Val's day

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

It being Valentine’s Day and all, I feel the time has come to muse on Val Longstreet, and AF names in general. I was taken aback to learn Val’s full name was Valentine, partly because it’s comically incongruous with her character, and partly because I’ve never met or even heard of a real person called Valentine. I’d assumed her name was Valerie (rare but not unheard of). Was (or is) there a particular time and/or demographic in the UK where 'Valentine' was a reasonably common name?

The names of ongoing characters were an aspect of her books that AF couldn't shift to suit the different timeframes of her books, which must make for some interesting clashes in fashion. Being Australian, I don't know that much about what names would have been popular in schools like Kingscote in the eras when the books are set, but I'd guess, for example, that having two Margarets in a small class of girls might have been likely at the time of Autumn Term, but would have been unlikely by Attic Term.

It's also interesting to look at which names seem dated and which don't. 'Nicola', 'Rebecca', 'Karen' and 'Jenny' are as current as ever, at least to my Australian eye, but 'Erica', 'Lois', 'Virginia' and 'Barbara' seem of an earlier generation. I also suspect (again, without much knowledge of the context in posh UK circles at the time) that by Attic Term, AF chose names for new minor characters (e.g. the 'infants' in Ann's dorm) which were fashionable at the time when the novel was set. Then there's ones like 'Thalia', 'Pomona' and 'Unity', where I suspect AF was deliberately picking offbeat names.

Any thoughts from people who know more than me about UK naming fashions through the ages?

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Maybe with the latest fad for giving girls boys' names, Lawrence will come into fashion too?

I remember thinking it odd that Tim found Nicola's name unusual in Autumn Term, 'not like Joan or Peggy or Betty' as Joan and Peggy and Betty were names I associated with my grandmother's generation, and I was somewhere under ten and hadn't really worked out how old the book was.

All the youngish Margarets I've met have been Scottish, so maybe it stayed popular there longer than in England?

I was in classes with multiple Joannas and Fionas (not that I am at all posh) so I think AF's instincts were right there.

I think of Valentine as a boy's name, possibly due to Valentine Pelka (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0670893/). *wipes brow in relief that AF fandom was spared any kind of Blaise Zabini-like fandom flare-ups about Val Longstreet's gender*

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

I wonder if AF was deliberately going for unusual, and possibly somewhat gender ambiguous names. Remembering that Nicola is happy to be called Nick, but hates Nicky (except when used by her mother, presumably from early childhood.) Obviously Lawrence and Lawrie also gender ambiguous, as is Rowan. Ginty also does appear an unusual short form of Virginia, as I thought it was an Irish surname and Ginny is the usual abbreviation. Perhaps unusual name means that Ginty is redeemable after all - I'd quite like this, as some of the time it does seem like she is being condemned for being a relatively conventionally feminine teenage girl, although she is dishonest to Patrick in Attic Term. Poor Ann does seem stuck with the most boring name in Marlow terms - glad there was an Annis ancestor. Interesting that AF's real first name was Patricia.

[coughingbear]

This site is admittedly US rather than UK, but it's still an interesting tracker of name popularity. And would seem to suggest that Virginia was a popular name in the 1920s & 30s, but went into rapid decline after that. Still, there were two at my school in the 1980s, so that never struck me as odd, and I also knew more than one Barbara. Erica and Lois are definitely unusual, but I always thought that was deliberate for Lois at least. And I think there's an Erica in at least one Chalet School book; I definitely associate it with boarding schools, anyhow.

What we need is a site tracking fictional popularity...

[oursin.livejournal.com]

In Margery Allingham's Albert Campion mysteries, his sister is called Valentine.

But there was also a (real-life) male actor Valentine Dyall as I recall.

It is possibly dating to say that 'Erica', 'Lois', 'Virginia' and 'Barbara' are all names that are to be found among my own contemporaries.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

And Valerie was far from rare, too.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

I remember Valentine striking me as an odd name in Orson Scott Card, and I know I've come across a literary male Valentine, but I can't for the life of me remember who.

For what it's worth (I'm not British) my high school year (graduated 1999) had an Erica and a Virginia, but only one of each. Jennies in abundance.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

There's a literary female Valentine in Mary Gentle's White Crow books, come to think of it.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I'd forgotten. But I remembered the male one - one of the Warleggan kids in the Poldark series.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Well I want to lay claim to some kind of superiority here, for I have actually met someone called Valentine. He is (or may now possibly be retired) a professor of English at Oxford and occasionally contributes to things on Radio 4. And he's definitely male, as was the original St Valentine.

I've always liked the name Rowan for a girl, though in light of the present Archbishop of Canterbury, I've gone off it slightly.

When I was at boarding school in the eighties, there were Nicolas, Virginias, Jennys, Mirandas and Sarahs but I don't remember any Ericas, Loises or Barbaras. And obviously not Thalia or Pomona. Has anyone ever met a Bunty?

The Marlow naming strategy has always struck me as rather odd. Karen, Ann and Nicola are good solid, dependable names while Rowan, Virginia (and Lawrence, though we at least have a reason for that) as much more flighty.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Leslie Dunkling's Guinness Book of Names has tables for each decade. From what I remember before my copy vanished, Karen and Nicola were not at all common names in the 1940s. They became popular in the 60s. I imagine AF's Karen being pronounced the Danish way as in Karen Blixen and being thought of as terribly foreign and exotic.

I think the only Marlow name AF *meant* to be ordinary and boring when she started writing was Ann, which ties in with her opinion of the character. It doesn't explain why the Marlow parents took one look at the baby and decided not to give her an unusual name like all the others though.

I have a second cousin who was known as Bunty as a child, although her real name was Frances. My mother was also sometimes called Bunty by her brother although again it's not her name. I can't imagine anyone being christened it.

[(Anonymous)]

In The Archers, Shula's ex-mother-in-law is Bunty Hebden. Don't know what her real name is.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Impressive knowledge!

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I kind of hope there's a Great Aunt Ann out there who is refusing to communicate with the rest of the family because of a Queen Mum / Mrs Simpson-like hatred of Madame Orly, but who will leave Ann something in her will. Preferably an independence, and a small cottage somewhere with a really good piano.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

Even Virginia she chooses an odd shortening for. All the Virginias I've known shortened to Ginnie.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I know a Nichola who was born in 1943, but the spelling suggests that she might have been named after her father - she was born after his death, and I don't know what his name was.

Wasn't or isn't there a children's comic called Buntie? And has Baby Bunting, as in the nursery rhyme, got anything to do with it - a baby nickname?

[lurkingcat]

I have a Great Aunt who is still referred to as Bunty, although her real name is Jessie.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Val Cunningham of Corpus Christi, a repellent old bigot, from my infrequent dealings with him. But definitely male, yes.

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Has anyone ever met a Bunty?

Only in a favorite childhood book about two rabbits called Billy and Bunty, so I've always thought of it as a rabbity name...

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I knew a guy with Valentine as a middle name.
Barbara and Virginia seemed dated to me when I read the books in the 80s - Erica, Lois, Valerie etc would just be uncommon.

I did notice a correlation at my boarding school between upper-crust English families and wierd names - Lavinia, Luscinia, Dorcas, Honeysuckle, to name a few. Plus the Chinese girls who tended to end up with old-fashioned English names - Phyllis, Vivien, Violet, Susan.
We also had nine Sarahs in my year.

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

My mother's Chinese, and I had a lot of contact with the Chinese community when I was growing up, where the most popular names for girls sounded almost 19th century to me: Grace, Adeline, Elaine, Ivy, Winifred, Audrey. In my school (Presbyterian girls' school, academic, middle to upper middle class, 1984-1989), Karen and Fiona were very popular. Scottish influence perhaps?

[liadnan]

Val Cunningham (tutor in English at CCC Oxford, former Booker and possibly TUrner judge and occasional jazzman) would be in his 50s I guess.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Yes, he's the one I used to know.

[chazzbanner.livejournal.com]

I think of Valentine, historically, as a boy's name. St. Valentine - a male saint.

There was painter Val (for Valentine) Prinsep, related to the Stephens clan (V. Woolf etc.).

Fictional character- Valentine Warleggan (male) in the Poldark series.

However Val Gielgud, John's brother, seems to have been a Val not a Valentine.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I knew a Val when I was growing up in the 1950s/early 1960s, but have no idea whether he was Valentine or not - I didn't address him by his first name in any case, as he was of my parents' generation, and you didn't, then.

At school in the 1960s, everybody was called Caroline, Susan or Ann/Anne - the majority spelt it with an E, after the Princess Royal had brought that spelling back into fashion, but there was a substantial minority who spelt it without. There were several Barbaras and Nicolas, and at least one Erica. There were even a couple of Joans and Pamelas, but those names were rapidly going out of style.

Apart from Rowan Marlow, I've only met male Rowans.

Karen is an oddity - it wasn't all that popular when I was very young, but it was very far from unknown, and often pronounced with a long "a". And at least one Karen at school was known as Kay. But it suddenly burst into popularity among children born in the late 1950s onwards, and, as far as I know, has been popular ever since.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

Apart from Rowan Marlow, I've only met male Rowans.

Whereas, apart from the AoC, I've only met female ones!

I wonder if anyone else here has named a child of theirs after a character in an AF book?

-m-

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Have you? Which character? (*hopes for Tim*)

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

I wanted to name my youngest daughter Miranda after M.West but my older daughters insisted on Katherine. They said that I already mixed up their names (Margaret and Alice) and if I named this third child an "M" name I'd never keep her and Margaret straight. For what it's worth, they were right--I never call Kate by any other name, though I still confuse the other two. Don't know why.
Maybe one of them will have a daughter named Miranda! I've certainly made my preferences known...

[meirion.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have. Afraid it's not Tim – it's Lois (although with a minor Frenchification by making her Loïs instead!) Clearly I identified rather too much with Lawrie when I was 7 or so.

I'd say that she's the polar opposite of AF's Lois, and yet somehow she isn't. I've never seen Lois as actually evil; rather as someone who makes very poor decisions in the heat of the moment, and genuinely believes she's doing things for the best, and then just doesn't understand why people have such disdain for her. OTOH, my daughter's only 7 so may yet grow out of it!

-m-

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

A friend had a baby Rowan a couple of years ago and the announcement was followed by lots of frenzied texting between mutual friends about what sex it was. I was in the minority who voted for female and we were wrong.

[nicolasmum.livejournal.com]

My daughter is named after Nicola Marlow. She was my favourite character and I adored the books.

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

My name reference books are at home but I've combed them and the U.S. Social Security website names tables pretty thoroughly in the past and here's what I remember. Lois is definitely a dated name--1920s and 30s babies, I'd say. Virginia was not, I think, ever that popular in England. It may have been more popular in America--I certainly knew Virginias growing up. Margaret has a much more steady popularity in Scotland than elsewhere, though it's a basic classic name that doesn't "date" like Lois might. Ditto Barbara--a classic name but currently not at all popular (even less so than Margaret, which is making a slight comeback). Jenny--wasn't that popular in Scotland before it hit elsewhere? Maybe a Scots theme here.

Nicola was a 1950s name, more English than anywhere else, and was then overtaken by Nicole. So Tim is right in finding it odd in the late 1940s. Erica was very popular when I was growing up in the USA, so early 1960s babies--not at all before that.

Valerie had a period of being fashionable, perhaps 1940s- 1950s, but Valentine not. I have a friend who named her son Sebastian Valentine because he was born on Valentine's Day. I'm sure he'll never forgive her.

I've always liked Rowan for a girls name too. My grandfather's name was Owen and I considered naming one of my girls Rowan and claiming it was for him, but it didn't sound good with my last name.

When I was a kid at least, the old-money Americans also gave their girls odder names than ordinary people did. My posh summer camp was populated by girls named Philippa, Timothea, India, Elliot, Ainley, etc., while my neighborhood school had girls named Kim, Betsy, Patty, and Jan. Boys of all classes always have more conservative names.

Karen is the really odd one. Maybe it was a trendy name for babies by 1948 and AF used it for an 18-year-old, which would have been unusual in reality. Sort of like calling a fictional teenager "Madison" would be today in America--nobody over age 10 is really called that.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

I walked up for my confirmation alongside a cocky young male Valentine, generally known as 'Val', who - when last heard of - was doing time for GBH. I have wondered whether he became a thug before he was twelve in order to forestall playground teasing about his 'girly' name.

(it's geebengrrl here, I can't log in at work)

[(Anonymous)]

I always wondered about Karen, because my understanding was that it was originally a Scandinavian name and didn't become popular in English speaking countries till the 60s and 70s. Perhaps Geoffrey Marlow was inspired by some shore leave incidents in the Baltic?

When I was in high school (1988-1993), Nicola was quite common though a bit posh. Every second girl had Ann/e as a middle name, but none as a first name. There were Karens, but mostly older than me. Patrick was prety common too (but almost always catholic). There were quite a lot of Lori/Laurie/Lorie's. But pronounced like 'lorry' - I have never quite worked out whether that's how Lawrie is pronounced or whether she's more law-ree. Also lots of Sallys and Maries (also a common middle name).

Jan/Barbara/Val/Margaret would all definitely be my mother's generation.

Also - there was one Unity at my school. Unfortunate child of hippy parents, her siblings were Willow and Sunshine.

I have always liked Rowan and am saving it up for any child I should have in the future.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Valentine is quite common for men in Ireland. My husband, growing up in a small town, had two neighbours called Valentine, both of whom shortened it to Val. They'd be in their 50s or 60s now. I've heard of it as a girl's name but never actually met one.

Didn't St Valentine get decanonised recently (or at Vatican II maybe?) Can't think AF would have approved...

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Well there were two of them, so you can probably still have it as a saint's name if you want.

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

I didn't find Virginia unusual when I first read the books in the 1970s - Virginia Wade was, after all, Britain's top tennis star then, and in the 1980s there were a couple of Virginias in the equestrian world (Virginia Leng and Virgina Strawson), who would have been born in the late 50s, at a guess. But they were all known as Ginny, certainly not Ginty.

I was always surprised to see a Nicola in a 1940s book, since it seemed to be a popular name with children of my own age (born in the 1960s), as did Karen. Ann, Barbara and Margaret I thought of as old names (sort of Margaret Thatcher era ;-)) and Rowan and Lawrence I'd never come across for girls.

A friend here in Australia has a seven-year-old daughter called Erica.

[aspoestertjie.livejournal.com]

I think the most well-known Unity is Unity Valkyrie Mitford... the Mitford sister who thought Hitler was a pinup, and tried to kill herself when war was declared between her countries, as she thought of them.

A good friend of ours is called Thalia, but for the Greek, not AF! Her parents are conservative Afrikaans people, so she is generally happy that she didn't get a weird combination name, or even more peculiar inherited name (Jomar/Glodina/Sugnette/etc.)

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

Yes, I too wondered if AF had Unity Mitford in mind when she named the entirely unlikable Unity Logan. UM was certainly a notoriously unsympathetic character before her botched suicide attempt lobotomized her.

Another thought about the Marlows and names: odd that the girls get the old Marlow family names (Lawrence, Nicholas) while Giles, the oldest boy, is named for one of his mother's dead brothers (Piers, Giles, Rollo, Terrance). I suppose that Peter too is named for Piers. Normally one would have expected the boys to be called Lawrence and Nicholas, and the girls to be Gillian and Petra.

[(Anonymous)]

I wondered if Rowan was a way of feminising Rollo?
(although we don't find out the brothers' names until End of Term, and unless AF was very organised about it all, I think that may just be a coincidence).

Also, I thought it was odd that 3 of her 4 brothers had very French names. Either Mrs Marlow comes from one of those old Norman families; or perhaps Madame Orly's 2nd husband was not the only French connection in her family?

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

Rowan as Rollo--brilliant. Maybe that's where she got that terrible nickname Rowly--doesn't somebody call her that?
I think that all the brothers' names are quite old English ones, though maybe Norman or some such. Think Piers Ploughman. Giles I think is medieval too--though I'm less good on male names than female ones. Anyway, I don't think they connote a French connection, just a very old family. Only Terrance seems sort of modern to me.

[dunite.livejournal.com]

Rowan is actually Rowena: she's called Rowan for short, and it's where Giles gets Rowley as a nickname.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Are you getting that from the bit right at the beginning of Autumn Term where Tim says something like 'And the next eldest one - Rowena - " and one of the twins corrects her, 'Rowan'? Because I read that as Tim just getting the name wrong.

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sure the name is just Rowan. AF is quite careful about when nicknames are used and when full names are used (I admire her consistancy on that score)--anyway, if Rowan had another, full name, there are definitely occasions when it would get used.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

I'm rereading Cricket Term, and I came across an Ancient Marlow Peter - it's what Geoffrey called his son, after both his father and Kate's, since Nicholas was out until he was definitively dead. So that could have been an additional point in favour of Peter.

In the Autumn Term timeline, Giles would have been born not that long after the end of the war, which could be why he didn't get a Marlow name - they wanted to memorialise Pam's brothers and there'd be plenty more boys for Marlow names, or so Geoff Marlow and his supersperm would have expected. Or maybe also trying to repair the rift with Mme Orly?

[(Anonymous)]

I would guess that when AF wrote the historicals, which was after she'd named the present-day family, she deliberately named the historical characters after the present-day ones. She had already used Geoffrey, Lawrence (twice), Peter and Nicholas/Nicola as modern Marlows so it made sense to use the same names for the ancestors. By then she'd used Giles for Mrs M's brother so she didn't need a historical Giles. Karen Rowan and Virginia wouldn't have fitted into the Elizabethan family - but she could have used Ann.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

There was an Annis.