A history of English baby names
English speakers are blessed with a vast store of first names to choose from, as layer after layer of immigrants and cultures have added their names to the pool parents have to draw on.
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The earliest names we have are those from the indigenous Celtic peoples. Some of the Welsh names go back to Roman times, or even earlier, and many of the Irish names are nearly as old. The Irish took their language over to Scotland where subtle changes took place, adding yet more forms. In addition there have been times when English-speaking overlords tried to suppress these ancient languages, and so a system evolved of equivalent names that conformed to English traditions.
In the Dark Ages the Anglo-Saxons settled England, bringing with them Germanic naming traditions. Speakers of this family of languages, which include German, English and the Scandinavian languages had a tradition, at least among the aristocracy about whom we know most, of forming names by combining two elements, each of which came from a vocabulary word. Each family tended to have traditional name elements, and marriages meant they could cross from one family to another. This meant that a child might have a name newly coined for them, and although the meaning of the name might not make much sense, people could tell a lot about the family from the form the name took.
The reason we have so many boy’s names beginning Ed- is that Old English ead ‘prosperous, fortunate’ was one of the traditional elements used in the English royal family in the later Saxon period. It should be noted that the modern way of forming new names by blending together parts of established names to form names like Jerrica or Jakayla is not really that different. When the pagan Saxons converted to Christianity a whole new set of names were introduced. These were either Hebrew, from the Old Testament; or Greek, either directly from Greek or the Greek form of Hebrew names, from the New Testament. Over time many of these names have developed distinctively English forms. However, these names were rarely used until after the Norman Conquest.
When the Normans took over England (and later much of the rest of the British Isles) in 1066, they brought with them their own stock of names, which rapidly replaced most of the Anglo-Saxon names. Many of these names were actually Germanic in origin, for about the same time that the Saxons had taken over England, the related Germanic tribe of the Franks had taken over much of France. In France the names have developed along their own lines and taken new forms. In addition, the French were much more inclined to use biblical names, and also used more names inherited from the Roman past. A major source of names was those of saints. Children could either be named after a saint whose feast day was celebrated about the same time they were born, or else the name could be used to place a child under that saint’s protection.
Baby names in the renaissance and romantic periods
The Renaissance introduced more classical names, particularly those from Greek, although these had been used on occasion throughout the Middle Ages. Names were also beginning to be taken from literature more often. However, with the Reformation in England there was a sudden change in the stock of names being used. Saint’s names were rejected by reformists, and instead many more names were taken directly from the Bible, and the Puritans also chose names such as Charity, which indicated desirable qualities in a child. This was the naming tradition taken over to America by the Founding Fathers and which still lies behind some of the major differences in the names tradition between the USA and the UK, so that names such as Reuben or Amos are far more common in the USA.
The next major change that happened was in the eighteenth century, with the beginnings of the Romantic Movement. A whole new set of names came into use, often taken from the names of literary characters or from myth and legend. This trend increased with time, and the Romantic period also saw the revival of numerous Medieval names that had previously fallen out of use. With the rise of Gothic and the English High Church in the nineteenth century there was a marked trend to revive Anglo-Saxon names, particularly those of saints. In the same period the trend to use surnames as first names, which had long existed, grew stronger. In the past these names had often been mother’s maiden names or the names of godparents. Now more and more upper class names were being used as first names by people who had no connections with the families. The trend to use surnames was particularly marked in the USA.
Naming Your Baby © 2007 Julia Cresswell
Posted 25.10.2010
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