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Old Posted Mar 23, 2017, 11:38 PM
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Talking The most Canadian names

Fascinating list of the most Canadian names. I would have put my money on Gord and Heather. I know a lot of Heathers from my town, born in the 80s like me, but I guess my town isn't typical...

http://www.the10and3.com/gord-sheila...t-youd-expect/
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Old Posted Mar 23, 2017, 11:47 PM
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Originally Posted by amgillespie View Post
Fascinating list of the most Canadian names. I would have put my money on Gord and Heather. I know a lot of Heathers from my town, born in the 80s like me, but I guess my town isn't typical...

http://www.the10and3.com/gord-sheila...t-youd-expect/
I have the quintessential Canadian name! Who knew? Well, as one of my given names, anyway. In my case it comes from both sides of my family - it was my father's given name and it is a family name on my maternal side. In Scot's fashion, it works equally well as a given or a family name.

One thing I've noticed about Canadian names is that the names of the girls I went to school with have virtually disappeared. You can probably date me pretty accurately by knowing that those names would include Susan, Deborah, Mary, and Brenda.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 12:02 AM
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Speaking of names, I just saw a CBC report about a man in Nova Scotia who has had his personalized licence plate cancelled, after it has been on the road for 25 years. The man has German heritage and the plate sets out his family name. He wants it back.

That name? GRABHER.
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  #4  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 1:02 AM
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Speaking of names, I just saw a CBC report about a man in Nova Scotia who has had his personalized licence plate cancelled, after it has been on the road for 25 years. The man has German heritage and the plate sets out his family name. He wants it back.

That name? GRABHER.
Lol same I thought it was a satire piece.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 1:52 AM
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One thing I've noticed about Canadian names is that the names of the girls I went to school with have virtually disappeared. You can probably date me pretty accurately by knowing that those names would include Susan, Deborah, Mary, and Brenda.
I just grabbed a copy of my Grade 10 yearbook and I'll open it to a random page and give you about 25 names:

Jane
Jill
Brenda
Karen
Albert
Louis
Nicole
Lynn
Marney
Kenneth
Barbara
Kevin
Marsha
Mark
Stanley
Kevin
Richard
Maureen
Larry
Darrell
Sheldon
Randy
Jack
Jack
Allan
Mary

"Nicole" would then have been an unusual ethnic name (we had a lot of French Canadians in our school). But Randy, Darrell, Sheldon, Marnie, Brenda and Karen were all very typical. Those were actually Grade 12s so a couple of years ahead of me. These kids would have been born in 1962.

Remember when Mark and John were the common 'evangelist' names, and Matthew and especially Luke were uncommon and old-fashioned sounding? Now it's the other way around!
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  #6  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 1:55 AM
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By the 21st century, given names like Zainab, Armaan and Gurleen, which would have sounded altogether foreign to the Canada of yesteryear, have come to define the new Canadian identity.
Pretty sure they still do sound foreign to almost all Canadians. ;-)

I've heard of Zainab before. Don't know one personally but I've heard the name. Never ever even heard tell of the other two.

Also, common in Canada does not equal Canadian. Sheila is not a "Canadian" name even if every female here had it.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 1:58 AM
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There is a corner store near my with a female employee named "Ramindeep", which I always thought was invented by Russell Peters for the joke but I guess it wasn't?

All the Italian names in the mid-century sound really strange to me, I live in a very Italian city but I've heard of few of them. I guess Italians didn't move to the US as much at that time which is why they're more Canadian? Same for the East Indian names today.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 2:25 AM
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Pretty sure they still do sound foreign to almost all Canadians. ;-)

I've heard of Zainab before. Don't know one personally but I've heard the name. Never ever even heard tell of the other two.

Also, common in Canada does not equal Canadian. Sheila is not a "Canadian" name even if every female here had it.
But if you found that it was much more common in Canada than the U.S., then it's Canadian in the respect they're talking about. The only really Canadian names would be the surname names, above all "Lorne", but maybe also Cameron and Gordon to some degree. Because Scottish naming protocols required the use of the grandmother's or mother's surname as a middle name (depending on the birth order of the child), many people in Canada had those middle-name surnames and some of those ended up using them as their everyday name. I believe that's how we ended up with the Camerons, Gordons and Frasers. Just as the "Scotts" came from F. Scott Fitzgerald doing the same thing in the U.S., I imagine.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 2:35 AM
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But if you found that it was much more common in Canada than the U.S., then it's Canadian in the respect they're talking about. The only really Canadian names would be the surname names, above all "Lorne", but maybe also Cameron and Gordon to some degree. Because Scottish naming protocols required the use of the grandmother's or mother's surname as a middle name (depending on the birth order of the child), many people in Canada had those middle-name surnames and some of those ended up using them as their everyday name. I believe that's how we ended up with the Camerons, Gordons and Frasers. Just as the "Scotts" came from F. Scott Fitzgerald doing the same thing in the U.S., I imagine.
Fraser is not the most common of given names, but my impression is that it has become more common rather than less in the past couple of decades.

I know it comes from elsewhere, but I'm afraid that the name "Gurleen" sets my mind to picturing wood cabins in the high back country. Banjo pickin' is involved as well.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 2:53 AM
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Fraser is not the most common of given names, but my impression is that it has become more common rather than less in the past couple of decades.

I know it comes from elsewhere, but I'm afraid that the name "Gurleen" sets my mind to picturing wood cabins in the high back country. Banjo pickin' is involved as well.
Like "Lurleen" from The Simpsons?
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  #11  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 3:10 AM
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Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker View Post
Pretty sure they still do sound foreign to almost all Canadians. ;-)

I've heard of Zainab before. Don't know one personally but I've heard the name. Never ever even heard tell of the other two.

Also, common in Canada does not equal Canadian. Sheila is not a "Canadian" name even if every female here had it.
I know a few women or girls named Zainab, Zeyneb, or various spellings.

It's a fairly common North Africa name so it's become present in Quebec, and explains why it shows up on the list.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 3:10 AM
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Interesting, but it seems like some flawed or misleading methodology is used here, as it ignores many of the most common names. Isolated or regional instances of foreign originating names doesn't really make them more Canadian, that is, how we normally define "Canadian" eh.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 3:17 AM
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Interesting, but it seems like some flawed or misleading methodology is used here, as it ignores many of the most common names. Isolated or regional instances of foreign originating names doesn't really make them more Canadian, that is, how we normally define "Canadian" eh.
The definition was strictly related to numbers, was it not?
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 3:25 AM
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I read the article initially a few weeks ago and although they do acknowledge this, it's still arguably flawed because the sample size for Quebec is virtually non-existent.


If you included Quebec then a ton of names would show up as "Canada+++" given that they are rare or at least much less popular in the U.S.


Names like: Michel, Jean-Guy, Réjean, Pierre, Serge, Ghislain, Claude, Fernard, Gilles, Gérard, Gérald, Guy, Jean-Pierre, Jean-Paul, Jean-François for men.


And Ginette, Ghislaine, Marie-France, Marie-Claude, Marie-Josée, Marie-Pier, Martine, Micheline, Andrée, etc. for women.


Even currently popular baby names in Quebec like Flavie, Rosalie, Élodie, Coralie, Océane, Camille, Amélie, Maude, Anaïs, Laurence, etc. for girls would be uncommon in the U.S.


As would Félix, Alexis, Olivier, Xavier, Émile, Tristan, Arnaud and Étienne for boys.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 3:38 AM
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I read the article initially a few weeks ago and although they do acknowledge this, it's still arguably flawed because the sample size for Quebec is virtually non-existent.


If you included Quebec then a ton of names would show up as "Canada+++" given that they are rare or at least much less popular in the U.S.


Names like: Michel, Jean-Guy, Réjean, Pierre, Serge, Ghislain, Claude, Fernard, Gilles, Gérard, Gérald, Guy, Jean-Pierre, Jean-Paul, Jean-François for men.


And Ginette, Ghislaine, Marie-France, Marie-Claude, Marie-Josée, Marie-Pier, Martine, Micheline, Andrée, etc. for women.


Even currently popular baby names in Quebec like Flavie, Rosalie, Élodie, Coralie, Océane, Camille, Amélie, Maude, Anaïs, Laurence, etc. for girls would be uncommon in the U.S.


As would Félix, Alexis, Olivier, Xavier, Émile, Tristan, Arnaud and Étienne for boys.
Ahhh, Micheline. A renowned drag queen who ran a gay club out of the cafeteria of a federal office building in downtown Hull, back in the day!

The oddest given name I ever ran into amongst those of a Quebec persuasion was "de Montigny". It always struck me as pretentious, but what do I know.

A few years ago, a friend named her daughter "Philomène", which I thought had a charming ring to it, in contrast to the rather Victorian sounding "Philomena" in English.

Last edited by kwoldtimer; Mar 24, 2017 at 3:59 AM.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 3:42 AM
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The definition was strictly related to numbers, was it not?
Of course, but numbers can be manipulated, can they not? I think the practice of defining "Canadian" as what is not "American" is laughable. Why should we attribute much of our culture to them, and never the other way around?
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 4:00 AM
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Of course, but numbers can be manipulated, can they not? I think the practice of defining "Canadian" as what is not "American" is laughable. Why should we attribute much of our culture to them, and never the other way around?
So, you feel they misused numbers about names that occur significantly more often in English Canada than in the USA? Always possible, of course, but to what purpose?
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 1:57 PM
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The oddest given name I ever ran into amongst those of a Quebec persuasion was "de Montigny". It always struck me as pretentious, but what do I know.

.
That's interesting. I know De (or de) Montigny as a surname, but not as a given name. The unilingual francophone contestant on Canadian Idol, for whom perennial SSP Canada favourite Ben Mulroney would nicely translate, was named Audrey (pronounced oh-drray, not odd-ree) de Montigny.

Now, francophones sometimes give surnames of "heroes of the nation" as given names: like Laurier, Cartier, Champlain. It's not super common but it's out there. A former federal Commissioner of Official Languages was named D'Iberville Fortier. A nod to legendary New France explorer Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville.

Some female francophone surnames that are "rooted in the land" so to speak would be "Desneiges" (older) and "Marie-Neige" (more contemporary).

Another name that I am pretty sure is native to this part of the world is the male given name "Onil". I am pretty sure it is a corruption of the Irish surname "O'Neil(l) which is quite common in Quebec.
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 2:17 PM
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That's interesting. I know De (or de) Montigny as a surname, but not as a given name. The unilingual francophone contestant on Canadian Idol, for whom perennial SSP Canada favourite Ben Mulroney would nicely translate, was named Audrey (pronounced oh-drray, not odd-ree) de Montigny.

Now, francophones sometimes give surnames of "heroes of the nation" as given names: like Laurier, Cartier, Champlain. It's not super common but it's out there. A former federal Commissioner of Official Languages was named D'Iberville Fortier. A nod to legendary New France explorer Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville.

Some female francophone surnames that are "rooted in the land" so to speak would be "Desneiges" (older) and "Marie-Neige" (more contemporary).

Another name that I am pretty sure is native to this part of the world is the male given name "Onil". I am pretty sure it is a corruption of the Irish surname "O'Neil(l) which is quite common in Quebec.
There was a very senior civil servant named de Montigny Marchand. It is the only way I ever saw his name styled or spoken. Your comment made me curious, however, and I found a bio site on-line that gives his name as "J.C. De Montigny Marchand" and that of his father as "Jean Charles Marchand". It makes me wonder if "de Montigny" was adopted at some point to distinguish him from his father?

In any event, and meaning no disrespect to the individual, I could never hear the name without a woman's voice in my head saying "Prochaine station, de Montigny Marchand"!
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Old Posted Mar 24, 2017, 3:40 PM
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There was a very senior civil servant named de Montigny Marchand. It is the only way I ever saw his name styled or spoken. Your comment made me curious, however, and I found a bio site on-line that gives his name as "J.C. De Montigny Marchand" and that of his father as "Jean Charles Marchand". It makes me wonder if "de Montigny" was adopted at some point to distinguish him from his father?
This seems like as good a time as any to bring up the traditional French Canadian naming convention. (I have no idea if they ever did things this way in France.)

Basically, the given name that's closest to your surname (so the last given name) is supposed to be your real given name that you use every day.

So "Joseph Yvon Jacques Tremblay" at school or the office is known as Jacques Tremblay.

If two given names are to be used then they are hyphened: "Joseph Yvon Jean-Pierre Pelletier" is the Jean-Pierre Pelletier you know.

This differs from what I have noticed to be the usual anglo convention which is that the "middle name" is usually not in every day use.

"William Robert Smith" is simply William or Bill Smith.

Also, French Canadian children were traditionally given Joseph or Marie as the first given name, followed by the other given name(s).

I have Joseph as my first given name and my wife has Marie. Neither of us has ever used Joseph or Marie in any capacity.

Of course, like anywhere else the naming of kids is now a mishmash of conventions here, and I suppose lots of people in Quebec aren't even aware of what I just posted.

There are still are tons of people who give Joseph and Marie as first names to their kids, often more out of tradition than religious fervour.
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