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Weird Personal Names

James_H said:
This puzzles me because Cassandra seems like a fairly unremarkable name to me. For you, is it something like Octavia/Arabella, i.e. a bit posh and pretentious?
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To be honest, it is probably a touch of 'inverse snobbery' on my part. I had a rather ordinary 'working class' upbringing in Watford and I have never knowingly met anyone called Cassandra! It has classical overtones to it - my associations based on the Trojan prophetess familiar to me from 3 of my interests (namely 'Doctor Who' - she is a character in "The Myth Makers" (1965) and Shakespeare - she is a character in "Troilus and Cressida" (quite a bit earlier than 1965) - and ABBA (she is the subject of their song "Cassandra" which was the B-side of "The Day Before You Came" - for me, two of the best things ABBA ever did among many good things!).

I think my attitude towards the name was compounded by the name of Rodney's yuppy-ish girlfriend/fiancee/wife in "Only Fools and Horses" who was the daughter of aspirational parents and clearly signified as distinctly posher than Rodney. The idea being that her parents had given her a bit of a la-di-dah moniker like 'Cassaarndraar' (as Delboy might have put it). As opposed to a proper classy name, like Raquel, for instance.

I ought to say - without irony - absolutely no offence intended to anyone called Cassandra. Or Raquel, for that matter :)
 
To be fair though, I think, except among Classics scholars, the link between Cassandra and doom-saying has probably mostly been lost. I bet very few girls called Pandora get people shouting 'don't open the box!' after them these days, too.

People are just not as well read as they used to be.
 
catseye said:
To be fair though, I think, except among Classics scholars, the link between Cassandra and doom-saying has probably mostly been lost. I bet very few girls called Pandora get people shouting 'don't open the box!' after them these days, too.

People are just not as well read as they used to be.
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Blimey. I don't know many Pandoras either! Anyway, I am just off out now to have dinner with my mates Persephone, Andromache and Klytemnestra. Laters!
 
Talking of Cassandra does anybody know what happened to her after the fall of Troy? (there is an answer to this which I'm sure somebody on this board will know!)
 
BlackPeter said:
Talking of Cassandra does anybody know what happened to her after the fall of Troy? (there is an answer to this which I'm sure somebody on this board will know!)
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One account, there are conflicting versions at the link below.

The aftermath of Troy and Cassandra's death[edit]​

Once Troy had fallen, Cassandra was taken as a pallake (concubine) by King Agamemnon of Mycenae. While he was away at war, Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, had taken Aegisthus as her lover. Cassandra and Agamemnon were later killed by both Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Various sources state that Cassandra and Agamemnon had twin boys, Teledamus and Pelops, who were murdered by Aegisthus.[27]

The final resting place of Cassandra is either in Amyclae or Mycenae. Statues of Cassandra exist both in Amyclae and across the Peleponnese peninsula from Mycenae in Leuctra. In Mycenae, German business man and pioneer archeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered in Grave Circle A the graves of Cassandra and Agamemnon and telegraphed back to King George of Greece:

With great joy I announce to Your Majesty that I have discovered the tombs which the tradition proclaimed by Pausanias indicates to be the graves of Agamemnon, Cassandra, Eurymedon and their companions, all slain at a banquet by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthos.
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However, it was later discovered that the graves predated the Trojan War by at least 300 years.[28]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra
 
catseye said:
Then get thee hence to the Mumsnet Names Board. You'll find quite a few mums debating on whether it's suitable for their nearly-born.
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How about Lilith? Medusa? Circe? Lots of underused names with classical roots. I fancy Boadicea myself. Well, if it was good enough for Mrs Overall.....
 
catseye said:
Love all of these. But can you imagine the infant class teacher taking the register and trying to pronounce some of these?
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If you had twins you could call them Scylla and Charybdis! Always thought those names had a great ring to them.
 
ramonmercado said:
One account, there are conflicting versions at the link below.

The aftermath of Troy and Cassandra's death[edit]​

Once Troy had fallen, Cassandra was taken as a pallake (concubine) by King Agamemnon of Mycenae. While he was away at war, Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, had taken Aegisthus as her lover. Cassandra and Agamemnon were later killed by both Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. Various sources state that Cassandra and Agamemnon had twin boys, Teledamus and Pelops, who were murdered by Aegisthus.[27]

The final resting place of Cassandra is either in Amyclae or Mycenae. Statues of Cassandra exist both in Amyclae and across the Peleponnese peninsula from Mycenae in Leuctra. In Mycenae, German business man and pioneer archeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered in Grave Circle A the graves of Cassandra and Agamemnon and telegraphed back to King George of Greece:


However, it was later discovered that the graves predated the Trojan War by at least 300 years.[28]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra
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Actually went of with The Doctor in the Tardis!
 
I posted the following a year or so ago in another thread, still don't know whether it is true:


I remember someone supposedly doing a survey of very young kids many years ago where they asked them what would be good girl’s names.

It was based on the sounds of the words as the kids were only three or four and didn’t know the meanings of the words, but the top choices were Chlorine and Diarrhoea.

Could be another urban legend though, I keep falling for them.:
:doh:
 
Tunn11 said:
It was based on the sounds of the words as the kids were only three or four and didn’t know the meanings of the words, but the top choices were Chlorine and Diarrhoea.
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Diana Rhea (probably got called Di Rhea at some point):

EbMB4JkU8AEweP5.jpg:large
 
Tunn11 said:
I posted the following a year or so ago in another thread, still don't know whether it is true:


I remember someone supposedly doing a survey of very young kids many years ago where they asked them what would be good girl’s names.

It was based on the sounds of the words as the kids were only three or four and didn’t know the meanings of the words, but the top choices were Chlorine and Diarrhoea.

Could be another urban legend though, I keep falling for them.:
:doh:
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As a kid I thought the words uranium and geranium were highly glamorous girls' names.
 
escargot said:
As a kid I thought the words uranium and geranium were highly glamorous girls' names.
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But how many people really know the meanings of the names they pick? Look at 'name' posts on forums like Reddit, and you see how few people actually know that names like Hermione weren't just made up by JKR. Most people are, essentially, just picking a word they like the sound of.
 
catseye said:
But how many people really know the meanings of the names they pick? Look at 'name' posts on forums like Reddit, and you see how few people actually know that names like Hermione weren't just made up by JKR. Most people are, essentially, just picking a word they like the sound of.
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On another forum there's a story of a medical receptionist calling out for a patient thusly -
ahem Shithead (Jones or whatever) please!
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Ms Jones steps up for her appointment and angrily corrects the receptionist: it's actually pronounced 'Shaw-theed'.
Of COURSE it is. :chuckle:
 
I had a workmate called Sinead. Only spelled phonetically - Shanade. It's one of my pet hates, people using Gaelic names but not spelling them correctly - I also know about half a dozen 'Neeve's.
 
catseye said:
I had a workmate called Sinead. Only spelled phonetically - Shanade. It's one of my pet hates, people using Gaelic names but not spelling them correctly - I also know about half a dozen 'Neeve's.
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I love the way Gaelic names look. They are so different from the common names like Mary and John.
 
Yithian said:
Methamphetamine Rules Drysdale

Australian journalist Kirsten Drysdale decided to test the limits of what the government allows, and was shocked when her name for her third son—'Methamphetamine Rules'—was accepted.​

Full Account:
https://www.comicsands.com/australian-journalist-names-baby-meth-2665709670.html
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How stupid. It's a legal document. Is she going to pay to have the name changed, or encumber a child with a name that their parent chose to "just test the boundaries"? F'n stupid.
 
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