[Vwoolf] Ellen (ex-Daisy)

[Stuart N. Clarke]

According to the “Oxford Names Companion”, Ellen is English and cognate with Helen.  My father’s sister, Nell, was an Ellen, and they were as London as you can get.  In fact, my father was born in Pimlico, but his mother would have been a bit long in the tooth to be suckling her young in 1923 – in any case, being poorish, they moved a lot, from one rented accommodation to another, and had long since left the more dubious part of Pimlico near Victoria Station.

Meanwhile, in Lasswade (Gandercleuch to Walter Scott fans), my maternal grandparents had followed the Scottish naming system for their first 4 daughters, but, when they came to my mother, my grandmother reached out to a wider family name on her side, and sent my grandfather out to register my mother as Ellen.  For whatever reason, he misheard and registered her as Helen – a name she much preferred.  Unfortunately, no one used it, except the father of her best friend, Naomi Sneddon.  

(I seem to have strayed into anecdotes from over 100 years ago. . . .)

Stuart

From: Ellen Moody 
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2022 11:49 AM
To: Stuart N. Clarke 
Cc: Woolf list 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Daisy

I'm almost afraid to come out with new examples for that will cause many counter-examples to appear. But only almost.  Some of these strange (weird) new 
names in the US come from TV shows, where characters and the actors themselves regularly have such names.  Kyle  I am told, was the name of a character
in a popular TV show.  I never heard the name before.  An actress set to play Anne Elliot in Persuasion is named Dakota Johnson - now that is a Native American
word or name and is found in two US western states: North and South Dakota.

I see that in Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate a character named Lady Montdore associates Daisy among other names (like Nellie) with English housemaids.
I would have said Irish -- as in Ellen.  Ellen is familiar as an Irish housemaid's name but it is also the name of heroines (the first I can think of is in a novel
by Mary Brunton called Discipline (perhaps 1815?). I have a personal story about the name Daisy I didn't have the nerve to tell before, but here goes. When
my older daughter had not yet been born, I was casting about for a name and I thought of Daisy.  I like the name. But when I told my mother, she was 
horrified; I told another friend who urged me not to. To both the name was somehow déclassé.  So I didn't.  She is Laura Caroline. I would have
preferred Caroline Laura but my husband said no no no.  Caroline is too English. He was British (English).


Ellen (who am not Irish)

On Fri, May 13, 2022 at 5:23 AM Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

  If we’re discussing he name Daisy in the UK, then American examples are irrelevant. (What extraordinary names Americans have – so have the British now. And the spellings! You hardly ever come across Jill as an abbreviation of Gillian – it’s 
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  If we’re discussing he name Daisy in the UK, then American examples are irrelevant.  

  (What extraordinary names Americans have – so have the British now.  And the spellings!  You hardly ever come across Jill as an abbreviation of Gillian – it’s always Gill with a soft g.  Poor Mrs Woolf – she got an (unpublished) letter from Alyse Gregory in 1924, and replied “Dear Mr Gregory”.  One used to feel with these weird spellings that, since in this case it’s not spelled Alice, it must be pronounced Aleeze or some such.)

  And the French are irrelevant too:

  “They all seemed to be old friends of his [Sauveterre’s], called him Fabrice and had a thousand questions to ask about mutual acquaintances in Paris, fashionable foreign ladies with such unfashionable names as Norah, Cora, Jennie, Daisy, May, and Nellie.
  “’Are all Frenchwomen called after English housemaids?’ Lady Montdore asked crossly ...”
                  (“Love in a Cold Climate” (1949), ch 4)

  Stuart

  From: Mary Ellen Foley 
  Sent: Sunday, May 8, 2022 12:47 AM
  To: mhussey at verizon.net 
  Cc: Jeremy Hawthorn ; Stuart N. Clarke ; vwoolf at lists.osu.edu 
  Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Daisy


    > Then again, there’s Daisy Fellowes, aka Marguerite Séverine Philippine Decazes de Glücksberg …

  ANd Daisy Buchanon in The Great Gatsby, 1925 -- definitely upper-crusty.

  mef 
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