Welcome to the Wordlady blog!

This blog is about the fascinating, fun, and challenging things about the English language. I hope to entertain you and to help you with problems or just questions you might have with spelling and usage. I go beyond just stating what is right and what is wrong, and provide some history or some tips to help you remember. Is something puzzling you? Feel free to email me at wordlady.barber@gmail.com.
You can also order my best-selling books, Six Words You Never Knew Had Something to do With Pigs and Only in Canada You Say. Fun and informative!

Subscribe!

Subscribe! Fun facts about English delivered weekly right to your inbox. IT'S FREE! Fill in your email address below.
Privacy policy: we will not sell, rent, or give your name or address to anyone. You can unsubscribe at any point.

Search This Blog

Saturday, July 4, 2020

What's in a name?

The Barber map
Wordlady loves the stories behind words, as you know. But she also loves the stories behind names: first names, family names, place names. The study of names is called "onomastics", from the Greek onoma meaning "name".

She also loves maps, so just imagine how excited she gets about a website that combines names and maps! So with my Namelady hat on, I would like to introduce you to the "Named" website, which I am sure will give you some fun.

"Named" maps places in  the UK where one (or two) surnames have a historically unusually high local population. It uses a recent UK electoral roll and was created in 2016. The data include names that are not originally British as well as names that go back to Anglo-Saxon times. If  you have a rare name it won't show the data for privacy reasons as it might allow someone to zero in on your house.

All you do is enter your surname, and the website maps where in the UK there is an unusually high number of people with that surname living.

The creator of the website, geographer Ollie O'Brien, has this to say about it:
Although it uses relatively recent data, it may well show you where your surname was historically most concentrated. It has been demonstrated that most traditional UK surname distributions remain surprisingly unchanged over many years – internal migration in the UK is a lot less than might be traditionally perceived.

The map shows places where you are unusually likely to bump into somebody with that name. In very rural areas  you don’t need to have very many people with a name for it to show up as a hotspot, because there aren’t very many people with any other names either. Whereas, in more populated parts of the country, you need a large number of people.

Give it a spin with your family names here
Let me know what you find out!

If you want to share your map with friends and relatives, you can right-click on the circle with the map in it, and choose "Save image as..."


To see all Wordlady posts, click here: https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/

3 comments:

  1. From one Barber to another, thank you! Now, other than curiosity about the results shown in the map, how would you suggest we figure out the 'why' and 'so what?' consequences. Can we make any inferences about class, education, really anything at all?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really have no idea why there is a preponderance of Barbers in Norwich and Stoke-on-Trent! Someone would have to look at the history of the Barber families going back to the Middle English period to find that out.

      Delete
  2. Hello Katherine, I was surprised to see one family name, "Cherry", concentrates in Birmingham and another, "Crown", Norwich. Maybe the Barbers and Crowns knew each other! HaHa. Thank you for this wonderful site and your work.

    ReplyDelete

About Me

My photo
Canada's Word Lady, Katherine Barber is an expert on the English language and a frequent guest on radio and television. She was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Her witty and informative talks on the stories behind our words are very popular. Contact her at wordlady.barber@gmail.com to book her for speaking engagements; she can tailor her talks to almost any subject. She is also available as an expert witness for lawsuits.