Things you were shockingly old when you learned

and Xander = Alexander

Lex! And Al/Ally.

Actually I thought Ally McCoist was Alexander but he's actually Alistair, which is, of course, a Gaelic form of Alexander.

There was a saralinda a few years ahead of me in high school - so probably 50ish now - and I thought it was a crazy made up name that no on on earth had but her, like it was some WASPy version of Bobbie Jo or Peggy Sue

the princess in thurber's THE 13 CLOCKS (1950) is called saralinda, which probably ensured a fair few children roughly that age with that name

in fact judging by google ngrams thurber actually invented it and there's a HUGE burst of it on and around 1950

I don't mind "Saralinda" if that's someone's name; seems quaintly charming. And yes, 13 Clocks is a formative work for me.

Sara / Sarai / Sarah are biblical, presumably of Hebrew / middle-eastern origin? And Linda is Latinate ("pretty" in Spanish).

So it's a bit of a centaur, onomastically speaking.

wtf re: Wendy

That is completely crazy to me

Alexandra = Sandra = Sandy is not weird or surprising to me, Margaret = Peg is weirder

A friend of mine was always threatening to name her first-born son Jordache but it never happened, she named him Leon instead

linde also from german and the linden tree

A lot of nicknames appear to date from times when there were just way fewer names to go around.

Margaret (and variants) gave us Peg, Meg, Maggie, Marge, Greta, Gretel (from the German Margarethe) and also Rita (from Margarita).

Sarah gave us Sally and Sal. Mary gave us Molly. John gave us Jack. Ann / Anne gave us Nancy and Nan and probably Nanette as well.

I am totally cool with these nicknames becoming names in their own right! Almost named a daughter some of these nicknames.

I too am surprised by Wendy being such a new coinage.

Almost all of the weird abbrevs come from a vogue at one time for rhyming nicknames, so you shorten it then rhyme like

William will bill
Richard Rick dick
Margaret meg peg
Robert rob bob

The picture must have been infinitely weirder in ancient Rome, where proper names were rather scarcer.

"Hi, I'm Julia. These are my daughters Julia Major, Julia Minor, Julilla, Juliana, and, um, Julia Tertius (I think). Fuck it, I lost track a while ago and just say HEY YOU! KID! CUT THAT OUT."

Hank and jack are two I’ve always found the weirdest, like ppl just really wanted that hard k sound in there

(shoulda said Tertia but whatev)

Foreman has 12 children, five sons and seven daughters. His five sons are George Jr., George III ("Monk"), George IV ("Big Wheel"), George V ("Red"), and George VI ("Little Joey").

So far, none of his children has been named "Grill."

john, sean, eoin, jack

johnny, ivan, ian

... Jock.

Skipping all the baby-name stuff to second the recommendation of Michael Veal's Fela biography. It's a fantastic book. His book on dub - Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae - is also excellent.

Clover, the band that played on Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True and later mutated into Huey Lewis & the News, was founded by Alex Call, the guy who wrote "867-5309/Jenny" (and Pat Benatar's "Little Too Late").

― Bougy! Bougie! Bougé! (Eliza D.),Wednesday, April 15, 2020 12:28 AM (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I didn't know any of this

also of course Elizabeth - Eliza, Liz, Lizzy, Ellie, Nellie, Nell, Betty, Beth, Lisbeth, Elspeth

I have a memory of a family where there were four children who had extremely weird names that could be abbreviated neatly-- Molly's full name was Molybdenum, Eve's full name was Yvohcna (Anchovy spelled backwards). I can't remember that family's last name or the other two children's names, wish I did

WTF? Were the parents on acid or something?

Who wasn't, in those days?

On the great real names thread I posted a girl named Anesthesia. Saw it in that high school photo thing on fb.

fuck it that is a great name

Named after the famous Princess Anesthesia Romanov?

i presume its when you procreate to numb the pain

lady with the real name Merrill Nisker had some advice on the topic iirc

huh? right. what? uhh.

Speaking of short names, I've always wanted to know why there are a few names with legitimate abbreviations, like Wm. or Geo.

I think I've seen Eliz. somewhere, so I'm guessing the names are all monarchs, who don't have time to sign their entire name.

Anybody know if this is true?

Was there ever a King Robt. ?

The Wikipedia entry for Cockayne Hatley seems to lie right on the seam between fact and fiction.

Many historical records utilise standard abbreviations of given names in order to save time and paper.

No period on Wm/Robt - it's only if the abbreviation ends on a different letter than the original word.

Ah, I see that's covered by the link, sorry.

The Wikipedia entry for Cockayne Hatley seems to lie right on the seam between fact and fiction.

I assume whoever captioned the photo of "the far end of the village" lives at what they consider to be the near end of the village.

Re: Wm, etc., contraction vs abbreviation, innit.
Seeing a full stop / period after "Dr", "Rd", "Mt" etc. is like nails on a chalkboard for me. Fuck "American usage", a period signifies that the word is cut off.

(xp)

No buses serve the village. The nearest railway stations are Biggleswade and Sandy.

DO YOU SEE?

Biggleswade is also an adjective there, hope that helps.

I have JUST learnt that Romy Schneider MIGHT be Adolf Hitler's daughter !
Apparently it was more or less known since the mid 70s...

No way, she was far too good looking!

Well, I love her, but with that in mind, when you look at some of her pictures...
To be more precise about that, I have just learnt that she has declared in the 70s that her mother was in love with AH and had an affair with him (circa the time of her birth)... and then they moved to a house right next to his eagle's nest (her mother also had affairs with other Nazi leaders... a nice woman apparently !).

So she has spent a lot of time at AH's nest during her childhood...

Having done a bit of googling, she does resemble her mother - those wide set eyes - and her father (the real one, not Hitler) was extremely good looking, so, on no scientific basis whatsoever, I'm dismissing the Hitler theory.

I cycle through Cockayne Hatley quite often - it has a very interesting church with some lovely Flemish misericords! Interesting fact: not only did Margaret Henley indirectly invent Wendy, her dad, William Henley was Stevenson's model for LONG JOHN SILVER.

WTF!!!!!

It doesn't seem impossible imo... But of course, we'll never know and that's for the best !
https://images.app.goo.gl/wb9RsCRm4v5ST2dw9

Needs a moustache to be sure.