Top of the Tots

The Office of National Statistics has brought out its end of the year report on Christian names. The top few names change only gradually with the top places swapping over time and again. This year is no exception with the boys but it is all change for the girls with Olivia and Grace moving up to join Jessica in the top three. Jessica is now the third most popular name for a girl with nearly four and a half thousand registrations last year. With them in the top five there is the ever green Emily and new comer Ruby, a name that is making a comeback, climbing 69 places. A couple a new names are Summer with nearly nine hundred entries and Autumn with just fifty-five although it is noted that there are no girls named Spring or Winter. Still blossoming in the top thirty are Lily, Daisy and Poppy.

With Jack being given to almost seven thousand babies last year it still reigns as the number one Christian name, along with Thomas and Joshua these continue to be the three most popular boy’s names. Just beneath these is Oliver then Harry making this the first time since goodness knows when for James to be out of the top five.

Events around the world influence the names that children get given. Victoria and Albert came to prominence during the 19^th century but today it is television and sport that shapes the registrations. Theo has arrived in the top one hundred. Could this be as a result of the football fan and Theo Walcotts appearance in the World Cup? Celebrity children have given the UK a number of new names. Who knows where Shayne, Cruz, Maddox, Jayden, Lexie and Peaches came from? And why Ordinary Boy Preston? If you would like to know more then go to the ONS at www.statistics.gov.uk.

As a document the 1911 census remains well and truly closed until 2012 due to the contents being of a personally sensitive nature. However in response to a Freedom of Information request the Information Commissioner’s favourable decision means that The National Archives must supply some of the information it contains. With the continuing rise in people’s interest in family history The National Archives is developing an online 1911 census service, covering most parts of the census and a searchable database should be ready by 2009. Until then there is a basic service that you can use to get specific information from the 1911 census. It does not have a surname index therefore the only data that can be readily provided is from an address. My advice though is to wait a while until the database comes on line. The cost of a search for a single address is £45 and there will be no refunds.

Bits and Bobs

LRSM – March 20^th 1818 - Two paupers named BAXTER residing at Duddington near this place [Stamford], lately made a complaint to the magistrates of the refusal of the Parish Officers to allow them proper means of support. The Officers, confident that the application was an improper one, for their own justification, instituted a search in the cottage occupied by the complainants, and actually found, wrapped in old stockings, rags, etc, and secreted in the roof and other parts of the tenement, no less a sum than £92-8s-1½d, in silver and half-pence. The paupers (who were sisters) and their Mother had received Parish Relief for nearly 40 years!

(The exchange rate for today would be about £68,300) www.measuringworth.com