So, recently my church has started it’s own amateur dramatics society… I’m no actress, but I decided that I’d join for the experience - I can’t act, but it should be a bit of fun!
And even the cast list has given me a bit of fun! It’s very interesting to see these names - which are typical of Belfast in the early 1940s, apparently - and how they compare to the names typical of today. What’s even more interesting is how many of them I see cropping up in the nameberry boards every day! Not so much the boys names, but definitely the girls names.
So, for the girls -
[name]Tilly[/name]
[name]Janet[/name]
[name]Josie[/name]
[name]Betsy[/name]
[name]Sadie[/name]
[name]Maisie[/name]
[name]Doreen[/name]
[name]Pearl[/name]
[name]Aggie[/name]
[name]Phyllis[/name]
[name]Elizabeth[/name] “[name]Lizzie[/name]”
[name]Florence[/name] “[name]Florrie[/name]”
[name]Minnie[/name]
[name]Kate[/name]
[name]Nellie[/name]
[name]Robina[/name]
[name]Sandra[/name]
With the obvious exceptions - including [name]Janet[/name], [name]Doreen[/name], [name]Aggie[/name], and especially [name]Robina[/name] - I can see a lot of names that fit in very well nowadays! Recently, I’ve seen a lot of little girls named [name]Kate[/name], [name]Florence[/name], [name]Maisie[/name] and [name]Josie[/name], and [name]Tilly[/name], [name]Betsy[/name] and [name]Minnie[/name] are perfect examples of the nickname-name trend growing in popularity these days! And names like [name]Sadie[/name] and [name]Pearl[/name] are oft mentioned here on nameberry…
The boys names aren’t so interesting, I’m afraid, but here in N.[name]Ireland[/name] it’s only beenin the last 25 years or so that new names have really taken off in the name pool. But in this play, we have
[name]William[/name] “[name]Will[/name]”
[name]William[/name] “[name]Billy[/name]” (this is intentional - no matter what age you are, here, you’ll know at least five [name]Williams[/name])
[name]Samuel[/name] “[name]Sammy[/name]”
[name]Thomas[/name] “[name]Tommy[/name]”
[name]Daniel[/name] “[name]Danny[/name]”
[name]Robert[/name] “[name]Bert[/name]”
[name]Hugh[/name]
[name]Andrew[/name] “[name]Andy[/name]”
[name]Harry[/name]
[name]Seamus[/name]
[name]James[/name] “[name]Jimmy[/name]”
[name]Patrick[/name]
[name]Arthur[/name] “[name]Artie[/name]”
[name]Jonathan[/name] “[name]Johnny[/name]”
… yeah, as you can see, nicknaming seems to have been a very big thing back then, lol. Now really seeing too much correlation here - most of these names stay fairly consistent in terms of popularity (at least here, anyway), although some of the nicknames are now quite dated. [name]Jimmy[/name] and [name]Billy[/name], I’m looking at you.
Well, just wanted to air these thoughts here! No one else will listen to me, haha, but hopefully this will be of interest to someone!