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of suspicion because of its designs on the thrones of the Netherlands and of England itself, because of colonial rivalry, and because of its zealous counterReformation; for all its high cultural achievements during the period 1500–1700, it unsurprisingly did not offer a general model for naming practices.
Contemporary with these international currents were the first widespread appearances of Old Testament names given by religious radicals. We find
Solomon, Samuel, David, Nathaniel, Gamaliel and Isaac, for example, some of which became popular whilst others did not. A further manifestation of Puritanism was the first outbreak of naming in English since the Norman Conquest. After an initial burst of religiously inspired naming in Latin (Beata, Desiderius), zealous reformers advised parents to give pious transparent English baptismal names to their children, such as Much-Mercy, Increased, Sin-Deny and Fear-not. This trend has been much ridiculed, but around 1600 some families gave names such as Accepted, Thankful, Praisegod, Safe-on-High (all male). At the extreme margin were the equally pious names recalling the fallen nature of human beings, such as Job-rak’d-out-of-the-ashes, Fly-fornication (wished on bastards of either sex) and the almost incredible Calvinistic If-Christ-had-not-died-thou-hadst- been-damned (Bardsley, 1880; sometimes cited in slightly varying forms).
Court fashion through successive dynasties was responsible for the promotion of some lasting naming trends. Elizabeth I set off single-handed the immense popularity of her own name (it replaced the Proven¸cal form Isabel of the biblical original which had been popular in medieval times), whilst the vogue for European naming styles was cemented by the preference of the Stuart courts for dynastic links southwards.
6.3.5 |
The modern period |
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The eighteenth century brought the Latin renderings of some names popular from medieval times out of the archival closet to become popular in their own right, especially Jo(h)anna for Joan and Matilda for Maud(e), and these blended effortlessly with the group in <-(i)a> from classical and other sources which was becoming a paradigm for female names.
French naming patterns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries showed some systematicity foreign to previous English traditions. In particular, female names could be derived from male ones by phonological and/or orthographic suffixation, favoured orthographic suffixes being the prototypical <-e>, and also <-ette/ -otte> and <-ine>. Names of these types also entered English partly through the model of French naming used in the German royal house of Hanover, which acquired the English throne in 1714. To them we owe the widespread English use of such names as Sophie (originally Greek, but here frenchified), Charlotte and Caroline, and by other channels we have acquired Denise, (Ni)Colette, Georgette, Suzette, Jacqueline, Christine, Thomasine (especially in its Cornish-English form Tamsin), etc. Personal-name derivation works overwhelmingly in the direction male >> female in English.
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The origin of some (especially female) given names, or rather their source as ‘English’ names, is known precisely, because they are literary inventions or adoptions by influential authors. Shakespeare was the inventor or the first populariser in England of Juliet, *Jessica and Cordelia, Sidney of *Pamela (though Richardson popularised it), Swift of *Vanessa, Richardson of *Clarissa, and Scott of Brenda; and *Scarlett is due to the American author Margaret Mitchell (those marked * being inventions rather than adoptions or adaptations). Seventeenth-century literary fashion even provoked some novel morphology; the ‘suffix’ -inda was used in Clarinda (Spenser), Belinda (Pope, though he did not invent it), Lucinda (Steele) and such subsequent coinings as Verinda. A conspicuous movement in Victorian England was the promotion of abandoned names from history, especially saints’ names, a conscious rediscovery or invention and promotion of a ‘British’ heritage. To this movement we are indebted for Maud(e), made wildly popular through the heroine of Tennyson’s poem (1855). In this vein, the Oxford Movement (1833–) contributed names briefly popular, especially in High Church circles, deriving mainly from early British saints and abbots/abbesses, and scrupulously Christian English rulers, such as Aidan, Kenelm, Alfred, Edwin, Ethel, Mildred, Hild (usually in the Latin form Hilda) and the frenchified Audrey (i.e. St Etheldreda of Ely).
Since about 1800, there have been occasional waves of popularity in England for names that are, or are perceived as, of Scottish or Irish origin. From Scotland we have had Duncan, Hamish, Alistair and Sheena; and from Ireland, as anti-Irish prejudice finally began to evaporate in the mid-twentieth century, came Caoimh´ın, Sean,´ Siobhan,´ Sinead´ or anglicised spellings of them (Kevin, Sean/Shaun, Shevaun and so on), usually at first indicating devotion to a media star with Gaelic forebears such as Sean Connery, Siobh´an McKenna or Sin´ead O’Connor, the ‘Irishness’ as such of the adopted name probably being of less significance than its distinctiveness and its source in the film or musical world.
The twentieth century also saw the continuing, renewed, or novel popularity of names (female especially) drawn from the Romance languages (but of whatever ultimate origin), such as Marie, Maria, Marguerite, Corinne, Bianca, Louise, Patricia, Sylvia. From a linguistic point of view, the most significant aspect of this trend was the cementing of particular phonological patterns as being stereotypical for female names, such as penultimate stress and final /-(i)ə/, the latter being represented orthographically by <-(i)a> (Anna, Julia, Alexandra, Antonia,
Marina, Martina, Saskia).
The whole question of the fashion factor in driving the choice of names for children is dealt with by Lieberson & Bell (1992). Cutler, McQueen & Robinson (1990) demonstrated that current personal names have some further phonological characteristics that may be attributable to general sound symbolism. More than would be expected by chance, male names are monosyllabic, and, more than would be expected, female names are polysyllabic, non-initially stressed, and contain high front vowels in stressed position and in suffixal /-i/. The third characteristic is tentatively explained in terms of a universal tendency for [i] to symbolise smallness and therefore relative weakness.
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A further trend worthy of notice is that of certain originally male names to be applied to females, and then to decline steeply in popularity (if ever truly popular) for males. This is true of, for instance, Evelyn, Shirley, Hilary and Trac(e)y, though males with these names are still found in small numbers in England. The social psychology of this process in America is discussed by Barry & Harper (1982). These scholars have also produced a series of papers dealing with the differences in linguistic attributes between male and female names, of which a sample is mentioned in the bibliography.
6.3.6 |
The most recent trends |
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In the late twentieth century, the restraining influence of the baptismal font has practically disappeared. English personal-naming practices have been blown wide open, mainly as a result of cultural currents emerging from the United States. In America, there were some practices that diverged from those in Britain; some names from these alternative traditions (even if only briefly) became popular through the influence of distinctively named Hollywood stars such as Ava Gardner and Marilyn Monroe. Female names dominated in this new climate, and many new female names entered the canon – if such there was – before 2000, whilst unambiguously new male names were quite few; conspicuously, the distinctive given names of prominent film stars and jazz and rock artists such as Rudolph Valentino, Thelonious Monk and Elvis Presley were never copied in large numbers. But the role of Nashville and Hollywood in promoting small bursts of popularity, e.g. for Woody (first probably from Woody [properly Woodrow Wilson] Guthrie, and then from Woody Harrelson), cannot be denied. For several briefly or currently fashionable names a showbiz or television source can be established: Kylie, Keanu, Frazier, Chandler, Tyler.
Tracking the progress of late-twentieth-century American given names is difficult because of their rapid turnover and the multiplicity of their sources; the ethnically varied makeup of the population has meant that especially European given names have had the opportunity to spread beyond their original communities; witness, for example, the recent popularity of such names as Andre´ and Antonio among African Americans. The moving staircase features, for example, Tracey, Chelsea and Brittany (and many spelling variants of each); these are mainly reapplied names drawn from other categories of namables. Names popular mainly in African American and Afro-Caribbean communities since around the mid-1960s have on the whole been more inventive, with whole rafts sharing phonological units that begin to look like morphological elements, though semantically empty – witness the many names in La- and Sha- like Laverne and Latisha (female) and Shamika (female) and Shaquille (male), and those in Ma- have had the unexpected consequence of allowing the reinterpretation of Scottish surnames in M(a)c- as female given names (McKenna and Mackenzie were popular in 2003). There is also much free, ex nihilo, creation, but Lieberson & Mikelson (1995) show that name giving in this community
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continues to be constrained by phonological patterns of names in the dominant community.
6.3.7 |
Modern English-language personal names |
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Much of the above is about names of a variety of origins being taken into use in English-speaking lands. There is rather little personal naming that could be called English in the sense of being formed of English lexical elements, and, as we have seen, some imported morphological patterns have had a strong impact on naming practices. There have been, however, occasional irruptions of English words used as names, and some of these have remained popular, though not systematically so. The first set was the Puritan names of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries favoured, from time to time, female names drawn from the semantic category of flowerand plantnames, possibly on the long-available model of Rose, which was an independent name, a pet-form of Rosamund, and taken to be a pet-form of Rosalind. In the later ninteenth and early twentieth centuries we find Daisy, Iris, Violet and Ivy, whilst the later twentieth century favoured Poppy, Bryony, Holly and Fern. A small group of names from (semi-)precious stones has been established (Beryl, Ruby, and more recently Crystal, Jade and Amber).
6.3.8Evidence for pet-names (hypocoristics) from early times
to the present |
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Pet-names (hypocoristics) have been use in English-speaking areas for as long as we have records. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Cuthwulf of the West Saxons is also referred to as Cutha; the first element of his name has been abstracted and provided with the suffix of the weak masculine declension of OE. There is a systematic method for the formation of pet-forms from male dithematic names which is a little more elaborate, often of the type CV(C)Ca, where the third C (and the second if identical to the third) is the first consonant of the second element, e.g. Sibba for Sigebeorht. If the evidence of place-names is a reliable guide to the incidence of full-names and pet-names, either might be used in expressions referring to places.
The standard stock of the Middle Ages was also subject to patterns of petname formation, of which by far the most sophisticated recent study is McClure (1998). The evidence of surname formation would point to this even if there were no documentary evidence at all. Simple abbreviation to a stressed syllable and a following interlude consonant was common: T(h)om(as), Sim(on), Ben(edict), Nic(holas) – especially in Christian names in the narrower sense; compare the surnames Thom(p)son, Sim(p)son, Benson and Nickson (Nixon). In Gmc names filtered through Norman French, a system operated akin to that found in OE, giving Gibbe for Gilbert, Wat for Walter; compare Gibson, Watson. In other names of this origin, simple abbreviation is found too where the base name had, or had come
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to have, a single intervocalic consonant: Rob(ert), Jeff(rey)/Geoff(rey), Will(iam); compare Robson, Jeffson, Wil(l)son.
Some medieval male names were subject to a system of pet-name formation which has defied historical explanation. This is based on alternation of initial consonants, though no phonetic basis can be discerned. Names in <R->, i.e. Richard/Rickard, Robert and Roger, form abbreviated alternants in <H-> and <D->, and these regularly show up in originally patronymic surnames of the types Hobson/Dobson and Hobbs/Dobbs alongside Robson (but not Robbs).
Ralph has now also been shown to have had a <D-> variant and also possibly one in <H-> (McClure, 1998: 124–30). The surnames suggest that the use of the various alternants may have had a regional basis. Most other instances of initial consonant alternation in male names (such as Robert/Bob and William/Bill) are later and phonologically different. Some female names participate in a phonologically different alternation; Margaret gives Mag, Mog and Meg, then Pog and Peg; Mald/Maud (originally; and perhaps later Mary; McClure, 1998: 103) gives
Mall/Moll and then Poll.
Among other medieval and postmedieval hypocoristics showing phonological alternation, we see some which show an affinity with the system of OE described above. Kit, Gib, Wat, Heb and Phip for Christopher, Gilbert, Walter, Herbert and
Philip, with their consonant cluster reductions and syncope, are early enough to have had an impact in surnaming. Given known patterns of children’s acquisition of phonology, it seems likely that Kit, at least, is an adoption by adult speakers of a juvenile pronunciation. It is uncertain whether this applies to any of the other instances. The general characteristic is that consonants relatively high on the sonority hierarchy (/r/, /l/, /w/) tend to disappear adjacent to others, along with unstressed vowels.
Another device used in pet-name formation is what has traditionally been viewed as metanalysis, where syntagms such as mine Anne yield Nan as a petform; this is also the source of Nell for Eleanor, Noll for Oliver and Ned for Edward, and is therefore independent of the sex of the addressee. McClure (1998: 109) plausibly suggests, however, that it is part of the system of rhyming hypocoristics discussed above, since Nib for Ib (from Isabel) is paralleled by Lib and Tib. From quite early in the Middle Ages, there is also evidence of suffixal hypocoristics. Most frequent is the use of elements such as -cock, -on, -et or -kin, which are appended (sometimes in pairs) to the abbreviated version of a full name where there is one or to the full name where not; evidently, this gives us a direct insight into the most popular names of the age of surnaming, since surnames provide a raft of evidence for the phenomenon. We find, for example,
Batcock (from Bartholomew), Adcock (Adam), Hickock and Hitchcock (Richard), Hancock (a regional form of John), Jeffcock (Geoffrey) and eventually Johncock
(first recorded late). Many of these names have undergone a variety of analogical alterations, for instance to Badcock and Jeffcoat. Names in -kin include Adkin, Wilkin (from William) and Hodgkin (Roger). Forms in -y or -ie have also been much in evidence over several centuries, and are still current (see below).