Daft names

[steveo]

I just heard a kid call his mate 'Ned.' That's a pretty old fashioned name whose time has come again seemingly.

My gran was called Bertha (Bert) and her brothers were Ernest, Hubert, Fred and Walter. Are those names you hear in the school playground these days?

Could a proud parent look down into a cot and say 'Let's call her Bert'? Clarence? Winifred?

[siousxiesue]

It's a thing. Elsie. Olive. Noah, etc, lots of 'old fashioned names are making a comeback.

[Nigello]

Way back in the mid-eighties, a teacher decided to call her son "Jack". It sounded really contradictory to me because she was a teacher, and therefore "posh" and I thought that name was very working class. Perhaps this was one of the first examples of a return to "traditional" names. Some names are revivable, but I cannot see any Beryls, Berts, Mabels or Peggys coming along anytime soon.

Someone I know is going much further back than that, having called their son "Aleric" - apparently a pre-mediaeval name from England.

[Milan05]

I know an 'Elias', ancient Greek.

[stringvest]

Heard lots of old fashioned names lately : Alfie, Albert, Rose, Elsie, Maud, Ruby ,,,,

[Seabag]

The football grounds of South London are awash with Frankie's, Billy's and Alfie's

Eltham specially, along with that stoopid Peaky Blinder haircut

[kristymac1]

I have a 4yr old Fred, named after his Grandad...

[Robert Poste's Child]

Seabag Wrote:

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> The football grounds of South London are awash

> with Frankie's, Billy's and Alfie's

>

> Eltham specially, along with that stoopid Peaky

> Blinder haircut

You want to go to Birmingham: Peaky Blinders chic everywhere.

[Robert Poste's Child]

This thread reminds me of Alan Bennett's piece on names dying out, trying to imagine modern names as old people: 'Psis doesn't trickle unheeded down a Nicky's leg...'

[jaywalker]

Yes, these are becoming seriously fashionable.

From my childhood: mildred (who quickly adopted 'millie' as much more thoroughly modern :-)), olive, florence, doris, elsie, and mould (sic) - the last apparently a contraction of mathilda.

[????]

I had great Aunts - Enid, Ada, Doris (Dolly) some of these are coming back and my granddad was an Arch which seemed archaic but Archie is back with a vengence, Meanwhile very common names from my playground years that seem rare in young kids: Kevin, Andrew, Keith, Adrian, Nigel, Jane, Janice, Nicola

[siousxiesue]

Milan05 Wrote:

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> I know an 'Elias', ancient Greek.

I saw a Dad running after his toddler recently, calling out 'Plato, Plato'

[Seabag]

siousxiesue Wrote:

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> Milan05 Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > I know an 'Elias', ancient Greek.

>

>

> I saw a Dad running after his toddler recently,

> calling out 'Plato, Plato'

That is very funny. When naming our 2 boys I imagined myself shouting thier names in our nearby park.

I do wonder at some people when naming children/pets. My neighbor is from Downham or 'Dannhmm' and has a Haley, Kayla, and an Aimee, as well as a dog called Bailey.

It's quite the thing when she gives them all a call in one go.

[Milan05]

I have just now seen a Dad trying to persuade Julius off the bouncy castle at Goose Green - maybe he knows Plato?! It could really be an ancient revival!

[Robert Poste's Child]

Not sure if those count as a revival - perhaps more a sign of how the ED demographic has changed over the last couple of decades? Classical names have long been a favourite of the upper middles / intelligentsia to overcome the apparent handicap of a normal surname like Smith or Green.

[malumbu]

Met a Zebedee a few years ago. I cracked up and was tempted to ask about the Magic Roundabout. It's a generation thing and the youngster hadn't a clue where I was coming from. As with many things it is what you associate a name with from your yonger days. Harry was Harry worth the comic, and was a very old fashioned name. Now one of the most popular no doubt due to a certain character in a popular book. My dad was 'Guy' we hated it, he hated it yet in the 50s there was a famous hunky actor (Guy Maddison) that popularised it. Now Guy is a really cool game.

The odd ones were names interchanged between the genders - I know a Lee (girl) Tracy (boy) and Dale (girl). There was also a boy named Sue and a girl called Johnny. Sometimes it works (eg Bertie) and Robyn's in the US are girls, rather than the usual boy Robin.

You don't hear of many Leslies or Lesleys nowadays.

[Otta]

I think this largely ties in with the whole middle class cupcake and bunting thing.

Weird IMO.

Not that there is anything wrong with some of the names.

As a teenager I had a girlfriend called Nell. Never met anyone else my age or below with that name, but met several elderly Nells when I worked for social services.

[Robert Poste's Child]

Ruby's another one that's come back in the last ten years and now seems really popular. To my generation it was firmly linked to grandparents.

A few more names that seemed to be in every class when I was at at school but which you don't hear people calling babies now: Susan, Jane, Mary, Anne, Nicola, Jacqueline, Joanna.

[uncleglen]

Nigello's teacher was probably naming her son after 'Jack' Straw the then Shadow Education secretary. Given the climate in teaching at the time I'm surprised there were not a load of Karls out there....

[malumbu]

Worked with a Nicola who married a Mr Nicholls. And a Lynn who became Lynn Flynn. A Ms Cunze (German name) who probably couldn't wait to change her name. And a friend who's maried name became Bowel, and they changed it to Bowl. A bit like Keeping up Appearances, the sitcome where the name was pronounced Bouquet not Bucket. Which leads me onto Penge pronounced in a Frech style (the fun we had with Sarf London names in the 80s and 90s.

[malumbu]

And I genuinely worked with a Mike Cox (not Hunt)

[rendelharris]

Thread calls to mind the always superb Half Man Half Biscuit and their song "Breaking News"; included in their list of people arrested for "annoying the nation":

A woman who described herself as ?A little bit Bridget, a little bit Ally, a little bit Sex And The City? and chose to call her baby boy Fred as a childishly rebellious attempt at a clever reaction to those who might have expected her to call him Julian or Rupert. Bit of advice: call him Rupert, it fits, and besides it?s a good name. Don?t be calling him Fred or Archie, with all its cheeky but lovable working class scamp connotations, unless you really do have plans for him to spend his life in William Hill?s waiting for them to weigh in at Newton Abbot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBM_MIT9EOM

[jaywalker]

Suggested names for the nouvelle vague:

xeno (phobe)

pluto (as in 'Pluto's Republic')

verbena (as in 'Lemon')

idy (as in March)

dull (from Dulwich)

free (as in 'free cash' on cash dispensers)

[siousxiesue]

uncleglen Wrote:

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> Nigello's teacher was probably naming her son

> after 'Jack' Straw the then Shadow Education

> secretary. Given the climate in teaching at the

> time I'm surprised there were not a load of Karls

> out there....

A while back a work colleague named her baby son Fidel

[siousxiesue]

How about names that you have an unreasonably irate reaction to?

A cute toddler I see frequently is called Jasper, I discovered this and was dismayed.

And sorry but Simeon? Hate it