STILL CHOOSY? Try These Name Sources
Name-it books on bookstore baby sections include a cottage industry of old dears who likely guess at origins and whose presentation makes one worthwhile hard to find. Prefer:
Hanks & Hodges A Concise Dictionary of First Names, Revised 1997 Oxford University Press paperback. Authors Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges meet current demand for an-cient Celtic names. 6,000 entries have input from university scholars of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Israel. Popular names in other languages are at back.
Dunkling & Gosling Everyman’s Dictionary of First Names Dent 1983 Facts on File Dictionary of First Names Rev. 1983-84.are nearly identical hardcovers. Hunt for later editions! Leslie Dunkling a founder and general secretary Names Society, William Gosling classical scholar at Oxford is authority on 17 /18th century Christian names and 20 years headmaster. They show popularity levels over time until almost a generation back. Dunkling’s The Guinness Book of Names has six editions or more. His American counterpart Professor Leonard R. N. Ashley’s What’s in a Name is similar. Each in-volves slow retrieval.
Reaney & Wilson A Dictionary of English Surnames, Revised. 3rd Ed. 1997 paperback of 16,000 English surnames. Dr. Percy Hyde Reaney’s files are in Sheffield University; R.M. Wilson’s 2nd and 3rd editions incorporate his work as well. Latter narrowed focus, recommending instead for Irish names Edward MacLysaght books; Welsh Border Names by T. E. Morris and Scottish Surnames by G. F. Black. The R & W dictionary is essential for deeper study but its condensed, terse entries frustrate casual searchers.
Dr. Basil Cottle The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames 2nd Ed. 1978 paperback. This Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries semi-retired 1980 as Reader in Medieval Studies at the University of Bristol. We pray for a Hodges or a Wilson to do fresh editions rather than reprints. Prof. Cottle is arch, erudite and entertaining but 12,000 entries aren’t near enough.
Donald Whyte Scottish Surnames & Families 1996 Birlinn. The seminal book was Dr. George F. Black’s Surnames of Scotland 1946 New York. After several reprints Whyte follows Black, also in paperback with less but newer material.
Bill Casselman What’s in a Canadian Name? Broadcaster and author explores name origins and meanings of Canadians in politics, the arts; even spells out k. d. lang.
Yvette Elderbroom Naming Your Child, Christian Names, Novalis/ St. Paul’s Univer-sity, Ottawa, portrays saints of legend/tradition where scholarly books withhold for, lack of facts. Ms. Elderbroom evokes nuns and their Stories With a Moral I found hard to accept even in knee pants. That said, I adapted a few in the catalogue just for fun.
Micheil MacDonald The Clans of Scotland Grange 1995. This anthropologist has com-piled sensitive Highland and Lowland family histories, best of clan books consulted over years. Recommended for every Scots descendant’s library, even the coffee table.
Bain & Macdougall Robert Bain’s The Clans and Tartans of Scotland 4th Ed., enlarged, re-edited by Margaret O. Macdougall Collins 1968. This collection of woven checks and potted histories regularly is sole Scots source book in bibliographies. Seek later editions.
Edward MacLysaght The Surnames of Ireland has a line or so on 4,000-plus Gaelic, Norman- and Anglo-Irish names, paperback 1999. More Irish Families and Supplement to Irish Families he combined in More Irish Families Irish Academic Press paperback ‘96. The late author wanted this work consulted in conjunction with The Surnames of Ireland 5th Ed. 1980 out of print! Good work, useful also to weigh research done by others.
Kaplan/Bernays The Language of Names Simon & Schuster 1997 gives their impacts; deplores American parents with “tin ears” frivolously naming “helpless babes”.
Moody & Martin The Course of Irish History was broadcast 1966 by Radio Telefis Eireann, each program work of one of 21 scholar specialists. The series became a book by editors Theo W. Moody (1907-84) former professor of modern history at Trinity College, Dublin, and F. X. Martin, emeritus professor of medieval history at University College there. Publishers Mercier Press, Cork, Ireland/ Roberts Rinehart, USA. The ‘94 paperback has 2nd edition with more scholars, larger chronology and amplified biblio-graphy. Illustrations informative. It’s the core text on Irish history in Ireland’s schools.
Connolly, Editor The Oxford Companion to Irish History 1998 has 1,800 reliable entries. Paperback 1999 has 18 pages of forematter to introduce 618 pp., maps. A treasure.
Potter Helpful not essential is Simeon Potter’s Our Language, Pelican 1950. He was Bains Professor of English, University of Liverpool. Worthwhile chapter on names.
Other Worthy Sources American, British, Canadian general encyclopedias, best of them The Canadian Encyclopedia Year 2000 Edition, McClelland & Stewart, and Colum-bia 5th Ed. ‘93. Son Christopher’s gift Encyclopedia of British Columbia rounded out ent-ries. Richard Erdoes’ A.D. 1000 A World on the Brink of Apocalypse is a glance at the 1st millennium as we entered the 3rd but mostly about Dark Age Europe. Celtic, Scots, Welsh and English histories, military and Royal books, maps, lives of saints and Historical Oxford and Webster dictionaries were essential for researching and writing Catalogue of Kin. People or events make a given name important. Such are hard to find since so much gets recorded alphabetically by surname rather than given name. Helpful was The Ottawa Citizen. The column Milestones highlighted people and events occurring on a day in history. Countdown 2000 carried morsels about our 2nd millennium.
Bad Avoid English Surnames, Their Sources and Significations by Rev. Charles Waring Bardsley 1844. This early, flawed work just won’t go away. Lareina Rule’s Name Your Baby Revised 1986 Bantam was used with caution if at all.
Elégie
Within these walls now mouldering in decay
Where French wealth and grandeur once held sway
Resonated off the sweetest voice of song
Now all is still, and all the inmates gone.
Surely such scenes as these must pass,
Fall and decay like new mown grass,
And future years leave not a trace
Of us, but our last resting place.
Found in Fort Beauséjour bordering later Nova Scotia and New Brunswick
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