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Baby names

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Original poster

Literary names

64 replies

tortoiseSHELL · 13/03/2008 12:44

From another thread...

What literary names are there? (I'm not pg btw, just thought it would be interesting to see what literary characters have called their children!).

I'll start with the one from the other thread.

Anne of Green Gables

Joyce
James Matthew
Walter Cuthbert
Anne (Nan)
Diana
Shirley
Bertha Marilla

And the children from What Katy did

Katherine (Katy)
Clover
Theodore (Dorry)
Elsie
Joanna (John)
Phil

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talkingmongoose · 13/03/2008 17:18

dizzy.

dizzydixies · 13/03/2008 17:17

Anne of green gables also had the swoony
Gilbert Blyth
Diana the best friend
Matthew the foster dad (can't remember the name of his sister but still wept when he died in the field with the cows)

Califrau · 13/03/2008 17:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

dizzydixies · 13/03/2008 17:11

roald dahl is valid - George and Matilda to name but a few

Anna8888 · 13/03/2008 17:08

Oh I adore Bathsheba, Belgo.

I did seriously contemplate it, in that phase where everything goes - before reality hits in and you realise you have to give your child a workable name...

dizzydixies · 13/03/2008 17:07

have heard of a wee girl called Bronte

talkingmongoose · 13/03/2008 17:07

I wanted Clover, but Dh said no.

I have one from George Elliott.

And one from, er, Roald Dahl.

belgo · 13/03/2008 17:05

I knwo sisters Esther and Ada, from Charles Dickens I believe? Total coincidence anyway!

I love Bathsheba (Thomas Hardy) for a girl!

branflake81 · 13/03/2008 17:02

Titty, Roger, Susan and Peter? (Arthur Ransome)

Susan, Peter, Edmund, Lucy (CS Lewis)

Lolita? (kidding)

Bink · 13/03/2008 15:11

Kathy ... I have done some further work with your clue, and I don't think it is The Armourer's House - but I DO think it is RS's very first novel, The Queen Elizabeth Story!

What reward would you like?

harpsichordcarrier · 13/03/2008 13:32

oh yes! so it is

Bink · 13/03/2008 13:28

We haven't had that, Kathy6" ... I've whined about having lost the book a number of times on here & nowt has come of it ... till now ...

Kathyis6incheshigh · 13/03/2008 13:26

Is it The Armourer's House by Rosemary Sutcliffe? Or have we already had that discussion?

Bink · 13/03/2008 13:25

harpsi - I read a book as a child with a Dickon in it, or possibly a Diccon? no a Dickon, and a Perdita, and I've never been able to find it again. So it is a literary name

  • actually it's also in The Secret Garden, so pace hanaflower's wonderful question, it is indeed a literary name
CristinaTheAstonishing · 13/03/2008 13:23

Googled the book about Dominique. It was the only novel written by Eugene Fromentin.

harpsichordcarrier · 13/03/2008 13:23

oh and I wanted Gabriel for a boy
or Kester (from Precious Bane)
or Dickon (not literary just poncey)

francagoestohollywood · 13/03/2008 13:22

Lesbos was the island where sappho lived I think.
There's Dante Beatrice

OrmIrian · 13/03/2008 13:19

Threadworm your elbow and moth comment just made me snigger out loud

I think that my Eleanor was probably inspired by Sense and Sensibility. And Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Bink · 13/03/2008 13:16

Shocking muddle there from me. The "longer pedigree" one I was thinking of was whomever it is that Sappho writes about - which I thought was Lesbia, which is such a gaffe I will now shrink into a hole.

Doesn't Flora-Lark-Rise-to-Candleford call herself Laura?

hanaflower · 13/03/2008 13:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Kathyis6incheshigh · 13/03/2008 13:13

Catullus's was Lesbia/Clodia.
I think Ovid had Corinna.

I have remembered another Laura - in The Woman in White.

(my dd is also Laura, hence my interest).

Botbot · 13/03/2008 13:12

Nope. (one of her middle names is Pauline, but that was after a dead auntie). A more obscure NS book.

bundle · 13/03/2008 13:11

pauline, petrova and posy in ballet shoes?

marina · 13/03/2008 13:11

Alhough I do think Zeal-of-the-Land Busy might have suited dd quite well with hindsight

Bink · 13/03/2008 13:10

Petrarch's one. Nearly 700 years of poetry inspired by hardly more than a name. Lesbia possibly only has the longer pedigree. Oh, and Catullus's one, who's that?

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