The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category 'Analytics'. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. “It transpired that he had been named for the only contact his family in a remote Puerto Rican village enjoyed with the outside world, the red-white-and-blue truck that came frequently and had painted on its side US Mail.”Īnd here’s the first Name Quotes post, from a few weeks ago. “I once had a student named Usmail, which I at first thought was some Hispanic version of Ishmael,” writes CUNY linguist Leonard R.N. – Robert Lawrence Trask, Language: The Basics, 1999Īnother from Greg Ross of Futility Closet:

The Filipino father had noticed that American soldiers, in moments of stress, tended to call upon their saint by exclaiming San Ababís! - or something like that.

In Spanish, the word for ‘saint’, when it occurs in a male saint’s name, is San - hence all those California place names like San Francisco, San José and San Diego. Well, before the Americans arrived, the Philippines were a Spanish colony, and Spanish was widely spoken. Less than 2 percent of Social Security’s budget is spent on administration, most of which goes toward producing the list of most popular baby names.įrom Greg Ross of the blog Futility Closet:īut my favourite example is a story told by the American linguist Charles Hockett, who reports that at least one Filipino father, during the American occupation of the Philippines, named his son Ababís - after the patron saint of the United States. This probably happened more to baby girls than to baby boys.īecause my wife is less concerned about a boy being taken “seriously”, most of our girl choices so far are conservative, while the boy names are a little more adventurous.įrom a Forbes article about the Social Security crisis: One common name was Copreus - it translates as ‘found on the dung-heap’.

You can tell that from the names people gave them. In fact, one of the major sources of slaves was probably these thrown-away babies. (It came out later that Slate was the younger sibling of Crimson, Indigo, and Sage.)įrom a Daily Mail article about life in ancient Rome: To some degree, his name diminished her joy. When the lady asked what the sweet little dear’s name was, the grandma clammed up and replied reservedly, “Slate”. From Jessie Jensen of the blog Bloggity Blog:Ī few months ago I sat in front of an older woman on a flight who was cheerfully explaining to her seatmate that she was on her way to visit her new grandson.

Futility Closet 2 by Greg Ross