More names

A few days ago, I came across the book at reference 1, and since bought it for £2 plus P&P from the World of Books via Abebooks. The second hand price of such books seems to have become derisory, presumably reflecting near zero demand for the word in print. Presumably one could write a learned essay on the factors which combine to make our young people rely on the word of the likes of Musk, rather than that of the once renowned and respectable Oxford University Press. I believe that there is another such at Cambridge. Maybe some other places too.

It so happened that at about the time it arrived, BH was reading a book, possibly from the 1930s, which featured a 'Basil', a name associated with costume dramas on television, but not very common in real life. I don't think I had one at school and I don't recall coming across one since, except as a nick-name for a correspondent. I never knew where it had come from.

Obviously something to be looked up in our new book, to find that the original was an important churchman from Turkey. I had thought that to be accounted a saint, you had to do some notable deeds, preferably some miracles, but I have not worked out from references 3 and 4 what that might have been. Surely it was something better than long service? After all, he was not just any civil servant. 

I wondered about Basildon in Essex and rather idly read on to find all kinds of Beazleys. One of which I had recently heard about from a correspondent, the people at reference 4. Do they have a fancily framed document explaining all this hanging on their boardroom wall to provide a bit of light relief?

The small worlds last noticed at reference 5 strike again.

And here at Epsom we have light reading for breakfast for days to come.

PS: there are lots of the Germanic compounds mentioned at reference 6. Taking one at random, 'Everard' is a compound of 'ebur' for boar and 'hardu' for hard. Brought to us by the Normans. We are not told what hard might have meant in this context, but we are told that name was favoured by the Digby family. Perhaps, back in 1945, the sort of people who read this book would have known who they were. As it is, Wikipedia suggests an Irish peerage from the seventeenth century, but I am not convinced. Perhaps I should be looking elsewhere.

References

Reference 1: Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names – Withycombe, E.G – 1945 and 1977.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_of_Caesarea.

Reference 3: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=261.

Reference 4: https://www.beazley.com/en-001/.

Reference 5: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-end-of-month.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/02/on-names.html.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Digby.