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Top 100 baby names 2005 (in U.S.)
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: moremojo on October 18, 2006, 05:12:52 pm ---My family raised me as Scott, but my mother wanted to name me somehow after my father, whose first name is Barry, so Barry had to go in there somewhere too. My mom chose 'Barry Scott' over 'Scott Barry' because she thought that with 'Scott Barry Moore', people would tease me about being a scion of the Barrymore family. What she didn't seem to realize is that with 'Barry' as my first name, it's right there: 'Barry Moore'! Most folks don't know your middle name unless you tell them.
--- End quote ---
The Barrymores were actually a Philadelphia family. John is buried here, and the family had a house about a block and a half from where I live today.
--- Quote ---'Lynn' and 'Lynne' are fairly common middle names among females, I notice. I have a female first cousin whose middle name is Lynne. It's more unusual seen as part of a boy's name. That reminds me of my late paternal grandfather and his youngest brother--my grandfather's first name was Muriel, and his brother's is Beverly! My grandfather hated his name, and insisted on going by his middle name, while my great-uncle has always been known as Beverly.
--- End quote ---
My mother always insisted that "Lynn" was a boy's name/the spelling for a boy. I never bought it because it was how the next-door neighbors spelled the middle name of their youngest daughter. Mother also insisted that I was not named for a 1950s B-movie actor, Jeffrey Lynn. I wouldn't have minded if she'd named me for Jeffrey Hunter. He was hot! ;D
Talk about hating your name, my mother's maternal grandfather, my great-grandfather, who died in his 90th year ten years before I was born, was named William Hiram Bailey.
That's right. ... Bill Bailey!
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on October 18, 2006, 06:47:43 pm ---Talk about hating your name, my mother's maternal grandfather, my great-grandfather, who died in his 90th year ten years before I was born, was named William Hiram Bailey.
That's right. ... Bill Bailey!
--- End quote ---
Wow...born circa 1858, died about 1948; impressive life span! I'm not even sure when the Bill Bailey song originated, but your great-grandfather might have been older than it. That would have been way cool!
An uncle of my late maternal grandfather was named Valentine Hardt! Hardt was his last name. That was the source of some amusement in my family, and I bet you can be sure that no one forgot the man's name.
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: MaineWriter on October 18, 2006, 01:29:17 pm ---If my daughter Hannah had been a boy, she was going to be Samuel Benjamin, which is a family name....
L
--- End quote ---
One of my daughters is named Hannah, too :).
Sometimes I wonder about American names. In Germany, it is not allowed to give a girl a boy's name or vice versa (with the exception of Maria as a second name for a boy). And the name must be clearly male or female. If you choose a name like Kim, which can be both, the child must be given a second (clearly female or male) name.
--- Quote ---67 Reagan
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Reagan as a female first name? I only know Ronald Reagan ;D.
Kennedy, Brooklyn, Mckenna, Taylor - female first names? Wow.
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on October 19, 2006, 11:35:00 am ---Sometimes I wonder about American names. In Germany, it is not allowed to give a girl a boy's name or vice versa (with the exception of Maria as a second name for a boy). And the name must be clearly male or female. If you choose a name like Kim, which can be both, the child must be given a second (clearly female or male) name.
--- End quote ---
You mean there's actually a law addressing this matter? That surprises me, and seems unnecessary. And ideas of what constitutes feminine versus masculine can shift historically.
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on October 19, 2006, 11:35:00 am ---Reagan as a female first name? I only know Ronald Reagan ;D.
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Regan I've seen as a girl's first name. Regan was one of the daughters of Lear in Shakespeare's King Lear, and Regan was also the name of the unfortunate girl subjected to the curative powers of The Exorcist (both book and film).
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: moremojo on October 19, 2006, 10:05:04 am ---Wow...born circa 1858, died about 1948; impressive life span! I'm not even sure when the Bill Bailey song originated, but your great-grandfather might have been older than it. That would have been way cool!
--- End quote ---
That's it, Scott, born 1858, died 1948. Mother used to talk about how after he became very hard of hearing, she would listen to "the fights" on the radio for him and tell him what was going on. She listened to the famous Joe Lewis--Max Schmeling fight for him. Mother was very close to her grandfather. My grandparents, their eight children (including my mother), and my great-grandparents all lived together in my great-grandparents' (my grandmother's parents) three-bedroom house. (Kind of creeps me out to think that my mother and her siblings were presumably conceived in the bedroom that my grandparents were sharing with my great-grandparents.)
I think the "Bill Bailey" song must date to around the beginning of the 20th century.
--- Quote ---In Germany, it is not allowed to give a girl a boy's name or vice versa (with the exception of Maria as a second name for a boy).
--- End quote ---
Like the composer Karl Maria von Weber. :D
Penthe, I'm curious. Is that "not allowed" by law or just by custom? I seem to remember reading a piece in The New Yorker a few years ago by an American writer living in Paris who had trouble registering the birth of his daughter, who was born in Paris, because the official in charge insisted that the name they had chose for the child (I forget what it was) was a boy's name.
In some of my history reading, I seem to remember coming across some aristocratic 17th-century Frenchman who had "Anne" as part of their names.
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