Alphabet Soup: Restaurant names are becoming more complicated and enigmatic. Christopher Hirst asks the experts what’s going on.
posted by Fizz
on Mar 19, 2012 -
52 comments
Here are some old New Jersey maps, available online. Take a look at this map of southern New Jersey made by Dutch settlers in
1669. The Dutch labeled Cape May "Cabo May." Take a look at Delaware Bay. The Dutch called it Godyn's Bay. This
1709 map shows a division between east and west New Jersey. Probably most interesting of all is
this map from 1795. Here, you can see archaic names of towns. What is now Pennington was once called "Pennytown." Lawrenceville was once called "Maidenhead." What is today called Hightstown was once called "Hiatstown." How about that little island off the southwestern New Jersey coast, Egg Island? Is that even there anymore?
posted by candasartan
on Feb 10, 2012 -
26 comments
Laura Wattenberg on
Ledasha, Legends, and Race [
Part Two |
Part Three] "Why does it matter? We tell funny stories all the time without believing them. (Does anybody really think that a priest, a rabbi and a chicken walked into a bar?) I believe it matters in the case of urban legend names because they're not merely humor...and they're not random. They exist in a complex social setting, and they serve a subtle and consequential purpose. They are proxies for talking about race."
posted by ocherdraco
on Nov 1, 2009 -
109 comments
A message from baby Emily. Most popular baby names + Medicare advice + awful Elvis impersonation = EPIC FAIL. A single link video post from the Social Security Administration. You will laugh. Until you remember we (USians) paid for this.
(via Andrew Sullivan)
posted by fourcheesemac
on May 17, 2009 -
309 comments
World Names Profiler is a pretty amazing Flash tool, that allows you to see where other people with your last name are distributed across the world, in frequency per million, right down to the city and regional level. Fun to pair with the
NameVoyager.
posted by dgaicun
on Sep 10, 2008 -
93 comments
On Having A Black Name "I am a white woman, a blond, blue-eyed white woman, and I have a first name strongly associated with black women. My mother, a southerner by birth, never stopped telling me she made the name up. The fact that she truly could not remember ever hearing the name before, is a testament to the strength of southern segregation. It is likely she heard it once or twice, and simply forgot it until later. And so, even at 50 years old, I have a name that makes people do a double-take. "You're _____?" is something I have heard all my life. "Yes, that would be me," is what I say, as they look confused. I have upset the social order. Names, I have learned, are a big, big part of it."
posted by nooneyouknow
on Apr 24, 2008 -
257 comments
Our notions of names and gender may be showing some 'fluidity.' A long-time trend of male names losing their popularity or even their acceptibility once the same names become popular for girls may be shifting to a new 'gender fluidity.' While it's still true that fewer and fewer boys are named Leslie, Shirley, Kim, Ashley, Shannon, Whitney, or Carol, other names have emerged as unisex monikers: Jordan, Angel, or Peyton. Logan has re-emerged as a more clearly male name. See
this article in today's N.Y. Times Magazine. The essay was penned by Sam Kean: is that Samuel or Samantha? Does it matter?
posted by Rain Man
on Oct 28, 2007 -
139 comments
Put a little commerce in your art with Lulu's
Titlescorer, a widget that analyzes your book title's chances of gracing the top of the New York Time's bestseller list.
posted by Iridic
on Nov 26, 2006 -
69 comments
The Surname Profiler Project Website. A recent research project based at University College London (UCL) has investigated the distribution of surnames in Great Britain, both current and historic, in order to understand patterns of regional economic development, population movement and cultural identity. Start a search
here.
posted by davehat
on Feb 2, 2006 -
54 comments
OK, so some professional sports players have less-than-usual
first names. Certainly not ones that are likely to appear on the
top ten list. But if you really want weirdness in names (and, quite possibly, other things) you need to head over to
Utah. (Frameset page; click on 'The Cream of The Crop'.)
Personal favorite: VulvaMae
posted by littleme
on Jan 20, 2006 -
144 comments
Horatio Hornblower, meet Gentle Fudge Staff and researchers at the Cornwall Record Office compiled a list of more than 1,000 unusual names found in censuses as well as in births, deaths and marriage records going back as far as the 16th century.
"My all-time favorites are Abraham Thunderwolff and Freke Dorothy Fluck Lane," said Rene Jackaman, archive assistant at Cornwall County Record Office.
posted by diastematic
on Sep 12, 2005 -
15 comments
What do
Norman Cook (AKA Fat Boy Slim), Lord (Richard) Attenborough, Aubrey Beardsley, Lord (Laurence) Olivier, Sir Winston Churchill, Magnus Volk, Dame Anna Neagle, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Rowland Hill and
Annie Nightingale, have in common?
They've all had a bus named after them
[full list here] in the city of Brighton & Hove on the south coast of England. In Jamaica
the buses are named a little more irreverently but this whole naming tradition doesn't seem to be as popular as naming trains with
the late Joe Strummer one of the latest in a long line. Pix of the Stummer train
here. [Scroll down a bit.]
Anyone live in a place where they name their buses? Or other inanimate objects?
posted by i_cola
on Mar 18, 2005 -
24 comments
