Naming names, by H.M. Castor

John: not a popular king, but a very popular name.
Illustration from Cassell's History of England (published 1902)
via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Are you affected by the name you are given? Was the boy in my primary school class who was called Stone any more of an original thinker because of his unusual name? (I remember vividly that there was an ‘Easter garden’ competition, every child making a garden the size of a small tray. Everyone – myself included – went for the traditional moss-and-flowers look. Stone went for sand. Minimal & brilliant – at the age of about 7. And he won.) Conversely, did my 6 fellow pupils in a 7-strong ballet class I attended as a teenager mind that there was only one girl in the class who was not called Sharon? (Although all 6 names were pronounced the same, there was some variation in spelling: a Sharron, for instance, and a Charron too.) Is your name an unusual or a common one? And, either way, are you - as they say - bovvered?

As I mentioned in my post last month, I have been fascinated by first names for decades. Each year I read with interest the news item reporting the most popular baby names for the past twelve months. In the chart for boys’ names, Jack had a remarkable run of 14 years in the number-one spot, until in 2009-2010 it was overtaken by Oliver and, last year, by Harry. Still, it has dropped no lower than 3^rd place. Jack - now most often given as a name in its own right - was originally a diminutive of John. The linguistic origins of this connection seem, from my internet delvings, to be the subject of some debate, though it is clear that both Jankin and Jenkin were diminutives of John, and it’s not such a big leap from there to Jackin or Jack. (Incidentally, I find it interesting that the –kin ending survives these days in such forms as ‘bunnykins’… a different use for a truly ancient form of ‘pet’ name!)

In recent times the dominance of Jack has puzzled me. Not that it isn’t a nice name – it is. But for one name, however appealing, to top the charts year in year out seems both surprising and intriguing. Picking up George Redmonds’ excellent book Christian Names in Local and Family History, however, made me realise that 14 years is nothing: I was fascinated to discover that the dominance of John (in one form or another) goes back century after century.

Redmonds has made a study of names contained in the poll tax records of ten English counties for the years 1377-81 (and the lists make fascinating reading). More than a third of the men counted during this period were named John. Yes, really. More than a third. It dominated right across the regions, from Yorkshire to Sussex, from Devon to Essex, and crossing social boundaries too. According to Redmonds’ research, the name John had risen to popularity in the early 13^th century and remained at the top for centuries - despite the fact that England’s one and only King John enjoyed such a bad reputation. It was only in the 19^th century that John was overtaken at certain times by William (the name, incidentally, that had occupied the no. 2 spot in every region in 1377-81), but even then it fell no lower than second place.

That level of dominance is surely remarkable (and no, huge apologies, but I can’t offer to explain it – I can only bring it to you as an Interesting Fact, like a cat proudly laying a mouse at your feet). This popularity existed not only in England, for the parallel names Iain in Scotland and Ieuan in Wales, plus equivalents elsewhere in Europe, show strongly in the records too, as well as surnames meaning ‘son of John’ such as Jones and Johnson.

What, then, is the equivalent for women? The answer seems to be that there isn’t one. Joan, Jane & Janet (the latter originally a diminutive) were all very popular names, but none achieved the dominance of John. It seems that from medieval times to the present day it has always been the case that parents are happier, by and large, to choose from a somewhat wider pool of names for girls than for boys. One statistic mentioned by Redmonds did surprise me, however. I would have expected the name Mary to have represented quite a large chunk of the pie in the 1377-81 poll tax records. Not so. There are only nine Marys amongst the 10,000 people counted in that 1377-81 sample - making the name more unusual than Godelena, Idony, Avice and Denise.

One reason for the continuing popularity of a name within any family is of course inheritance. We are all, no doubt, familiar – even if only at a distance – with the idea that eldest sons in a certain family might traditionally bear one particular name. Or one of two – Redmonds mentions that sometimes families alternated, e.g. between Henry and Hugh. (No doubt that helped reduce confusion – a little.) My own maternal grandfather’s family, which had the tradition of naming the eldest son William, got around the problem with the habit of the Williams being known by their middle names – my grandfather, for example, christened William Donald, was known as Don.

(But I must add that this habit surfaced in my grandmother’s family too, quite separately from any eldest-son considerations - both my grandmother and one of her sisters were known by their middle names. Can anyone shed light on this – was it a popular practice at a certain time?)

From the medieval period through to the 17^th century, however, it was not just eldest sons who might bear matching names – quite often siblings were called the same name too. This, as Redmonds wryly points out, is “disturbing now to family historians”. Though no confident explanation can be given, child mortality rates, multiple marriages (with the eldest son of each wife being given the father’s name, for example) and children being named after godparents, are all possible explanations. Certainly godparents – who in many cases chose the name – as well as kinship groups and ties related to patronage were strong influences on naming habits; when Redmonds mentions the will, made in 1500, of Dame Jane Strangways, who left money to her 5 god-daughters – all called Jane – it puts me in mind of the young Mary Queen of Scots surrounded by her four companions, all called Mary.

Demonstrating your connections via your child’s name mattered – so too, often, did aspirations. Today, parents might be influenced by films, the media or books (does Harry’s place in the no.1 spot currently have anything to do with J.K. Rowling, do you think?). Though the technology has changed the basic instinct is far from a new phenomenon. In the 14^th century, names such as Percival, Gawain and Tristram were taken up from Arthurian tales, and it was a clear piece of aspirational propaganda when Henry VII – seeking to strengthen the image of the all-too-new Tudor dynasty – called his eldest son Arthur (even making sure that the baby was born at Winchester, where the round table reputed at the time to have been King Arthur’s was kept).

Delightfully, one 15^th-century wealthy landowner, Robert Bolling, called his three sons Tristram, Rainbrown & Troilus. Redmonds comments: “His reasons must surely have had something to do with his status as a gentleman and the names would certainly have drawn attention to his family right through the neighbourhood… [The prestige of Tristram in particular] would have helped to authenticate the Bollings’ claim to a long & distinguished pedigree…”

A name so unusual that it will stand out and be noticed has had an allure for parents of every age, it seems. As for Robert Bolling – in that aspect of his choices, at least – so for David & Victoria Beckham, whose children are called Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz and Harper, and for the Coldplay frontman Chris Martin & the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, whose children are named Apple and Moses. Being inventive – or eccentric – has a long and proud history. Last month I mentioned Castilian Morris, born during a siege of Pontefract Castle. Another favourite of mine, mentioned by Redmonds, is Anvilla, the daughter of a 19^th-century blacksmith. But if you really want to go to town, just watch this Horrible Histories sketch about Victorian names. Minty Badger gets my vote!





Christian Names in Local and Family History, by George Redmonds, is published by The National Archives.

H.M. Castor's novel VIII - a new take on the life of Henry VIII - is published by Templar in the UK, Penguin in Australia, and will be published by Simon & Schuster in the US next year.
H.M. Castor's website is here.

What's in a name? by H.M. Castor

The dreadful Story of Stephen and his Aunt Matilda (or Maud)

The moment Stephen came to the throne it was realised that he was a mistake and had been christened wrong; thus everything was thrown into confusion.

            Stephen himself felt quite uncalled for, and even his Aunt Matilda was able to take him in when she began announcing that she was the real King. Stephen, however, soon discovered that she had been malchristened, too, and was unable to say for certain whether her name was Matilda or Maud…

- from 1066 And All That by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman

Empress Matilda (or possibly Maud)

I remember the moment when, in my student days, a friend informed me that Maud and Matilda were essentially the same name. I was fascinated. But why should it have been so significant to me? I wasn’t even studying the Empress Matilda (or Maud). The answer is that Maud (or possibly Matilda - no, no, Maud) was at that time my favourite name. And names – first names, that is; ‘given’ names or Christian names, as they are often called – had long been a particular interest of mine. 

As a child, I planned to have six daughters – principally for the pleasure (or power?) of naming them. I made lists, repeatedly, of what these girls would be called. I remember that after reading the very brilliant Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones I decided that my eldest daughter would be called Gwendolen, even though she’s not an awfully nice character in the book. It didn’t matter – I liked the name.

(Gwendolen, lovely though it is, didn’t stick at the top of my list. Maud – when it arrived several years later – did, and my eldest daughter bears the name with, I’m relieved to say, pleasure and pride.)

As for exactly how and why Maud and Matilda are the same name, I’m not enough of a linguistic expert to give you my own explanation, and explanations I’ve found elsewhere come in slightly different (and no doubt overlapping) forms. I've read that Matilda is the Latin form of the Saxon name Maud, and I've read that Matilda comes from the Germanic name Mathilidis, of which one shortened form was Mahald and another was Mahaut… which brings us very close to Maud. On a subtley different tack George Redmonds, in his excellent book Christian Names in Local and Family History, explains the connection as follows:

"[In some cases] a name may have been revived in relatively recent times and given what has been called a ‘learned’ spelling, one that is far removed from the medieval pronunciation. That is true of Matilda and Agatha which are familiar to us now only in these learned forms. The evidence for their earlier pronunciation is in such vernacular spellings as Mald or Maud or Matill for Matilda and Agace or Agass for Agatha."

…although it strikes me that this question of pronunciation must surely be muddied by the difficulty of telling, in some cases, what is a vernacular spelling of the full name and what is a diminutive, especially since medieval documents seem often to have called people by their diminutives. (There seems a bit of a gulf, for example, between Mald and Maud on the one hand, and Matill on the other.)

Notwithstanding my inevitable desire for more detail on the name Maud George Redmonds’ book is absolutely fascinating, and I recommend it to anyone interested in the history of first names. Though it discusses names right up to the present day, and contains material covering the whole of Great Britain, its particular focus is on England in the period 1200-1700. 

It is tantalising to think we might be able to hear spoken words from the past, and so I’d like to venture beyond vernacular pronunciations of Matilda (or Maud), and look at some more of the examples Redmonds offers. He says (and I've read this elsewhere too) that the likely pronunciation of the name Agnes, for example, is represented by spellings such as Annis or Annas - lovely, I think! And they are, not surprisingly given the post-Conquest Norman influence, much closer to the modern French pronunciation for Agnès. Similarly, the name Henry seems to've been pronounced Herry (not far from the French Henri). Reynold was a vernacular version of Reginald and Pers of Peter (or Piers, essentially the same name). Sander or Saunder were shortened versions of Alisander or Alisaunder, spellings which Redmonds says give us the medieval pronunciation of Alexander. The spelling Wauter, too, gives an indication of the pronunciation of Walter (which makes the short form Wat, as in Wat Tyler of Peasants’ Revolt fame, more understandable).

Pet names, or diminutives, are a fascinating topic in themselves. Some of those that Redmonds discusses are familiar to the modern reader and some are not. In the medieval period Alison was pet form of Alice, Marion of Marjory (or possibly Mary) and Dick or Diccon of Richard. So far, so recognisable. But Philot was a common pet name used for a person called Philip (who could be of either gender – Philippa was simply the name Philip rendered into Latin, with a feminine ending indicating that this was a woman called Philip; the equivalent of Ricardus for Richard). Using the same -ot ending, much as we might put an -ie or -y on a name today, Magot was a pet version of Margaret, Annot was a diminutive of Anne or Agnes, and Mariot another version of Marjory or Mary. Using a different pet-name ending, Jenkin was one of several common diminutives of John (this particular one, Redmonds says, was often used to denote the younger of two siblings when both were named John – but more of that intriguing situation in my next post), and Perkin or Parkin was a nickname for Peter.

Since many surnames derive from first names (Johnson – John’s son – for example), it’s interesting to realise that many diminutives that are no longer in use have been preserved in surname form, such as Jenkins, Perkins, Parkinson, Saunderson, Watkin and Philpot.

In my next post I’d like to come on to which names were most popular in medieval and Tudor times (there may be a few surprises), plus the historical version of celebrity name choices. Yes, while Brooklyn (eldest son of David and Victoria) Beckham was reportedly named after the place where he was conceived, Castilian Morris was named during a Roundhead siege of Pontefract Castle, where his father was a colonel in the defending Royalist army. Oh, and then there’s the 15^th-century lord who named his sons Tristram, Rainbrown and Troilus…

Christian Names in Local & Family History, by George Redmonds, is published by The National Archives.

H.M. Castor's novel VIII - a new take on the life of Henry VIII - is published by Templar in the UK and by Penguin in Australia. It is now available in paperback, hardback & ebook format.

H.M. Castor's website is here.