Sibset of the Week: The Redmonds & Regises

Derek Redmond from the famed 1992 race, from bbc.co.uk

Today we’re looking back into sport history, specifically to the 1991 World Championships when 4 plucky Brits grabbed gold from under the noses of Team USA in the men’s 4x400m relay.

The two members of that squad whom we’re specifically looking at today are Derek Redmond and John Regis.

Aside from that 1991 race, there’s another one that Derek Redmond is particularly well-known for – and it happened at an Olympics Game. Specifically the 1992 Barcelona games.

In the semi-final of the 400m his hamstring snapped. This didn’t stop him though, up he got and off he hobbled to the finish aided by his father. It’s since become a famed Olympics incident.

Incidently, Papa Redmond was one of the many torchbearers during the London 2012 Olympic flame relay.

The reason I picked Redmond and Regis out was because both had children with other athletes, which makes the families doubly notable.

In the case of Redmond, he has two children with former swimmer Sharron Davies, who won gold at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The names of their children are:

Elliott Anthony, 1993

Grace Elizabeth, 1998

Both pretty typical names, but you can’t knock the classics.

Then we have John Regis, who is married sprinter Jennifer Stoute. She won gold at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in the 4x400m relay, and together they have two daughters:

Alicia Jazmin, 2001

Renee Stefani, 2005

Certainly more modern in style than the previous two, but perfectly suited for one another.

Cricket Days

Snapped by me at cricket

Cricket is a massive sport here in the UK, and it’s a crime that it’s not included in the Olympics 😉

So why am I talking about the sport? Well, I have a younger brother who plays cricket with a team and since I passed my driving exam about 2 months ago now I’ve been the one to ferry him around to various training sessions and games.

Of course, I’ve come to learn a lot about names and perception of names amongst the 13ish year olds of the UK since I always seemed to be sat next the the man keeping score, who uses the players first names rather than surnames.

I’d like to therefore share with you some rather interesting exchanges/findings, and the first one may surprise a few.

Remember the belief that using a popular name will mean ease of spelling? Forget it. At this week’s game, it was a 12 year old keeping score under the watchful eye of his Grandad, and the next kid up to bat was called Jacob. Oh yes my friends, he queried as to how to spell the name that has now ranked at #1 for boys in the USA for many years.

However, I have my own mini-theory on this, which namely involved the Polish. You see, with the influx of people immigrating to the UK from Eastern European countries such as Poland, that brings with you an increased exposure to Polish names at school. I remember sharing a physics classroom with a lad named Bartek, but just don’t ask me how to say his name. Getting to the point, the only Jacob I know is a Polish lad named Jakub.

Thinking about it, though, Jakub and Jacob are said differently; Jakub is said more like YAH-kuwp, not JAY-kub.

The other thing I wanted to mention was the name Elliott. I’ve sat and watched my brother play against at least 3-4 other teams and every single one seemed to have at least one player named Elliott.

So I went and took a look at the 1999 data for England, and there Elliott is at #95. Since then he has fallen outside the England Top 100, and currently ranks at #130 for England&Wales.

That’s still not rare, though.

The last thing I wanted to mention is that these aren’t boys only teams, just boy-dominated ones. The only two girls I’ve seen in the teams this year are called Sashi and Kayley.

Sashi is an interesting one because it’s not a nickname for Sasha, rather, a legit female name from dear India. It is a slight variant of Shashi, which is a traditional word for moon in Sanskrit.

The name rather reminded me of the male name Sachin, as in, the famed Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. He’s considered to be one of the greatest batsmen of all time. The name means pure in Sanskrit.

I would end this post by saying this: it’s not only Olympic sports that are a great source of names.

But I’m sure many of you already knew that, indeed, I highly recommend you go take a peek at Ren’s blog, which has spent the last few weeks running a series on names from the MLB, whilst Gabby has recently set up a blog and is covering names from the NFL.

Name Spot of the Week: Sailing Across the Sea

The Team GB Sailing Team for 2012, from dailymail.co.uk

A few days ago the Team GB sailing team was announced for the 2012 London Olympics. I’ll admit that I’m a rower, not a sailor – I was one of the many Brits who had never heard of the Yngling class of sailing until we won a gold medal in it at Beijing. For the 2010 Olympics, it’s being replaced by the Elliott 6m. Other names of sailing classes?

We have the Finn class which has been dominated by Ben Ainslie in the past few years. By coincidence, he’s been covered in much detail over at My Advice this week. A quick selection of the names of other classes in the world of sailing gives us: Tempest, Soling, Dragon, Firefly, Corsair and Buzz. If any sailors read this post, and are offended that I’ve missed out their class, I’ll repeat that I’m no expert in sailing, so feel free to add your own list in the comments section and put me to shame.

Sticking firmly to the sailing theme, the names of the sailers which have been selected are quite interesting – the stand out one for me being Saskia Clark. The other selected few were, in alphabetical order:

Andrew Simpson

Annie Lush

Ben Ainslie

Bryony Shaw

Hannah Mills

Iain Percy

Kate MacGregor

Lucy MacGregor

Nick Dempsey

I’ve been hoarding Metro newspapers for the past fortnight of so, not just because I’ve yet to have time to the sudokus, but because I keep forgetting I’m holding them until it’s too late and I’m off the bus. Something I’ve been wanting to mention for awhile, though, is the name of one of the characters on it’s cartoon page: Nemi.

I have been reading the articles in the Metro though, and there was a new story in the Metro this week about a family who built their own ‘hobbit house’ in four months for a couple of grand. The creative parents behind the project, Simon and Jasmine Dale, have two young children: Cosmo and Elsie.

I casually mentioned Warby Parker as an inspiration behind a Names of the Week post from the start of the month, and this week Kristen over at Marginamia went one step further, bringing you the names of the entire collection.

Dancing with the Stars kicked off in the States this week, whilst we’re still waiting for Strictly Come Dancing to begin here in the UK. Not that I watch it, since dancing is for girls 😉 Either way, a quick rundown of some of the notable names of professionals who’ve taken part in the series at some stage or another:

Aliona Vilani

Anton du Beke

Artem Chigvintsev

Erin Boag

Flavia Cacace

Izabela Hannah

Jared Murillo

Katya Virshilas

Lilia Kopylova

Ola Jordan

Pasha Kovalev

Ice Hockey is more of my thing, even though I don’t own a season ticket as my Uncle does. I tagged along with him to the Panthers game last night, so now seems an apt time to mention that we have a player named Guillaume. I love the name Guillaume, sometimes more than William, sometimes less (Guillaume is the French form of William). For the confused, it’s gee-OM.

Let’s end on a cheery note by mentioning Nook’s list of names meaning wealth, good fortune, success of happiness – inspired by a look into the rune name Feoh. Tomiko? Aston? Love.