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 Friday, November 20, 2009, at 12:35 am, by Dr. Allardyce Hurlbutt.
As I noted in my previous post on plant names, fruit and vegetable names constitute their own subcategory, which I will consider now, together with names relating to other kinds of food and drink. Notwithstanding the well-publicized decision by the actress Gwyneth Paltrow to name her baby Apple in 2004, food names are generally rare. Somewhat unexpectedly the chief exceptions — indeed the oldest and the most popular names in this category — are related to olives.
(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.)
Oliva (1,148), the Latin word for olive, was used as an English name in the Middle Ages, probably inspired more by the long-standing association of olive branches with peace than by the fruit. The name reappeared in the nineteenth century, after at least three hundred years of disuse, and made fleeting appearances at the bottom end of the Social Security Administration’s list of the 1,000 names of American girls in 1881, 1889, and 1894.
Olivia (16,097), the Italian form, was the name of a character in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (c. 1600-1), but the name first became popular after Oliver Goldsmith used it in his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766). Olivia appears among the top 1,000 names for American girls for every year that Social Security statistics are available, going back to 1880. It entered the top 100 in 1990, ascending the ranks all the way to 4th in 2004. It remained at 6th in 2008.
The English form, Olive (57,942), came into use in the nineteenth century and numbered among the top 1,000 from 1880 to 1950, peaking at 82nd in 1893 (at which time Olivia ranked only 259th). The current strong popularity of Olivia has succeeded in resuscitating Olive, which reentered the top 1,000 in 2007. The character of “Olive Oyl” first appeared in 1919 in the comic strip Thimble Theater by Elzie Crisler Segar.
Oliver is of Norman French origin and seems to be etymologically unrelated to olives.
While several other food names have managed to crack the top 1,000 at one time or another, none has been wildly successful. Of the girls’ names, Ginger (1,322) placed from 1933 to 1989, peaking at 187th in 1971. Cherry (1,613) placed in sixty-four of the last 129 years, including a consistent run from 1927 to 1974, but it never reached higher than 429th in 1948. While Candy (724) is more often found as a pet form of Candace, it nonetheless charted independently from 1943 to 1990, peaking at 294th in 1972.
Of the boys’ names, Berry (3,232) placed from at least 1880 (when it held its highest recorded rank of 305th) until 1971. Lemon (1,000) appeared in the lower half of the top 1,000 in twenty-five of the thirty years from 1881 to 1910, as did Orange (883) in fifteen of the twenty-one years from 1881 to 1901. Rice (478) did so in seven of the eleven years from 1880 to 1890, while Almond (862) placed in 1882, 1884, and 1885. Quince (379) tied for the 1,000th position in both 1884 and 1886.
The popularity of certain names is largely unrelated to their connection with food. Although Rosemary (34,878) was in fact taken from the name of the herb, its popularity is due chiefly to its combination of the common names Rose and Mary. It has appeared in the top 1,000 almost every year for which there are statistics (the exceptions being 1880, 1881, and 1885), and it peaked at 75th in 1946. Similarly, while Angelica (2,746) has ranked among the top 1,000 names for girls since 1959 and even reached 97th in 1996, most parents are likely to have chosen it for its connection to the word angelic. It is doubtful that many chose it out of fondness for the herb angelica. Likewise, while Herb (961) placed in the top 1,000 for a handful of years from 1884 to 1960, it is a primarily short form of Herbert, and is likely to represent a food name in, at best, only a handful of instances. Presumably the few instances of Stew (10) all represent a short form of Stewart.
Here are some of the remaining food names, beginning with fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and legumes:
Herbs and spices seem to deserve a list of their own:
Other miscellaneous food names include:
Moving on to drinks, it is impossible to know how often the name Tea (103) represents a beverage name and how often it is pronounced disyllabically (e.g., the actress Tea Leoni). Although the name Nectar (42) usually represents an anglicization of the Armenian feminine name Nektar (21), both derive from the Greek nektar, the drink that sustained the immortality of the gods.
Other beverage names include:
As usual, the death records include some strange combinations:
Dr. Allardyce Hurlbutt wrote on June 9, 2010, at 12:52 pm:
There are also a few instances of Madeira (16). In addition to being a type of fortified wine, Madeira is also the name of the Portuguese island on which it is produced, so it is unclear whether parents giving the name had enology or geography in mind.
Dr. Allardyce Hurlbutt wrote on July 14, 2019, at 11:35 am:
In 1905, Mrs. Pineapple Dodd was the plaintiff in a noteworthy Edwardian divorce case.
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