Despite all of our similarities, the Americans and the English have managed to develop some subtle differences in what they opt to name their children. While a great number of names are commonly seen in both lands, some are seen much more commonly in one than the other, and some are really only seen in one for reasons I don't fully understand. The following is a very, very brief list, mainly with names of people I know, because they seem to come up the most often. I have also been influenced by the list of names that come up for my work address book, hence the dominance of male names.
Common the world over:
Kate/Katie/Kathryn and all involved spellings
Chris/Christopher
Dave/David
Tom/Thomas
Nick/Nicholas
John
Mark
Names Anglos love:
James (but where are the Jims???)
Richard (again, but no one called Dick, or Rich or Rick for that matter)
Caroline
Names Anglos use within moderation that intrigue me in some way:
Seamus
Declan
Ellie/Eleanor, Elaine, Louise, etc 'old lady' names on lots of people under 30
Damien (do you they not know he's the devil?)
Names not seen this side of the pond:
Aaron, allegedly
Hilary
Kristen
Ashley
All those -son and -er names, Madison, Parker, etc.
What the general trend seems to be is that the English tend to stick with traditional first names, while the Americans seem to enjoy making their child in some way 'special' and 'unique' by giving them the special/unique name du jour, such as Dakota or Harley. I'm not really sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, quite frankly, but it seems a little more creativity wouldn't hurt the English and a little less 'creativity' wouldn't hurt us. Again, this is just a quick list, but it's something I find constantly quite intriguing!
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3 comments:
Claire and Amelia were thrilled when Nanny came back from her visit to England with plaques that read 'Claire's Room' and 'Amelia's Room'. Amelia never finds anything here with her name on it, and Claire can't find anything where her name has been spelled correctly.
Though, I did find 'Claire' hairpins once, but I couldn't let her wear them because you're not supposed to send your kid out with her name displayed on her head.
Ohhh, I bet Mom's head exploded when she read the title to this one!!!
Hm, so true. no comment from mom yet. Anybody check on her?
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