It’s April Fools’ Day! I don’t have any pun names (like Seymour Butts) for you today, but here are some name quotes…
From an article about the top baby names across Ontario:
As for Maverick — the number one boy name in Sault Ste. Marie — Government and Consumer Services Minister Bill Walker said it’s an interesting choice, quipping: “It’s better than Goose” — referring to the main characters from the movie Top Gun.
From a collection of baby name stories contributed by Long Island moms:
My grandfather hated tattoos. He used to tell his standard stories and would say only people who had tattoos in ‘his day’ were sailors. He said their tattoos always said either ‘death before dishonor’ or ‘true love Mabel.’ He always used Mabel as the example name. I’m not sure why. He died in 2013. We named our daughter Mabel as a nod to him.
From a 2011 article in Fortune about finance guru Ramit Sethi:
Sethi says his name was originally supposed to be Amit, not Ramit. But when his parents realized that Amit Singh Sethi’s initials spelled out a profanity, they went back to the registrar and convinced him that he had erroneously dropped an “R.” “Like true immigrants, they didn’t request a name change, because that would be, like, $50,” he says.
From the blog of UK historian Elizabeth Walne:
Some first names can be very helpful in providing an approximate birth date for an individual if you are unsure. I once researched a family with sons Foch, Petain and Joffre – all Marshals of France during WWI, effectively ‘dating’ them to around 1914-18.
Another example with less specific dates is the girl’s name ‘Adelaide’ which became popular with Adelaide, wife of William IV (born 1792, crowned Queen Consort 1831 and died 1849) and then fell in popularity – but importantly for red herring purposes didn’t disappear completely – after the turn of the century.
How columnist Richard Ord chose a middle name for his son:
His great grandad on his mother’s side was called Aston, so my wife told me, and so that became his middle name.
It wasn’t until a few months after his birth that my wife’s dad asked me about where the name came from.
Surprised, I told him that he took the family name of Aston. “You know, after his great grandad?!”
“Oh,” he replied. “But that wasn’t his name. That was his nickname. His mates called him Aston because he was the only Aston Villa supporter in the West End of Newcastle!”
In my book that makes his middle name even better.
For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.
