All Those Wonderful Names
Description
Ever wonder what the most popular and unpopular baby names are? And how certain people and places got their names? Or are you just looking for guidance in choosing your child's name? ALL THOSE WONDERFUL NAMES is an amusing exploration of names, familiar words, phrases, and the stories behind their origins. From the common to the confounding, this book has it all. Hear the true stories behind the naming of tropical storms, cars, fictitious characters, major league baseball teams, and more. Find out the real names of celebrities, such as Elton John, Cher, Rip Torn, Cary Grant, Liberace, and Conway Twitty. Discover counties, towns, and cities with strange names like Difficult, Tennessee; Jiggs, Nevada; Virgin, Utah; and Bosom, Wyoming. Learn unusual names for newborns-and perhaps the origin of your own surname as well.
More details
Person
J.N. Hook has authored and co-authored more than thirty textbooks on the English language. A former professor of English at the University of Illinois, Professor Hook's first book for the general public was the critically acclaimed THE GRAND PANJANDRUM, a study of rare, useful, and delightful words.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Part I: The Names People Give Their Defenseless Children
- Chapter 1. Choosing Names For Girls Ballad of Beautiful Names
- Chapter 2. Choosing Names for Boys
- Chapter 3. Fads and Fancies in Bestowing (or Inflicting) Names
- Chapter 4. The Ups and Downs of Jane, and the Rise and Fall of Irene
- Chapter 5. Were You Born in the 1950s?
- Chapter 6. The Troubles of Job
- Chapter 7. Choosing a Name for Your Baby
- Chapter 8. The Names We Inherit
- Chapter 9. America Entered the War, and the Muellers Became Millers
- Chapter 10. Some Jewish Family Names
- Chapter 11. Names of African-Americans
- Chapter 12. Names from the British Isles Those Good Old English Names
- Chapter 13. The National Origins of Some of Our Surnames
- Chapter 14. Some Other Sources of Surnames Misleading Surnames
- Chapter 15. Wonderful People with Strange-Sounding Names
- PART II: We Name Almost Every Place We Know
- Chapter 16. The Continents and the States
- Chapter 17. How Places Get Their Names
- Chapter 18. Whimsy and Humor
- Chapter 19. Naming in the Wilds
- Chapter 20. Improper (?) Names
- Chapter 21. On the Big Apple and Smaller Apples
- Chapter 22. This Is a Lovely Little Town, Wasn't It?
- Chapter 23. Changing Times, Changing Names
- PART III: Still More of These and a Few of Those
- Chapter 24. Still More of These Early Automobiles
- Chapter 25. . . . and a Few of Those
- Bibliography
- Copyright
