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Original poster

To think this attitude to names like Fanny in old books is silly?

210 replies

Carla786 · 28/04/2026 12:49

I've seen posts here agreeing with the new Enid Blyton editions that changed Fanny to Franny and Dick to Rick, some even saying she must have meant it as a double entendre.

 Just seems silly & narrow-minded to me. Not everything was always meant as a double entendre. Should Fanny Price in Mansfield Park also be changed? Or other characters called names that mean different things now?

I remember my mother passed down a minor Blyton book with a kitten called Bimbo in. Was that Blyton being rude, or just due to the fact that Bimbo was slang for 'kid' then?

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Original poster
Carla786 · 06/05/2026 15:39

EBearhug · 06/05/2026 12:30

Fanny Robin in Far From the Madding Crowd, though.

Yes,,she's another one!

I remembered also Fanny Logan, the narrator in Nancy Mitford's Pursuit of Love trilogy. Mitford was hardly unaware of double entendres but it was clearly an unremarkable name to her back in 1945-1949.
Did they change Fanny's name for the recent TV adaptation? I hope not.

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EBearhug · 06/05/2026 12:30

Fanny Robin in Far From the Madding Crowd, though.

Original poster
Carla786 · 06/05/2026 11:22

AmberUser · 01/05/2026 17:24

I teach A Christmas Carol to GCSE students and have to warn them every year in advance that the book contains a Dick, a Fanny and a seaman with horny hands. I give them one minute to laugh their heads off, then we move on. 😂

🤣That sounds the ideal way. There's no reason students can't cope with this stuff.
I just remembered that Thomas Hardy made the main couple Dick and Fancy in Under The Greenwood Tree. Good thing he didn't call the heroine Fanny, I suppose...

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Malasana · 01/05/2026 17:29

Pemba · 28/04/2026 13:06

I think 'bimbo' must have not had the same connotations as it has now. I remember my friend having a pet hamster named Bimbo, that would be been late 70s.

I also suppose that Dick and Fanny must have been much more familiar as everyday names mid 20th century. Look at Dick Van Duke, tv star of the sixties, and Fanny Cradock, popular TV cook of the sixties (UK). No one was sniggering about their names at the time.

But the publishers of Enid Blyton know that if they left the characters' names as Dick and Fanny nowadays this would lead to more sniggering going on from adults providing the books to the children, general awkwardness etc, easier to just switch a few letters round. The names were changed back in the 80s/90s I think.

There’s a brand of bread in Spain called Bimbo. Amuses me no end.

AmberUser · 01/05/2026 17:24

I teach A Christmas Carol to GCSE students and have to warn them every year in advance that the book contains a Dick, a Fanny and a seaman with horny hands. I give them one minute to laugh their heads off, then we move on. 😂

Thechaseison71 · 01/05/2026 11:00

GingersOwner26 · 29/04/2026 23:40

I've come across someone who chose to address a colleague as Richard rather than Dick because she didn't feel she could use his full name....Dick Aird.

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Lstrange that other people can choose what to call someone if they don't like the name but get the pronouns wrong and all hell breaks loose

GingersOwner26 · 29/04/2026 23:40

piscofrisco · 29/04/2026 02:47

My Dad was called Dick his whole life, real name Richard of course. It was never commented on in life except by my mums hairdresser who was a bit younger and who always referred to him as Richard as she couldn’t bare to say it. He died last year aged 95. At his funeral the celebrant insisted on referring to him as Richard as she also felt it to be problematic and It absolutely infuriated me.

I've come across someone who chose to address a colleague as Richard rather than Dick because she didn't feel she could use his full name....Dick Aird.

Redrosesposies · 29/04/2026 23:38

I had a great auntie Fanny. She lived to the grand old age of 107 probably because she never married. She was very naughty and used to lend me very saucy books when I was a young teenager.
She called herself Fiona when her name started to be commonly used for female genitalia.

Original poster
Carla786 · 29/04/2026 23:31

GingersOwner26 · 29/04/2026 23:15

To answer the Buddy question, it was one I only came across a couple of years ago via a work friend - according to her partner (who I think is from the Caribbean area) buddy is a slang word for penis in that part of the world.

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Thanks. My naivetie's been slightly reduced!

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Original poster
Carla786 · 29/04/2026 23:30

GingersOwner26 · 29/04/2026 23:20

You have remembered correctly! I was younger than 9, but that Matilda quote happened to be the first time I came across the word fanny and I can remember Mum telling me off for repeating the quote.

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Ah right, it was there. Yes, I think I remember being initially confused what he meant & wondering what 'fanny' could be...

Incidentally, another famous Fanny, though not a person, is the Phyllis Calvert melodrama Fanny By Gaslight. I remember my gran having a copy of the DVD on her shelf.

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Original poster
Carla786 · 29/04/2026 23:27

JudgeJ · 29/04/2026 22:45

As the ad said 'Only the balls should bounce'.

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We need the laugh emoji back..

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GingersOwner26 · 29/04/2026 23:20

Carla786 · 28/04/2026 14:06

I'm not sure that many 9yos now would be as aware of the slang anyway. I'm older Gen Z & maybe I'm naive but I don't think people my age use the slang that much. When I was 9 I'd only come across 'fanny' in that sense once I think (and that was in Roald Dahl's Matilda, where he oddly uses it in the US sense - Mr Wormwood says something about how Matilda shouldn't 'sit on her fanny reading story books' , unless I've misremembered!)

Anyway I don't think it's ideal to be laughing at the idea of it being someone's name when it was fairly common in living memory and still is in some countries.

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You have remembered correctly! I was younger than 9, but that Matilda quote happened to be the first time I came across the word fanny and I can remember Mum telling me off for repeating the quote.

GingersOwner26 · 29/04/2026 23:15

Carla786 · 28/04/2026 13:48

Sorry I'm naive : Peter? Mickey? Tulip? Buddy? 🤣

I think someone called Muffy would have issues but it's rare.

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To answer the Buddy question, it was one I only came across a couple of years ago via a work friend - according to her partner (who I think is from the Caribbean area) buddy is a slang word for penis in that part of the world.

JudgeJ · 29/04/2026 22:45

SerafinasGoose · 28/04/2026 18:12

Reminds me of the scene with Sarah Stratton and Rupert Campbell-Black in Jilly Cooper's Rutshire books!

Wonder if that's where Cooper got the idea?

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As the ad said 'Only the balls should bounce'.

ChrisTheBastard · 29/04/2026 21:16

YANBU. By the logic of these folk, The Owl and the Pussycat is x-rated filth

Original poster
Carla786 · 29/04/2026 21:10

EverydayRoutine · 29/04/2026 18:51

Sambo was never, ever a polite term for a Black person (or indeed, a Southern Indian person, as in the original story). The story has often included illustrations depicting derogatory stereotypes, which have been criticised for a century or more.

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This is the crux. The story is not about a Black person & the plot shows Babaji (the version I grew up with) as smart and sympathetic. But back from Langston Hughes and others, the illustrations were criticised for the exact reason you said. Arguably they were the main problem.

https://arloriverrex.com/were-noddy-and-rupert-bear-racist/#:~:text=The%20controversy%20stems%20from%20a,example%20is%20just%20not%20acceptable.
Rupert : again I think the illustrations are the issue. If you look at this part, Koko is treated like any other character in the dialogue. The issue is the illustration which uses the golliwog style.

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ThisJollyTaupeGuide · 29/04/2026 21:00

Cheesipuff · 28/04/2026 13:13

Fanny means bum in the US and I can imagine they are more prissy about this over there -it could affect sales of Magic Faraway Tree

It does but I'm American living in the US and I can't remember the last time I heard someone actually use this word. The early '90s? It sounds very quaint and dated to my ear. Most people just say butt. Even when it was in more common use, it was very, very mild. I can't imagine anyone but a few whacko extremists getting upset about it now.

EverydayRoutine · 29/04/2026 18:51

Doone22 · 29/04/2026 15:33

I disagree that sambo was ever considered an impolite term back in those days: it was fairly routine along with all the other "now dubious" words in noddy, rupert, etc - in my view it was only later on that people ever started to use it with hateful intent and only once that intent becomes associated with the word does the world deem such words unusable

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Sambo was never, ever a polite term for a Black person (or indeed, a Southern Indian person, as in the original story). The story has often included illustrations depicting derogatory stereotypes, which have been criticised for a century or more.

Scorchio84 · 29/04/2026 16:51

piscofrisco · 29/04/2026 02:47

My Dad was called Dick his whole life, real name Richard of course. It was never commented on in life except by my mums hairdresser who was a bit younger and who always referred to him as Richard as she couldn’t bare to say it. He died last year aged 95. At his funeral the celebrant insisted on referring to him as Richard as she also felt it to be problematic and It absolutely infuriated me.

That's awful, jesus christ as if you all weren't going through enough that she had to use a non personal name for your dad, what a self centred cow

Doone22 · 29/04/2026 15:33

Carla786 · 29/04/2026 14:45

Pp made clear she wasn't saying it should be changed.
I think it's fair to differentiate between books with racist imagery/language and books with language that now is seen (by some!) as overwhelmingly innuendo-laden but wasn't back then. I mean, I don't think 'sambo' was ever seen as a polite term for black people the way some words were which have since shifted (eg. 'Coloured' was once seen as polite, eg. NAACP, but is not now). If it had been, that would be a better parallel.

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I disagree that sambo was ever considered an impolite term back in those days: it was fairly routine along with all the other "now dubious" words in noddy, rupert, etc - in my view it was only later on that people ever started to use it with hateful intent and only once that intent becomes associated with the word does the world deem such words unusable

Original poster
Carla786 · 29/04/2026 14:48

MyBraveFace · 29/04/2026 08:18

I think Darrell Rivers was very much Enid Blyton's tribute to her husband - with her surgeon father who was basically Darrell Waters. If you compare the way Malory Towers is structured with St Clare's, MT is very much Darrell's story all through whereas St Clare's drifts away from its original main characters, the twins, who only feature peripherally in the latter half of the series - I think EB created Darrell in honour of her new husband and MT was a way of playing that out. So, in short, she had to be named after him.

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Thank for the info. Tragic that the marriage started with her writing a tribute but ended with her treating him so badly.

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Arlanymor · 29/04/2026 14:47

We had a cat called Bimbo which my sister named after the Bimbo and Topsy book. My mum tried to change it to 'Bilbo' when the word came to have different connotations, but the cat was having none of it!

Original poster
Carla786 · 29/04/2026 14:46

ElenOfTheWays · 29/04/2026 13:30

That wasn't until the later books. In the first book Fatty, Larry and Pip were 12. Daisy was 11 and Bets was eight.
The disguises started around book 3 and adult disguises even later after Fatty's voice broke.
I know these books really well lol

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Good to see another fan!

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Original poster
Carla786 · 29/04/2026 14:45

Doone22 · 29/04/2026 06:56

You said yourself it's wrong to change books written in the past but actually started with slagging off little black sambo and hunting .
For starters it was a childhood classic. And fox hunting has been a tradition in this country for centuries before being banned. It's always featured in historical novels. Make your mind up!

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Pp made clear she wasn't saying it should be changed.
I think it's fair to differentiate between books with racist imagery/language and books with language that now is seen (by some!) as overwhelmingly innuendo-laden but wasn't back then. I mean, I don't think 'sambo' was ever seen as a polite term for black people the way some words were which have since shifted (eg. 'Coloured' was once seen as polite, eg. NAACP, but is not now). If it had been, that would be a better parallel.

OP posts: