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Dave Hardy comments on this entry:
My late father in law, Prof. William Avery, said that when he taught in Louisiana just after WWII the doctors in the public health service would, when a rural and often illiterate mother wondered what to name her newborn, suggest that she name him after the famous doctor Positive Wasserman.
From Even More Remarkable Names by John Train (1979):
From Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson (1990):
Often, presumably for reasons of private amusement, the British pronounce their names in ways that bear almost no relation to their spelling. Leveson-Gower is "loosen gore". Marjoribanks is "marchbanks", Hiscox is "hizzko", Howick is "hoyk", Ruthven is "rivven", Zuill is "yull", Menzies is "mingiss". They find a peculiar pleasure in taking old Norman names and mashing them around until they become something altogether unique, so the Beaulieu becomes "bewley", [...] Belvoir somehow becomes "beaver", and Beaudesert turns, unfathomably, into "belzer".
[...] I could go on and on. In fact, I think I will. Viscount Althorp pronounces his name "awltrop", while the rather more sensible people of Althorp, the Northamptonshire village next to the viscount's ancestral home, say "all-thorp". [...] The surname generally said to have the most pronunciations is Featherstonewaugh, which can be pronounced in any of five ways: "feather-stun-haw", "feerston-shaw", "feston-haw", "feeson-hay" or (for those in a hurry) "fan-shaw". But in fact there are two other names with five pronunciations: Coughtrey [...] and Wriotheseley, which can be "rottsly", "rittsly", "rizzli", "rithly", or "wriotheslee".
The problem is so extensive, and the possibility of gaffes so omnipresent, that the BBC employs an entire pronunciation unit, a small group of dedicated orthoepists (professional pronouncers) who spend their working lives getting to grips with these illogical pronunciations so that broadcasters don't have to do it on the air.
In short, there is scarcely an area of name giving in which the British don't show a kind of wayward genius. [...] Just in the City of London, an area of one square mile [...] you can find churches named St Giles Cripplegate, St Sepulchre Without Newgate, All Hallows Barking, and the practically unbeatable St Andrews-by-the-Wardrobe. But those are just their everyday names: often the full, official titles are even more breathtaking, as with The Lord Mayor's Parish Church of St Stephen Walbrook and St Swithin Londonstone, St Benet Sheerhogg and St Mary Bothall with St Laurence Pountney, which is, for all that, just one church.
Equally arresting are British pub names [...] Almost any name will do if it is at least faintly absurd, unconnected with the name of the owner, and entirely lacking in any suggestion of drinking, conversing, and enjoying oneself. At a minimum the name should puzzle foreigners -- this is a basic requirement of most British institutions -- and ideally it should excite long and inconclusive debate, defy all logical explanation, and evoke images that border on the surreal. Among the pubs that meet, and indeed exceed, these exacting standards are the Frog and Nightgown, the Bull and Spectacles, the Flying Monk, and the Crab and Gumboil.
[...] The picture is further clouded by the consideration that many pub names have been corrupted over the centuries. The Pig and Whistle is said to have its roots in peg (a drinking vessel) and wassail (a festive drink). [...] The Elephant and Castle, originally a pub and now a district of London, may have been the Infanta de Castille. The Old Bull and Bush, a famous pub on Hampstead Heath, is said to come from Boulogne Boughe and to commemorate a battle in France. Some of these derivations may be fanciful, but there is solid evidence to show that the Dog and Bacon was once the Dorking Beacon, that the Cat and Fiddle was once Caterine la Fidèle (at least it is recorded as such in the Domesday Book), and that the Ostrich Inn in Buckinghamshire began life as the Hospice Inn.
[p. 191-193,195]
From ancestry.com:
Thanks to Dave Hardy for contributing:
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