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

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-like-elvis-costello-asks-has-veronica-gone-to-hide/article_d8c3fdb2-b37e-11ed-9d93-07a50e1eb22b.html

I did NOT write the sentence about Elvis Costello's song "propping up" Veronica. That was inserted by an editor. Obviously somebody at the newspaper is a big fan of that song. Though the song is a great example of the use of the name, it did NOT particularly "prop up" the use of the name. If anything, the drop in Veronica between 1989 and 1990 was bigger than average. So I am a little miffed at them introducing a minor inaccuracy into what I wrote.

[Ormond]

Here's the link to today's column. Brendan, like Aidan, turns out to be an Irish name which was almost nonexistent for babies for a couple of centuries and then was revived by Irish nationalists in the late 19th century.

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-brendans-popularity-starts-in-its-irish-roots/article_0c079e7e-be04-11ed-b157-cf4d28defc6a.html

[Ormond]

Here's the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-dee-or-day-dont-judge-sandra-by-her-name/article_9c02f172-c97b-11ed-86d6-cfa503a0318c.html

[Ormond]

Here's the link to today's column. It was interesting to see how about a century ago Marius was fairly common in Denmark and Norway, but at that point doesn't seem to have been used much in Sweden.

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-mario-has-a-real-life-heroic-history/article_129e2772-d479-11ed-96fd-f3464d13acc3.html

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-baby-boomers-boost-valeries-popularity/article_8c4e6868-df7b-11ed-8e5c-9f8bb6e0d554.html

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/search/?sd=desc&l=25&s=start_time&f=html&t=article%2Cvideo%2Cyoutube%2Ccollection&app=editorial&nsa=eedition&q=darren

This is one where I really think my research for the column found some brand new information on the origin of the name. Many baby name books will claim Darren as a given name is from the extremely rare Irish surname, but I found no evidence in my research that that was true.  Instead the original common spelling of the given name seems to have been Daren, and it came from the 1922 novel Day of the Beast by Zane Grey. Then the spelling Darren became the most common one because of the fame of actor Darren McGavin, whose name at birth was William Lyle Richardson. 

It is fascinating to me how the US TV sitcom "Bewitched" caused thousands of babies to be named Darren and Samantha in Great Britain.  Both of these names seem to have originated in North America, and yet in the 1970s were much more popular in the UK than they were in the USA.  It's a very good example of the influence of American pop culture on British society.

[Maltaran]

Does Darren have any particular class indicators in the US? Because to me it’s one of those names that lets you assume the person is almost certainly working class and middle aged and probably voted for Brexit.

[Ormond]

7 hours ago, Maltaran said:

Does Darren have any particular class indicators in the US? Because to me it’s one of those names that lets you assume the person is almost certainly working class and middle aged and probably voted for Brexit.

I think Darren probably skews a bit toward working class in the USA, but not as much as it does in the UK.  Educated parents in the USA would not have avoided it to the extent those in the UK did, because it was not as completely associated with one TV situation comedy in the USA as it would have been in the UK.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I think Darren probably skews a bit toward working class in the USA, but not as much as it does in the UK.  Educated parents in the USA would not have avoided it to the extent those in the UK did, because it was not as completely associated with one TV situation comedy in the USA as it would have been in the UK.

Sad how something so silly can affect people. Just for example, we're not making Richards anymore and it's probably because parents don't want their kid to be called Dick. I'd never pick Darren as my son's name, but it's not a bad one. An old friend from when we were kids could stop posting uber cliché quotes on Facebook all the time though. 

Anyways, time for a new thread, and as always, love your articles and keep posting them.