a friend from Bourke in outback New South Wales to Hungerford in outback Queensland – a trip of around 450 km (280 miles).

They did it to raise awareness and funds for Beyond Blue, the national depression initiative. Beyond Blue has programs which focus on men’s health, alcoholism, and those facing isolation in rural areas – in fact many of the problems suffered by Lawson in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are still being battled today. He is truly one of the moderns, both in life and art.

Name Information
Lawson is an English surname meaning “son of Law”, with Law a popular medieval nickname for the name Lawrence. The name was especially associated with Yorkshire, as the Lawson family was prominent during the War of the Roses. Lawson has been used as a personal name since the 17th century, with use concentrated in the north of England – an apparent legacy of its Yorkshire origins.

It should be noted that Henry Lawson’s father Anglicised his surname from the Norwegian form of the name, Larsen. There is a suburb of Canberra named after Henry Lawson – not to be confused with the town of Lawson in the Blue Mountains. Although Henry Lawson did live in the Blue Mountains at one point, the town is named after the explorer, William Lawson.

In the US, Lawson was especially associated with the southern states: John Lawson explored North Carolina in the 18th century, and Gaines Lawson was a Confederate captain in the American Civil War. Alfred Lawson was a popular philosopher in the Midwest, promoting vegetarianism, the end of banking, and racially integrated baseball; an aviation pioneer, he is cited as the inventor of the airliner, although it immediately crashed.

The name Lawson charted in the US Top 1000 from the late 19th century until World War II, then had a long break from 1950 to 2000. Since then, the name has been steadily going up the charts and is now #485 – the highest the name has been since the early 20th century.

In the UK, the name Lawson has been in the Top 1000 since 2003, and has been climbing since 2010, when the British band Lawson formed. Since their first album came out in 2012, the name has gone up even more steeply, and is now #409.

In Australia, Lawson is in steady use, and perhaps also around the 400s here. It’s a name which pays tribute to the first Australian writer to be given a state funeral, and is less popular and more modern-sounding than his first name, Henry, and fits in with popular names such as Lincoln and Logan.

Historian Manning Clark wrote that Australia was “Lawson writ large”, and this patriotic name honours the man who who been called “the people’s poet”, “our poet-prophet”, and “the real voice of Australia”. It’s a voice that is not always comfortable to hear, but this is a great name for anyone who loves the real Australia, and not an idyllic vision of it.

POLL RESULTS
Lawson received an approval rating of 89%, making it one of the highest rated names of 2012. 39% of people loved the name Lawson, and nobody hated it.

Famous Name: Venus

13 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by A.O. in Famous Names

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

astronomical names, Australian Aboriginal names, Babylonian names, english names, Greek names, Latin names, locational names, mythological names, Norman-French names, Phoenician names, planet names, popular culture, Roman names, ship names, surname names

Last Wednesday was the transit of Venus, the planet taking about six and a half hours to cross the face of the Sun. Most of Australia was in a prime position to view this astronomical event (with special protective glasses, or else streamed live on the Internet so as not to damage our eyes).

Transits of Venus occur in pairs 8 years apart, separated by gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. So the one before this one was in June 2004, and the next one will be in December 2117. I don’t want to be a pessimist, but if you missed this last one, I think you’ve lost your chance to see another.

The transit of Venus is not only a rare and lovely astronomical event, it is also an essential part of Australian history. It was in 1766 that the Royal Society sent Captain James Cook to observe the transit of Venus from the Pacific region. The reason scientists were so keen to get accurate observations was because astronomer Edmond Halley (of Halley’s Comet fame) had suggested that if you measured one of the transits, you could then use the data to figure out the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and thence to work out the distances to all the other bodies in the solar system.

For a variety of reasons, nearly all the scientists sent around the world ran into technical problems, and it was up to Captain Cook to take the observations, which he did in Tahiti in 1769. He then opened his sealed orders from the British Admiralty to find he had been sent on a secret mission to discover the mythical Terra Australis. There was no such place, and discovering New Zealand was a massive disappointment, as it was nowhere near the size the expedition had been hoping for.

Now some men would have gone home, feeling that observing the transit of Venus and discovering New Zealand was enough for one trip. But Captain Cook was made of sterner stuff, and he took it upon himself to become the first European to explore the east coast of Australia, and also to claim it as British territory. His reward was to be given a promotion, and sent back again to look just a bit harder for Terra Australis.

By sailing around diligently discovering places and claiming them for Britain, he was at last able to establish that Terra Australis didn’t exist, although Britain now owned a reasonable sized country it could send convicts to. The maps Cook made in the process were so good that they were still being used in the twentieth century, and the observations he took of the transit of Venus were used to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun with reasonable accuracy.

The planet Venus has an ancient connection to Australia as well, because the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land believe she is an important creator spirit called Banumbirr. Through dawn ceremonies performed with beautifully decorated Morning Star poles, they communicate with their dead ancestors through a rope of light which Banumbirr trails behind her. The ceremony means the ancient Yolngu people must have had enough astronomical knowledge to track the complex motion of Venus, as it rises before dawn only at certain times of the year.

I love stars, and although Venus is a planet, I, like almost everyone else, know it as both the Morning Star and the Evening Star. The brightest object in the night sky after the Moon, Venus is the first light to appear at dusk, and the last to disappear at dawn. In fact, I have often wished on Venus, with that little rhyme which begins, Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight …. Sometimes my wishes came true, sometimes they didn’t! Fickle Venus.

The Babylonians may have been the first to understand that the morning and evening stars were the same object, and called it Ishtar, after their goddess of love, sex, fertility and war. Other cultures followed the tradition, and to the Romans she was Venus; her morning aspect was called Lucifer (“light-bringer”), and her evening one Vesper.

Venus was a Roman goddess of love, beauty, sex, fertility, luck and war; her name is from the Latin word venus, meaning “sexual love, sexual desire”. The word is closely related to venenum, meaning “poison, venom”, which probably demonstrates a certain ambivalence towards passionate love we share today. The word venenum also meant charm, as in a love potion. Falling madly in love with someone can feel as if we have been given some sort of magic potion, and if it all goes wrong, we do indeed feel as awful as if we had swallowed poison instead!

The Romans said that Venus was the mother of Aeneas, the Trojan ancestor of Rome’s founder, Romulus, and therefore the mythological ancestor of the Roman people. The month of April was sacred to her, and she was associated with springtime flowering and the fecundity of nature. Her earliest festivals were ones that celebrated gardens and wine-drinking, and many of her attributes seem to be taken from more ancient goddesses of water and purity. Later on, Venus was identified with the Greek goddess Aphrodite and the Phoenician goddess Astarte.

The beauty of Venus has made her a popular subject in art, especially as it was acceptable (and practically mandatory) to show her nude or semi-nude. Two of the most famous are probably the classical statue, the Venus de Milo, which has the arms missing, and Bottichelli’s painting, The Birth of Venus. To call a woman “a Venus” means that she is beautiful and desirable in a very erotic way.

As well as being a female first name, Venus can be an English surname. It’s not related to the goddess, but is from the Norman-French place name of Venoix, near the city of Caen.

Venus is also a place name; there are two towns in Australia called Venus Bay – one in South Australia and the other in Victoria. Both these fishing villages are named after ships called Venus, which brings us to another intriguing Australian connection to Venus.

It is said that the drinking song, The Good Ship Venus, may have been influenced by actual events, when convicts travelling on the brigantine Venus mutinied and took the ship to New Zealand, becoming Australia’s first pirates. Two of the convicts were female, and there were reports of great immorality aboard ship – a possible inspiration for the song’s bawdy lyrics.

Venus is a rarely used name, but one which evokes both feminine beauty and the twinkle of a lovely “star” which can grant wishes …. sometimes. It’s one which has several connections with Australia, and is deeply woven into our nation’s history and culture. That makes Venus a surprisingly patriotic name choice, although I do feel on this one, we have waltzed far, far beyond Matilda!

(Photo of the transit of Venus from NASA)

	waltzingmorethanmati… on Zarah Zaynab and Wolfgang…
	Madelyn on Zarah Zaynab and Wolfgang…
	drperegrine on Can Phoebe Complete This …
	waltzingmorethanmati… on Rua and Rhoa
	redrover23 on Rua and Rhoa

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Famous Name: Venus