ARCHELAUS
Archelaus takes a relentlessly upbeat
look at operating a small greeting card
business in Washington, DC.
ARCHELAUS
Archelaus takes a relentlessly upbeat
look at operating a small greeting card
business in Washington, DC.
Posted on Sunday, October 25, 2009, at 11:25 am, by Dr. Allardyce Hurlbutt.
Having discussed bird names in my last post, I feel I now have little choice but to account for names taken from the rest of the animal kingdom, as well. After all, if we can’t name our children after rodents, insects, or snakes, what claim do we have to be living in a free society?
(Note: In the discussion that follows, numbers appearing in parentheses indicate how many people with a particular name were listed in the U.S. Social Security Death Index at the time of writing.)
Admittedly, none of the names in question can match the birds for popularity. Indeed, two of the most common — Kitty (3,783) and Newt (896) — scarcely even count, for in the vast majority of cases they must represent pet forms of non-animal names — Catherine and Newton, respectively — used as independent names, rather than the result of some parental passion for cats or newts. By way of contrast, consider the relative rarity of the names Kitten (9) and Salamander (0).
Nor is it clear whether the modest popularity of Bee (1,374) around the turn of the twentieth century (primarily but by no means exclusively as a name for boys) was more often due to the virtues of an industrious and beneficial insect or to the simplicity of a letter name like Dee or Kay.
Griffin (1,005) is a Welsh surname, a variant of Griffith and unrelated to the mythological creature. It does seem likely, however, that at least some of the parents who have chosen it as a given name would have had the fabulous beast in mind. Griffon (2), in addition to being a variant spelling for the latter, is also a breed of dog, while Gryphon (1) almost certainly represents a reference to mythology.
Wolf (855) is the best represented name that belongs unambiguously to the animal group. The name exists in German, as well, but is no longer popular in either Germany or Austria, perhaps at least in part because it was Adolf Hitler’s preferred nickname for himself. Ironically, its use in America has been primarily among Jews. Groucho Marx played a seedy private-eye named “Wolf J. Flywheel” in the film The Big Store (1941).
Fawn (433) is underrepresented in the death records, because most of its bearers are still alive. The name reached the lower rungs of the top 1,000 American names for girls in the years 1960-61, 1963-66, and 1973-83. Oliver North’s secretary Fawn Hall achieved brief notoriety in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal in 1989.
Ram (415), a variant of Rama (Sanskrit: “pleasing”), is a popular masculine name in India. Almost all of the examples listed in the Social Security Death Index have Indian surnames, so only the exceptions are likely to represent parental choice of an animal name.
I will divide the less common names into groups, starting with the mammals:
Of these, one should note that neither Cat nor Bat is exclusively an animal name, since Cat is a short form of Catherine, and Bat of Bartholomew. Transferred surnames probably account for some instances of Fox, Lamb, Coon, and Gibbon. Also, all but one of the examples found for Sow are Chinese, suggesting mere linguistic coincidence, while the exception, named Sow Samba, is of uncertain origin. Similarly, most of the examples found for Rat are Vietnamese, although a few instances (Rat Collins, Rat Hall, Rat Magee) are presumably authentic animal names. It is possible, however, that some names in the older Social Security records (e.g., Moose, Squirrel, Rabbit, Rat, Gopher) are not always birth names at all but may sometimes be nicknames registered by their adult owners upon entering the system starting in the 1930s. In connection with nicknames, it is worth mentioning that the British television personality Bear Grylls was actually born Edward Michael Grylls.
Next up are fish, worms, reptiles, and amphibians:
The records do not reveal when the name Bass rhymes with “mass,” in which case it could be an animal name, and when it rhymes with “lace,” in which case it would not. Of course in some instances it could also be a transferred surname, as could Leech and Fish.
Then we have the insects and arachnids:
Transferred surnames probably explain the surprisingly frequency of Roach (plus the roach is also a type of freshwater fish). Ant is clearly an abbreviation of Anthony and Antonio in a number of the older records. One sincerely hopes that Louse is merely a recording error for Louise.
Finally, one can also document the use of a number of names taken from mythological creatures:
All but one of the fifteen Dragons in this sample are coupled with Southern Slav surnames, suggesting that Dragon is a variant spelling of the more common Dragan (meaning “dear one”). While Draco is the Latin word for dragon, it was also the name of a harsh Athenian lawgiver from the 7th century B.C. (whence the word draconian). It is not immediately apparent why there should be eight instances of Ogress, but none of Ogre.
Animal and monster names can yield some highly eccentric results, as these examples from the Social Security Death Index demonstrate:
It also seems necessary to note that the records include one Beetle Bailey, born in 1926.
Joy For the Journey wrote on October 28, 2009, at 6:49 am:
Recently found your cards and love them; the blog is quite hilarious! Thanks for sharing –
Sarah :)
Dr. Allardyce Hurlbutt wrote on March 3, 2010, at 6:12 pm:
I should add Mariposa (1), the Spanish word for butterfly.
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