How popular is the baby name Tristram in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Tristram.
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In 1835, Charles Inskipp, a portrait painter who lived in southeast England, married Sarah Anne Baker. The couple went on to welcome at least six children:
Emily, b. 1836
Harold, b. 1837
Napoleon Tristram Shandy, b. 1839
Corregio Quinton, b. 1841
Rembrandt Claude, b. 1844
Boadicea Mary, b. 1848
Their last four children were evidently named after…
Italian painter Correggio (in full: Antonio Allegri da Correggio),
Dutch painter Rembrandt (in full: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn), and
British queen Boudicca (who led a rebellion against the Romans circa 60 A.D.).
I’m not sure why Charles and Sarah switched to conspicuously famous names after their second baby, but, given Charles’ occupation, I’m not surprised that two of those names refer to painters.
A while back, I stumbled upon a register of people associated with Oxford University from the mid-16th century to the early 17th century.
Interestingly, the editor of the register decided to include a section dedicated to first names and surnames. That section included a long list of male forenames and their frequency of occurrence from 1560 to 1621.
The editor claimed that, for several reasons, these rankings were “probably…more representative of English names than any list yet published” for that span of time. One reason was that the names represented men from “different grades of English society” — including peers, scholars, tradesmen, and servants.
So, are you ready for the list?
Here’s the top 100:
John, 3,826 individuals
Thomas, 2,777
William, 2,546
Richard, 1,691
Robert, 1,222
Edward, 957
Henry, 908
George, 647
Francis, 447
James, 424
Nicholas, 326
Edmund, 298
Anthony, 262
Hugh, 257
Christopher, 243
Samuel, 227
Walter, 207
Roger, 195
Ralph, 182
Peter (and Peirs/Pers), 175
Humphrey, 168
Charles, 139
Philip, 137
David, 129
Matthew, 116
Nathaniel, 112
Michael, 103
Alexander, 98 (tie)
Arthur, 98 (tie)
Laurence, 90
Giles, 88
Stephen, 86
Simon, 83
Daniel, 79
Joseph, 78 (tie)
Lewis, 78 (tie)
Andrew, 69
Roland, 65
Griffith (and Griffin), 60
Evan, 55
Abraham, 54 (tie)
Leonard, 54 (tie)
Owen, 53
Gilbert, 52
Morris (and Maurice), 51
Bartholomew, 46 (3-way tie)
Oliver, 46 (3-way tie)
Timothy, 46 (3-way tie)
Morgan, 45
Martin, 44 (tie)
Rice, 44 (tie)
Gabriel, 41
Benjamin, 40
Jeffrey/Geoffrey, 38
Ambrose, 36
Adam, 35
Toby (and Tobias), 34
Jerome, 33
Ellis, 30
Paul, 29
Bernard, 28 (3-way tie)
Gregory, 28 (3-way tie)
Isaac, 28 (3-way tie)
Jasper (and Gaspar), 26 (3-way tie)
Josiah (and Josias), 26 (3-way tie)
Randall (and Randolph), 26 (3-way tie)
Miles, 24
Lancelot, 23
Austin (and Augustine), 22 (tie)
Jarvis (and Gervase), 22 (tie)
Brian, 21
Matthias, 20 (tie)
Reginald (and Reynold), 20 (tie)
Jeremy, 19
Theophilus, 19
Joshua 18 (3-way tie)
Marmaduke, 18 (3-way tie)
Valentine, 18 (3-way tie)
Fulke, 17 (tie)
Sampson (and Samson), 17 (tie)
Clement, 16 (4-way tie)
Ferdinando, 16 (4-way tie)
Herbert, 16 (4-way tie)
Zachary, 16 (4-way tie)
Cuthbert, 15 (3-way tie)
Emanuel, 15 (3-way tie)
Vincent, 15 (3-way tie)
Adrian, 14 (3-way tie)
Elias, 14 (3-way tie)
Jonah (and Jonas), 14 (3-way tie)
Tristram, 13
Allan, 12 (6-way tie)
Ames, 12 (6-way tie)
Barnaby (and Barnabas), 12 (6-way tie)
Gerard (and Garret), 12 (6-way tie)
Lionel, 12 (6-way tie)
Mark, 12 (6-way tie)
Abel, 11 (3-way tie)
Erasmus, 11 (3-way tie)
Roderic, 11 (3-way tie)
Did the relative popularity of any of these names surprise you?
The editor did note that “the more common names occur more frequently than they ought to…from the tendency to confuse less common names with them.”
For example, a person called ‘Edmund,’ if he is frequently mentioned in the Register, is almost certain to be somewhere quoted as ‘Edward,’ ‘Gregory’ as ‘George,’ ‘Randall’ or ‘Raphael’ as ‘Ralph,’ ‘Gilbert’ as ‘William,’ and so on.
Now here are some of the less-common names, grouped by number of appearances in the register:
Earlier this week we talked about the original Tristram Coffyn of Nantucket, who is known to have a massive number of descendants.
He and his wife Dionis* had five children in England, then four more after relocating to the New World. Here are the names of not only all nine of their children, but also their 76 grandchildren:
Daniel, Dionis, Peter, Stephen, Judith, Susanna, Anna, Mehitable, Hepzibah, Paul
Which of the above names do you like best? Are there any you don’t like at all?
*Dionis’s name is evidently a truncated form of Dionysia, which derives from Dionysius, which originally referred to a devotee of the Greek god Dionysos. The names Dennis and Denise are also derivatives of Dionysius.
**Nantucket’s Oldest House, also called the Jethro Coffin House, was built in 1686 as a wedding gift for Jethro Coffin.
The baby name Tristram, which has been around for centuries, didn’t debut in the U.S. baby name data until 1958:
1960: unlisted
1959: unlisted
1958: 5 baby boys named Tristram
1957: unlisted
1956: unlisted
This was the year after the name Tris, which had charted as a girl name several times, first appeared on the boys’ list.
The influence behind both names was American actor Tristram “Tris” Coffin, who starred in the TV series 26 Men from late 1957 to mid-1959. In the show he played a fictionalized version of Thomas H. Rynning, captain of the Arizona Rangers during the early 1900s.
His first name is a variant of Tristan, immortalized in the tragic medieval tale of Tristan and Iseult (a.k.a Isolde). We don’t know for sure where the name Tristan comes from, as it’s been “altered from an irrecoverable original as a result of transmission through Old French sources that insisted on associating it with Latin tristis ‘sad,’ a reference to the young knight’s tragic fate.” Tristan may have been based on the Pictish male name Drustan/Drosten, a diminutive form of Drest/Drust/Drost, which was a common name among Pictish rulers.
If the name “Tristram Coffin” sounds weirdly familiar to you, you aren’t nuts — more than a few American men have borne this exact name. All are descendants of Tristram Coffyn, an immigrant from England who was one of the first settlers of Nantucket. In fact, the original Tristram Coffyn (c.1608-1681) was the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of actor Tris Coffin (1909-1990), born in a mining town in Utah three centuries later. (Another bearer was folklorist Tristram P. Coffin.)
Do you like the name Tristram? Do you like it more or less than Tristan?
Sources:
Hanks, Patrick, Kate Hardcastle and Flavia Hodges. A Dictionary of First Names. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Koch, John T., editor. Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006.
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