Name Spot of the Week: The Fool Strikes Again

Contestant from Junior Bake Off, Stanley, from eadt.co.uk

You’d think I’d be a pro at this blogging malarkey nowadays, but I somehow managed to leave for work last night without clicking the publish button. Since I didn’t actually get back until past midnight, I decided to be lazy and go to bed rather than provide you with your daily fix. Patience is a virtue, as my father would always annoying remind me, so hopefully I still have some readers out there 😉

Either way, onto the post. I caught another glimpse of Junior Bake Off this week, the kid-orientated version of BBC’s smash hit The Great British Bake Off. The one I watched a few minutes of the other day featured four young ‘uns named Jacob, Katie, Conal and Coco-Nina. Some other notable names from the series include:

Aasiya

Amari (m)

Galway

Hari

Joy

Kai

Marie

Saffron

Sangita

Stanley

Sylvia

Zyta

Speaking of television, there was a girl named Charis this week on Pointless who pronounced the first syllable of her name like one would say the first syllable of Karen. There was also a Lauren and Lauren III pairing who were both male, which reminds me that Laurence is a female name in France. On the subject of the French, Bree stole my heart with her list of French word names earlier on this week.

It’s slightly late, but Kate Silverton welcomed a daughter she named Clemency Florence Rose recently. David Cameron famously welcomed Florence Rose Endellion earlier last year, so Florence Rose is clearly a combination to keep an eye on. I’m still not entirely sure which name I prefer out of the two, given that I love both. There are plenty of -ce names out there right now, such as Alice and Beatrice, which are enjoying plenty of popularity.

My favourite outraged Daily Mail article of late has been about a couple’s messy divorce. A couple with four daughters named Arabella, Kitty, Lucy and Georgia. They also have a son with the delightfully complicated Ruaraidh.

11/11/11 UPDATE

There’s a girl on the news called Birdy. How apt given ‘yesterdays’ post!

Babies in the early ’90s

Let’s number-crunch. Courtesy of my sister, I got my hands on the class lists for her year (grade) at school. The names totalled around 150, and when we factor in the sixth form class list, who are two years older, we have a reasonably sized data covering popular baby names for catholics (catholic school) in England in the early 1990s:

British Babies Born Circa 1990-1994

BOYS – ALPHABETICALLY

Aidan +Aiden

Alexander x3 +Alistair +Alisdair

Andrew x2

Ashley x2

Benjamin x2 +Ben

Bryn +Finn

Christopher x2

Connor +Conor

David x4

Hugo +Hugh +Huw

Jack x5

Jacob +Jakub

James x7

John +Jonathan

Joseph x7 +Joe

Joshua x2

Frederick + Freddie

Matthew x2 +Matteaus

Michael x4

Ryan x2

Theodore +Theo

Thomas x7

William x2 +Liam x2

BOYS – NUMERICALLY (3 or more)

Joseph et al = 8

James = 7

Thomas = 7

Daniel = 6

Alexander et al = 5

Jack = 5

Michael = 4

William et al = 4

Benjamin et al = 3

Hugo et al = 3

Matthew et al = 3

GIRLS – ALPHABETICALLY

Alexandra x2 +Alexa

Alice x2 +Alicia

Amy x2

Ana + Anne +Joanne +Leanne +Rhian +Roxanne

Beatrice +Beatrix x2

Cara +Clare +Clara

Caroline +Karolina

Chloe x3

Eleanor x3 +Ellen x2 +Helen x2 +Helena

Elizabeth +Eliza

Emma x2 +Emily

Esther +Esme

Eugenie x2

Frances x2

Hannah x2

Hayley x2

Jennifer x3

Jessica x3

Kathryn +Catherine +Katie x2

Laura x5 +Lauren

Lucy x4

Lily x2 +Lila +Lillian +Lilia

Maria x2 +Marie

Molly +Mollie

Natasha +Sasha x2

Olivia x3

Sarah +Sara

Sophie x3

Vanessa x2

GIRLS – NUMERICALLY (3 or more)

Eleanor et al = 8

Ana et al = 6

Lily et al =5

Kathryn et al = 4

Lucy = 4

Alexandra et al = 3

Beatrice et al = 3

Cara et al = 3

Chloe = 3

Emma et al = 3

Jennifer = 3

Jessica = 3

Natasha et al = 3

Olivia = 3

Philippa = 3

Sophie = 3

MALE/FEMALE

Daniel x6 +Danielle

George x2 +Georgina

Harry +Hattie +Harriet

Phillip +Philippa x3

Valentino +Valentina

THE IRISH GANG

Sean x2 +Shaun +Sian

Sinead +Seamus +Roisin +Bronagh +Lorcan +Ciara x2 +Niall

Patrick x2

THE NOTABLES

The prevalence of Irish names is not taken as uncommon in a catholic school.

Jack was outnumbered by several names: Joseph, James and Thomas. He began his stay at the top of the UK Top 100 list at the end of the decade. Two of the Jacks had the same surname.

Both of the Ashley’s, born when America embraced the name as a female one, were male.

The Eugenie’s were born just after Princess Eugenie, and the Beatrice/trixes born after Princess Eugenie’s sister: Princess Beatrice.

Non of the Lucy’s were a Lucille, Lucienne etc. They were all just Lucy.

The Emma’s outnumbered the Emily.

From personal knowledge:

-None of the Philippa’s in the list shortens their name to Pippa.

-All of the Eleanor’s were nicknamed Ellie.

* In the interests of not boring you all to death with an endless list of data, any name on the class lists which appeared once, without a similar name has been omitted from the data. This accounts for around 30 names out of the roughly estimated 240 names.