Nominative determinism

It is estimated that in the 13th century about a third of men in England were called either John, William or Richard. I suppose the addition of an extra name was inevitable. One way that people 'earned' surnames back in the olden days (with such precision as this it's clear that I studied history isn't it) was through their occupations. John the blacksmith became John Smith, John the Carpenter became...well it's pretty obvious. Here are some more:

Archer = professional Archer
Bailey = bailiff
Carter = cart maker
Carver = sculptor
Chaplin = chaplain
Chandler = candle maker
Cooper = barrel maker
Day = dairy worker
Fletcher = arrow maker
Frobisher = Polished armour and swords
Gardner = gardener
Hooper = Fitted hoops on barrels
Kellogg = A killer of hogs
Leach = doctor
Machin = stone worker
Naylor = nail maker
Proctor = steward
Redman = thatcher (reed man)
Sawyer = wood sawer
Trinder = wheel maker
Ward = watchman

Puts a whole new light on Kellogg this does. Suddenly the name is elevated in my mind from the bland to the rough and ready.
"Matt Kellog is in the neighbourhood ma!"
"Lordy lordy, hide them hogs now boy."
The famous Kellogs should have done gritty, no-nonsense muesli, not golden flakes of nutritionless cardboard.

Anyway, I got to thinking about nominative determinism yesterday. The term is a coinage of the Feedback column in the British popular science journal New Scientist, stemming from this item in 1994:

"WE recently came across a new book, Pole Positions - The Polar Regions and the Future of the Planet, by Daniel Snowman. Then, a couple of weeks later, we received a copy of London Under London - A Subterranean Guide, one of the authors of which is Richard Trench. So it was interesting to see Jen Hunt of the University of Manchester stating in the October issue of The Psychologist: "Authors gravitate to the area of research which fits their surname." Hunt's example is an article on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology (vol 49, pp 173-176, 1977) by J. W. Splatt and D. Weedon."

In a sense it's like names have come the full circle. What you were once named for is somehow in your psyche and you end up being pulled towards those jobs. The reason I was thinking it is because someone applied for a course because he wants to be a swimming instructor. I can't say what his name is here but suffice to say it suits the job to a tee. Other occupations he may consider is baggage handler and elephant inspector.

The Weetabix Stadium

Don't you just know we're going to get some crappy, embarrassing name if the stadium name gets put up for auction. From the Spurs website:


Club confirms naming rights opportunity at new stadium
Daniel Levy, the Club's Chairman, yesterday confirmed that a naming rights partner would be sought to support the financing of plans for our proposed new Stadium.
"It's a necessary and critical component of financing a modern football stadium," confirmed Daniel during a round of media interviews at White Hart Lane yesterday afternoon. We are well aware of the history and great affection our fans have for White Hart Lane but our plans involve us moving to a completely new Stadium and if you want progress, things do have to change."

Likely outcomes:

McDonald's Stadium
Mcvities Stadium
Armitage Shanks Stadium
Durex Stadium

Acceptable outcome:

White Hart Lane (and nothing else!)

More on the development: http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/futureplans/scheme.html#

Public consultation document: http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/uploads/assets/docstore/Booklet_Web.pdf They claim the transport infrastructure is already there! I think Levy needs to catch a bus once in a while.

Name

Me and S went to a restaurant the other day and arrived just before Iftar. I acknowledged the manager who I’d known in another capacity several years ago. He greeted me by name but all I could manage was ‘Alright mate?’ After we sat down I tried first to run through all the typical Bengali names but nothing rang any bells: Ahmed, Abul, Abdul, Ali, Albert…

Cunningly I called one of the waiters over:
“What’s your boss’s name?” I asked, pointing him out at the bar.
“I don’t know but will find,” he replied with a conspiratorial grin. He returned about five minutes later with a double conspiratorial grin (but no food):
“His name YAKVADAD.”
“What? I’m sure he wasn’t called that when I knew him, how do you spell it?”
“Y…A…A…Y….J….X…”

Eventually I found out his actual name and learnt a salutary lesson: When you forget someone’s name don’t ask one of his employees that doesn’t speak very good English.

Talking of names, S noticed the other day that the pool of names seems to be getting smaller. We both have ‘best’ friends with the same name even though they are different sexes. My son shares a name with one of the blokes renting my flat and so on. Maybe it’s time to do that seventies thing again where people started to make up names like ‘Sky’. The new ones could reflect the zeitgeist: Bluetongue, Baghdad, Eco, WMD, Suicidebomber, Microsoft or even Zeitgeist.

That wouldn’t work in Switzerland mind you. Apparently, you can’t call your kid anything weird as all names have to be from an approved list. That’s probably why they’re a bunch of boring squares who never have wars and have a high standard of living.