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Welcome to the worldwide Greathead family One name study
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In the 1950s, when I learned to read with the
"Janet and John" books, the names Janet and John were amongst the
most popular forenames. Go back to 1800 and over 20% of boys baptised in
Britain bore the name John, according to research
by US economist Douglas Galbi, and as recently as 1944 the
figure was still over 8%.
Now John has been overtaken by Ethan, Tyler,
Dylan, Ryan and a host of other names that you'd be unlikely to find in a
Victorian baptisms register. In 2007 John ranked just 74th in a list of names
given to baby boys according to the Office of
National Statistics. Janet wasn't even in the top
100 girls' names .
Marketing companies use forenames as an
indicator of age - I've certainly noticed that people with the same name as me
tend to be my age or older. Occasionally you'll find that forenames will
provide clues to when your antecedents were born - for example, the name
Florence only became popular after Florence Nightingale came to prominence in
the Crimean in the mid-1850s. Similarly, the name Wendy only began appearing
on birth certificates in 1905, after the first performance of Peter Pan.
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