Ten

Clive Anderson, from ovimig.com

Remember how a few months ago I covered 6 girls names used 6 times in England&Wales 2010, and then 8 boys names along similar lines. Well, logically speaking this is the next step on in this so-called-apparent-series and we’re aiming to boost the number of lads name being covered on this blog at the same time; happiness all ’round.

Clive

Another one of the dapper boys, there’s a well-known presenter-come-comic called Clive Anderson here in the UK, whom I’ve seen comment on the fact that some often pronounce his name CLEEV, not KLIEV. The name itself comes from the surname and means cliff.

Eliezer

A lesser-used Biblical choice, which mean my god is help. A character with this name turns up in the Old Testament, where he is one of the sons of Moses. T

Gavriel

The Hebrew form of the name Gabriel, which ranks at #78 in England&Wales for the same year. The name means strong man of God and it’s worth talking about the French at this point; I have a male French friend named Gabriel, who pronounced his name the same as we would Gabrielle.

Horatio

The first name of the famed Lord Nelson, which possibly may derives from the Latin hora, means time, hour, season. We’ve previously covered the name, here.

Lionel

The name Lionel is the French version of Leon (and also Léon), a name which ranked at #60 in 2010 and is also experiencing relative popularity right now – and so is Leo come to think of it (he’s at #36, up 106 places since 2000).

Radley

Similar name Bradley ranked at #100 in 2010, but Radley here has the added bonus of being a literary pick, courtesy of To Kill A Mockingbird. It was also originally a locational surname, meaning the red clearing.

Ren

A Japanese name meaning either love or lotus, and he remains relatively popular over in Japan as a male name, although the name is unisex. A side note on Wren: it’s used pretty much equally for girls and boys here in England&Wales, with 6 boys and 8 girls given Wren as a first name in 2010.

Sasha

I sit on the fence when it comes to the gender of this name. The name originally came about as the Russian short form of Aleksandr or Aleksandra, but has translated into the English-speaking world as a mostly female name – as a female name, Sasha ranks at #204 in England&Wales.

Zinedine

The name of the famed French footballer, who has made an appearance in the Sibset posts before. The name Zinedine is of Arabic origins, and likely means beauty of the faith.

Name Spot of the Week: Midwives&Large Broods

Promo pic for Call the Midwife, from guim.co.uk

Reading the Daily Mail is a sort of guilty pleasure pursuit of mine. It’s so much more entertaining when you don’t take them seriously. There have been some interesting name-related articles of late. Remember the Canadian genderless baby named Storm? Well, a British equivalent has recently come out of the woodwork, this time the mother admitting that 5-year-old Sasha is a boy.

They also mentioned X-Factor reject Charley Bird who mentioned the reasoning behind the name of her newborn son Beaux – apparently the x is a reference to X-Factor. Ever heard of reborn dolls? This lady has several, all with relatively oft-heard names: Ruby, Dylan, Daniel, Ellie, Joshua, Annabelle, Daniella, Max, Charlie, Amber and Maddie.

Speaking of large groups of children, Channel 4 aired episode 1 of 15 kids and Counting this week, featuring two super-sized families in the UK. The first is the Sullivans from Kent, who have 11 children: Ben, Stephanie, Caitlin, Harry, Eddie, Sid, Patrick, Oliver, Joseph, Anna and Elizabeth ‘Libby’.

The second is the Radfords from Morecambe, who have 15 children: Chris, Sophie, Chloe, Jack, Daniel, Luke, Millie, Katie, James, Ellie, Aimee, Josh, Max, Tilly May and Oscar. Their grandfather offered up suggestions of Barry, Cecil and Cyril for the name of his newest grandson.

Now, here’s an interesting conundrum a friend mentioned to me the other day: he’s unsure of how to pronounce Ava. It’s rather sweet, thinking about it, because he came across Ava for what seems like the first time when googling popular names, and then said ‘how do you say the name spelt A-V-A?’. To be honest, I too felt a slight uncertainty over whether to say ay-vah or ah-vah, initially.

To end, the BBC recently debuted a new show called Call the Midwife, set in 1950s Britain, thus many of the characters have delightfully era-related names, and some possibly not so:

• Jenny
• Julienne
• Evangelina
• Monica Joan
• Trixie (short for Beatrix, perhaps?)
• Cynthia
• Bernadette
• Fred
• Pearl
• Maureen
• Conchita
• Len
• Eddy
• Muriel

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.

From Russia, With Love

Here’s a quick look at some popular Russian names, some which could easily pass through the culture barrier, others which may falter slightly.

Vladimir

– This name means to rule with greatness. There are two well-known namesakes: Vladimir Putin who was president of Russia until recently and Vladimir Nabokov was the author who penned the infamous ‘Lolita’

Igor

– Russian form of Ingvarr. Pronounced EE-gahr or EE-gawr.

Nikolai

– Russian version of Nicholas. Stems from the the Greek wrods nike and polis, meaning people’s victory. Borne by the last two Russian Tsars.

Sasha

– Russian diminuative of either Aleksandr or Aleksandra. Common Russian boys name.

Katya

– Diminuative of Yekaterina, the Russian version of Catherine. Cute alternative to Katie.

Anastasia

– Feminine form of Anastasius. The Russian pronunciation sounds all the letters: An-nah-stah-SEE-yah. This name can also be broken down into a multitude of different nicknames, such as Anna, Stacy, and Nastia (Lukin).

Svetlana

– Derived from the slavic element svet meaning light, world.

Tatiana

– Feminine form of the Roman name Tatianus, which itself derived from the Roman name Tatius. Pronounced by the Russians as tat-TYAH-nah.

Natalya/ Natasha

– Natalya is the Russian form of Natalie. The name Natalie is from the latin word Natalia, meaning Christmas day. Natasha is a Russian pet name of Natalya.

*As Russians don’t use the Latin Alphabet, the spellings of Russian names when altered to the latin alphabet varies. Thus, Anastasia and Anastaysia are both legitimate spellings.