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Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Friday, January 15, 2010

What's in a Name?

A couple of observations about people and their names ...

I happened to be flipping through one of those ubiquitous women's magazines while waiting for some person or other to deign to serve me, when I happened upon yet another article about Our Nic and Our Keith and their little girl, Sunday Rose, and it got me thinking about the days of the week as names, and why some days are popular and others don't rate a mention.

F'r instance, we have the aforementioned Sunday Rose Urban; those of us who can remember the 60s will recall Tuesday Weld; those who landed on Earth a little later will be familiar with Wednesday from the Addams Family (so named because she was "full of woe" as is Wednesday's child). Then we all know Robinson Crusoe's mate, Man Friday, but have you ever come across a person or character called Saturday or Thursday, and if not, why not?

And we come across a similar mystery regarding the months -- April, May and June are all popular girls' names; we can stretch it a bit and say that July (Julie) is a common name, as is Auguste (for a boy), but where are the Februaries, the Septembers and the Decembers?

Hmmm?

And that brings us to 7, one of our Merry Band, whose legal name is the numeral 7 (not the word "Seven").

Do you have an unusual name?

Have you given your children unusual names?

Do you know anyone who has a name best forgotten?

Click the Comments button to tell your tale!

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thursday Next is the main character of a mystery/fantasy series by Jasper Fforde.

http://www.jasperfforde.com/

Thursday's mother is named Wednesday, her grandmother, Tuesday, and her son, Friday.

A. M. Hook
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Fri Jan 22, 10:18:00 am AEST  
Anonymous Holliday Rohrbaugh said...

My first name is Holliday. The first question people ask is if I was born on a holiday(I wasn't). The second question people ask is how I got that name.

The day before my mother went into labor she was watching television and there was a James Cagney movie on and the female lead character was named Holiday. She never got the name of the movie. So, for years when I gave the explanation I would have to say I didn't know the name of the movie. One person suggested I search it on the Internet.

Well, turns out James Cagney made a ton of movies, but I was persistent and found it. "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye". I haven't yet seen it though.

Fri Jan 22, 09:58:00 pm AEST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Baron Samedi (his name is the French word for "Saturday") is one of the chief figures in Haitian Voudou.

He appeared in the James Bond film "Live and Let Die", played by Geoffrey Holder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Samedi

Sat Jan 23, 12:58:00 am AEST  
Blogger elysabeth said...

Since I'm spelling my name differently (Elysabeth instead of Elizabeth) I get asked now more than ever how to pronounce that. It's the same pronounciation but a different spelling.

My son's middle name is Eiseley (my husband picked that as Loren Eiseley is one of his idols - who knows I'm not a big sci-fi fan or anything to do with all that stuff). My daughter's name is Hailie Brockington. Hy grandmother Elizabeth Brockington Alford McMaster and I always liked the name Brockington and had decided if I had a girl she would be named Brockington. My husband argued it was a long name and I wouldn't have anything to put wih it as a middle name, so Hailie just popped up from nowhere (partly from Hayley Mills) and of course I wanted to spell things a little differently (yep, you guessed it Hailie is not the traditional spelling and you can't find anything with that spelling on it). Of course when you pronounce her name, folks automatically start spelling it as Haley or other ways - and even when I spell it for them, they still tend to misspell it - HaLLie, and other spellings.

I wish I had kept her first name as Brockington, it's a lot easier to spell - lol.

But that's my run with unusual spellings.

Is anyone named Monday? Thanks for sharing this interesting tidbit - E ;)

Sat Jan 23, 01:04:00 am AEST  

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