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

[Ormond]

1 minute ago, HoodedCrow said:

Ormond, I know about Mars, the Gospel of Mark, and Marcus. My good friend Mark told me about the forest angle. His family were British and that is what he tells. When can several things be true? I am also above average with phonological shifts:) 

Heavens, just because your friend is named Mark doesn't make him an expert on etymology!  There are tens of thousands of examples of people who have given their own children a name under the mistaken impression that it had an etymological meaning that it didn't.  A lot of baby name books will still tell people Michael meant "God-like" because they don't understand that its original Hebrew meaning. "Who is like God?", was a rhetorical question which meant to the ancient Hebrews that no one could ever be like God. I have known many people named Michael (or Micah) who believed their name meant "God-like". One can truthfully say that their parents named them Michael because they thought it meant "God-like", but it is not true to say that is the name's etymology.

 

 

[HoodedCrow]

I checked his work:) back then.

Oh yes, I get you about Michael. 

[maarsen]

6 hours ago, HoodedCrow said:

Ormond, I know about Mars, the Gospel of Mark, and Marcus. My good friend Mark told me about the forest angle. His family were British and that is what he tells. When can several things be true? I am also above average with phonological shifts:) 

Didn't the Vikings who landed in North America refer to a heavily forested area as Markland? 

[HoodedCrow]

You know Maarsen, it rings a bell. Your name is Dutch, right? Not sure.

 

As well my friend was named Mark because of his pagan parents as a word for forest not for Mars the God. However, the name has multiple derivations, so it is convoluted.

[Ormond]

15 hours ago, maarsen said:

Didn't the Vikings who landed in North America refer to a heavily forested area as Markland? 

Sure. As I said above, Old Norse is the language where the original meaning of "boundary, border" for the Germanic word mark or mork shifted to "forest". 

[maarsen]

14 hours ago, HoodedCrow said:

You know Maarsen, it rings a bell. Your name is Dutch, right? Not sure.

 

As well my friend was named Mark because of his pagan parents as a word for forest not for Mars the God. However, the name has multiple derivations, so it is convoluted.

Yeah, maarsen is Dutch. The lower case m is from when I first joined and I typed it in wrong, liked the look and kept it.

[Ormond]

14 hours ago, HoodedCrow said:

You know Maarsen, it rings a bell. Your name is Dutch, right? Not sure.

 

As well my friend was named Mark because of his pagan parents as a word for forest not for Mars the God. However, the name has multiple derivations, so it is convoluted.

If they had had the courage of their convictions, they should have named him Forest instead of giving him a name which really has a completely different derivation in English speaking culture and then claiming it's "really" pagan instead of Christian because they found a different meaning in another language. They were really hiding their beliefs instead of proclaiming them by naming him Mark. 

It's probable if one did a little research one could find a different meaning for almost ay word in another language somewhere. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Ormond

[HoodedCrow]

Well, they liked the name Mark and so does he:) His parents were not flashy and did not practice anything especially. They were bright, lovely people, whose anscestors were from the Danelaw. Mark is one of the nicest people that I know. He has done some very brave things. He is not attracted to me, and we can be friends. His lack of religiosity is a plus!

You know what is Pagan? A Christmas tree!

 

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/its-clear-why-claire-remains-a-popular-name/article_59f0e558-489b-11ec-8f85-d782f597bec0.html

Claire is clearly an "older" name in the UK than the USA. The average Claire in England & Wales is now 46, while the average American Claire is still a child.

Since Claire reached #1 status in England and Wales, I would assume it is also less "class-marked" there than it is in the USA. To reach #1 some working class parents in Britain must have been using it. In the USA, Claire is about the most "class-marked" common name of the last 40 years. College-educated parents have been extremely fond of it, while those with only a high school dipoloma or less have avoided it. I think Claire probably has a "stuck-up" image for blue collar Americans. 

[Ormond]

For some reason the World-Herald did not put my column which was published on December 5 up on their Omaha.com website until an hour ago, 8 days later. Here it finally is:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-in-song-or-in-prayer-maria-is-beloved-by-many/article_5fe3ba92-5c2f-11ec-9d4d-0b425972e9af.html

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column -- only about 8 hours late instead of 8 days.

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/from-stage-to-screen-to-athletics-evan-celebrates-pop-culture-popularity/article_73fcef26-5de2-11ec-b594-9b9749df690c.html

[Ormond]

Here's the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-sports-music-and-works-of-fiction-helped-popularize-andre/article_aa50b7f8-6290-11ec-899b-0fdfe26707a6.html

[Ormond]

Here is today's column. I think part of Aaliyah's second boom after 2008 was due to its being taken up by many Hispanic parents.

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-aaliyahs-popularity-rose-with-superstar-singers-fame/article_3b261148-73d9-11ec-88b1-cb48f8868a6c.html

[Ormond]

Here is the link to my annual column on the American Name Society's Names of the Year. Please remember that we vote for these on the basis of what names in the culture last year most showed the importance of names and naming itself. It is not an endorsement of the use of the name. 

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-2021-names-of-the-year/article_38172dea-7eae-11ec-876c-4b9854f75c83.html

[HoodedCrow]

Vladimir Guerrero makes me smile unreasonably. Thanks for post.

[Ormond]

For anyone interested, here is a link to an article on naming from Atlantic that quotes me. One thing that didn't get in to the article is the fact that this increase in name variety is not just an American phenomenon but has occurred throughout the English-speaking world and in many European countries.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/02/most-popular-baby-names-unique/621491/?fbclid=IwAR1TCWLwlOda0lySHm3Lf5DisRDOeBb4BQeB7fC-kUtvYQ8k2IjbJa35Cf0

[kiko]

On 11/21/2021 at 7:23 PM, Ormond said:

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/its-clear-why-claire-remains-a-popular-name/article_59f0e558-489b-11ec-8f85-d782f597bec0.html

Claire is clearly an "older" name in the UK than the USA. The average Claire in England & Wales is now 46, while the average American Claire is still a child.

Since Claire reached #1 status in England and Wales, I would assume it is also less "class-marked" there than it is in the USA. To reach #1 some working class parents in Britain must have been using it. In the USA, Claire is about the most "class-marked" common name of the last 40 years. College-educated parents have been extremely fond of it, while those with only a high school dipoloma or less have avoided it. I think Claire probably has a "stuck-up" image for blue collar Americans. 

Apologies to all the Claires on the board, but this name always reminds me of the joke pointing out the issues with choosing foreign sounding names (kevinism).

"How to you plan to name your child?" "Claire". "You should really reconsider that choice, Frau Grube". (It would sound exactly like the word for septic tank)

I am certainly not always happy with my Irish name. I definitely like it but people here never pronounce it right no matter how often I tell them how I want it pronounced, which is btw also not how the Irish or Anglo phones would pronounce it. 

[Ormond]

Here's the link to today's column, on a nickname that's occasionally given as an official first name.

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-sonny-a-famous-nickname-with-a-long-lineage/article_d08ee30a-89b8-11ec-b317-436116c986ec.html

[Ormond]

Below is the link to today's column. 

The editor introduced a sublte inaccuracy. I had written that the name of the French village Arcy meant 'Bear's place" but that got changed to "bear's place." As I understand it, the village was not somewhere bears lived, but where a man whose name or nickname was based on the ancient Gaulish word for "bear" lived.

https://omaha.com/cleveland-evans-darci-rooted-in-old-english-aristocracy/article_948177e6-9580-11ec-bab8-cf5d37ee1805.html

And also, i was really surprised to see how much more Darcy had been used for boys in Canada than the USA -- those NHL players named Darcy were the majority of the famous men with Darcy as a given name I found through Google. The best-known American male Darcy is Darcy Paquet, an expert on Korean cinema now known for having written the English subtitles for the film "Parasite." 

Any Canadians reading this know why Darcy was so well-used as a male name in Canada?

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Ormond

[HoodedCrow]

Yes, indeed, Mark is a Roman name( Marcus) for the God Mars, but for others, it is one of the Gospel writers, and a name that means a forest for some people who are not Latinized.