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Names: My newspaper column: now featuring The Old Man and the most famous spouse of witch


Ormond
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On 9/20/2017 at 6:14 AM, Maltaran said:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-41160596

UK top 10 baby names for last year. Notable point for this board is 69 girls named Khaleesi

Thanks for the link! It's interesting that the previous year's data for England & Wales don't come out until the next September while the American data from SSA come out in May--

It's also striking to me how much more difference there is between the top ten boys' list in Britain and America right now vs. that for girls. For girls, Isla and Jessica are the only names on your top ten list which were not in the top 25 USA list for 2016. And Jessica is not in our top 25 because we had Jessica as hugely popular way before the UK -- our Jessicas are now the young mothers giving birth. Jessica was the #1 name for girls born in the USA between 1985 and 1995.

For boys, though, Harry, George, Jack, Charlie, Thomas, and Oscar, as well as Muhammad, are not in the American top 25. With Jack that's mostly a matter of American parents being reluctant to put a one syllable form on a birth certificate; Jackson is overwhelmingly popular here. But despite all the publicity we get about the British royal family, it seems most Americans still see Harry and George as being elderly names that aren't suitable for a baby boy. 

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Here is the link to today's column:

http://www.omaha.com/living/evans-tanya-tonya-are-survivors/article_3c5e17cb-0083-53f2-b2d9-42214c5a07ae.html

They edited out the information that although H. Rider Haggard's novel is set in Africa, the 1935 film shifted Ayesha's kingdom to Siberia, which may partly explain the use of "Tanya" for the new character.

Also, I should point out that Tania has been extensively used in Latin America. 

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Ormond!  How wonderful to see you still here.  And still writing your wonderful column on names.  I've been gone for literally years - quite busy on the tenure track at Monmouth University.  I've go more time to do fun things now like read your column.

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1 hour ago, LindaElane said:

Ormond!  How wonderful to see you still here.  And still writing your wonderful column on names.  I've been gone for literally years - quite busy on the tenure track at Monmouth University.  I've go more time to do fun things now like read your column.

Nice to have you back! Are you a math professor or did I misremember your field?

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Here's today's column. I wish I'd had time to mention several others Kevins -- Sorbo, Corcoran, Dobson, etc.
Plus the opinion of Kevin in continental Europe is even worse than what the editor left in the column. Some other quotes about it I found were "Kevin's not a name, it's a diagnosis" and (in Germany) "only Easterners and druggies are named Kevin." That of course is mostly the result of class prejudice, since working class parents in continental Europe were much more likely to name sons Kevin than those of higher social status.

http://www.omaha.com/living/evans-ke...d38efd1cd.html

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Here is the link to my column on Mildred. Unfortunately the editor cut out some of what I wrote, including a famous quote about Mildred from "Of Human Bondage" where Philip calls Mildred an "odious, pretentious" name (though he's about to fall in love with the Mildred in the novel.)

Also, the editor cut out my last sentence, which was . "Or perhaps Mildith and Milbrey will finally get their day in the sun." I rather like Mildith and Milbrey myself.  

http://www.omaha.com/living/evans-gentle-mildred-waits-patiently-for-revival/article_222f0f6e-a3a2-5a64-b63c-1eb98493ebfd.html

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9 hours ago, Hereward said:

Millie is  popular in the UK in its own right, but most girls known as Millie are christened as Amelias, Emilias, Emilys or even Millicents, so the link with Mildred in the article seems a bit tangential.

Well, another sentence the editor excised from what I originally wrote (occurring at the end of the paragraph about what people posted on babynames.com and behindthename.com) was:

Those who knew young girls called Millie said they were officially “Amelia,” “Mila,” or “Camilla,” if not just plain Millie.

Leslie Dunkling's Everyman's Dictionary of First Names (a 1983 British book) says Millie is "a pet form of Mildred or Millicent used independently" , and "in some cases girls called Amelia or Emily were addressed by this name." 

So I think Millie was originally from Mildred and Millicent and the connection with Amelia etc. came later.

Also, though there certainly are young American girls called Millie now with Amelia or Camilla on the birth certificate, I think Americans are less likely to use pet forms which are NOT based on the first syllable than the British are. I have been told that Fred has been commonly used as a short form for Alfred in England, but I think most Americans would be really surprised to meet a Fred whose official given name was not Frederick.

Plus, Mildred was a lot more popular in the USA than it was in Britain during the first part of the 20th century. It was never a top ten name in England like it was in the USA. A much higher percentage of Americans than Britons would remember grandmothers or great-aunts named Mildred, so Americans would probably be more likely to assume a Millie was a Mildred on that basis.

Edited by Ormond
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Here's the link to today's column. I was surprised at just how many famous Walters I found -- I wasn't even able to mention Walter Winchell, though I guess most people under 40 wouldn't recognize him as a famous person any more. :)

http://www.omaha.com/living/evans-walter-weathers-name-s-ebbs-flows/article_cce9c69f-7c71-5a8e-9fdd-6256a6075ea1.html

 

 

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Here's the link to today's column:

http://www.omaha.com/living/evans-jacob-enjoyed-long-run-as-top-baby-name/article_8424dd46-ebf3-53f9-a5d9-c827d34daddd.html

Gyllenhaal's father is of Swedish descent, and his mother is Jewish, so Jacob was a good choice to reflect both their backgrounds. 

I wonder how many regular participants on this board have sons named Jacob?

 

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Here is the link to the column that was published today. I wrote this column to appear on Tuesday, as usual. That today was Scott Frost's birthday was just a coincidence -- but the editor decided to delay the column until today so that it would be published on his birthday! Just another indication about how obsessed most Nebraskans are with Frost right now. Many think there is no way he will be able to live up to the expectations being put on him. It certainly shows how important Cornhusker football is to Nebraska.

http://www.omaha.com/living/evans-with-frost-s-return-to-nebraska-the-name-scott/article_73aae1d6-f0ae-11e7-9ca0-9368c1407ce6.html

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Here is my annual column on the American Name Society's Names of the Year vote.

http://www.omaha.com/living/evans-rohingya-is-a-name-worth-remembering/article_2d63a550-4d5f-5820-bb84-0184f8834d82.html

We had so many nominees that I couldn't fit into the column several which did not get any votes from the floor during the meeting. Among those were Cassini-Huygens (the spacecraft that was directed to crash into Saturn after 20 years of exploring the Saturn system), and Javanka (the blended name for Jared & Ivanka Kushner).

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