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Where Did All the Crappers Go?

GNC

GNC

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Aug 25, 2001
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I thought about putting this in the Weird Names thread, but mods can move it if necessary.

You know Thomas Crapper, who pioneered the flush toilet? And we all know he had a funny name, but have you ever heard of someone called Crapper since? Did his relations change their names? Why are there no Crappers around today?

My point is, do funny names die out? Do their owners get embarrassed by them and change them? What happens if you have a funny name? Do you grin and bear it? If so, where are all the Crappers?
 
Crapper and Sons did all the plumbing at Sandringham and other Royal premises until at least WWII. Thomas Crapper himself established company premises on (IIRC) the Kings Road in London, which was handed down through the generations until it finally closed in the late 1960s or early 1970s after being bought out by DynoRod or the like. In fact, I went to Uni with someone called Crapper (poor sod :D.)
 
Hm, maybe I should have asked "Why do people still call themselves Crapper?" instead. I suppose they're used to it.
 
gncxx said:
Hm, maybe I should have asked "Why do people still call themselves Crapper?" instead. I suppose they're used to it.
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Quite often, such people get proud and defensive about their names, and resolutely refuse to change them.
I've met a few people called Pratt, and one called Ramsbottom, and they were all fiercely defensive of their names.
 
According to Nigel Kneale, in his foreword to the 1979 Sphere reprint of 'The Quatermass Experiment,' he got the name, Quatermass, straight from the London telephone directory, although by 1979, he said, they'd all disappeared.

Are there still any real life Quatermasses out there?
 
stuneville said:
I work with someone called Willey. And it's pronounced willy, not wiley or will-ay or wheel-y, and he makes a point of clarifying this, almost daring people to take the piss.

So to speak.
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I know someone called Goodwillie. Hes even stood for election to Dublin City Council & the Dail.
 
We have a colleague who is PC Dick. The jobs difficult enough, but when he tells people his name it leads to all sorts of comments :roll:
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
According to Nigel Kneale, in his foreword to the 1979 Sphere reprint of 'The Quatermass Experiment,' he got the name, Quatermass, straight from the London telephone directory, although by 1979, he said, they'd all disappeared.

Are there still any real life Quatermasses out there?
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Yes, that's more like it, I should have asked "Where do all the Quatermasses go?" What's the reason for names disappearing? Are there lineages that simply die out?
 
gncxx said:
Yes, that's more like it, I should have asked "Where do all the Quatermasses go?" What's the reason for names disappearing? Are there lineages that simply die out?
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This is a question I asked years ago, maybe on this MB, certainly on another.

I asked it in the context of the wonderful names that you read of in Dickens, for example, names that no longer appear in the modern phonebook.

And the opposite side of the coin is, where do all the new surnames come from? Is it all down to immigration?
 
The trenches of WWI may have drawn a line under the ability of some names to perpetuate themselves.

I suppose if we could see a bird's eye view of names in action, it would be like those Game of Life animations: a small thriving colony here or there might suddenly branch out into a dozen more or fizzle out in a generation or two.

A friend tells me she was at school with a Smeggie but I can't find any online apart from nicknames.

I think Google is trying to wipe out the Whiteheads: any vanity-search comes with ads for Biactol! :(
 
I read an interesting article along these lines about the Bounty Mutineers on Norfolk and Pitcairn Islands. If I recall correctly, the article said that although almost all the mutineers still had descendants, the number of surnames was reduced to about four, due to the way the production of male children had progressed over the last 200 years.
 
There used to be a couple of Quatermass's in the Wirral 'phone book a few years ago. They then disappeared, but a quick look in the current one shows that one of them at least has returned to the peninsula (or at least gone back to BT)
 
You ever met anybody with the surname Hitler?

Sometimes shame makes people change their names..........
 
i can't give a cite for this, but i'm sure i read somewhere that hitler isn't even an authentic austrian name per se, and that adolph or his family appear in earlier census reports as 'hiddler'.

there are quite a few saddam hussdain's around though... prob. a quick skim of news websites would turn up amusing stories about people called that having all sorts of problems...
 
Well there is one Quatermass in the phone book here. Of course don't forget all the people who are ex-directory.

Could some of these names be rather regional?

For example Bultitude is quite a common name here but I've never come across it anywhere else,

As for Pratt. One of my ex-boyfriends was a Pratt (all jokes aside).
 
One of my teachers at school had the surnane Crettin. Actually, he was quite bright.
 
I genuinely knew someone called Carl Cushion when I was at school :lol:
I can find no 'Cushions' in my local telephone directory.....
 
When I used to work telesales, we had quite a few Lillicraps come up, and once a Mr Onion! My favourite was a lady whos name was spelled Pucey, like.....erm.....a cat, but when I called her she insisted it was pronounced Percy. Oh, those pesky silent Rs!
 
A work contact of mine is named Sparkle Skidmore! I thought it was a wind up at first but 'tis true.
 
gncxx said:
celticrose said:
When I used to work telesales, we had quite a few Lillicraps come up
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There's the legendary British children's entertainer Christopher Lillicrap, isn't there? Of "I Wanna Tell You a Story" fame. Probably still does panto.
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Christopher Lillicrap is still discussed in our house. I claim him to be dead where as Mr Bin says he's not. He isn't, but I still like to have a silly argument.
 
I reckon this belongs here. :lol:

Repeat loo flusher given 28 days

A woman has been told she has 28 days to leave her council house home because she is too noisy and keeps repeatedly flushing her toilet at night.

Mwynwen Jones, 57, of Tremadog, Gwynedd, had asked Caernarfon County Court to extend a notice issued last month after a High Court challenge.

Her barrister said his client, who was described as vulnerable, would be homeless.

The judge urged Mrs Jones to seek help from various organisations.

In August the High Court in London was told she was heard banging doors and flushing the toilet twice after each use.

'Antisocial hours'

Judge John Brehrens had backed Gwynedd council's decision to seek a possession order to evict her.

He said: "Whilst flushing a toilet may not be a nuisance, plainly it may be so if it is done repeatedly and at antisocial hours."

Mrs Jones barrister, Caroline Harris, had said the council's decision was "irrational".

She said Mrs Jones had got into the habit of flushing the toilet twice after use, but the sounds coming from her home were just run-of-the-mill "household noises".

Following Wednesday's hearing Gwynedd County Council issued a statement saying it had acted as a "responsible landlord".

"(The council) decided to take action when the behaviour of one of our tenants was deemed to have a detrimental effect upon the health of a neighbour.

"At today's hearing the Deputy District Judge found in favour of Gwynedd Council's application to evict the tenant on the grounds of persistent late night noise nuisance over a significant period of time."

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/ ... 608569.stm
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I thought this was going to be a thread about why there aren't any public toilets around these days...


The Dickens thing - he either made up the names to suit the characters (like Lady Dedlock) or he took the names off tombstones
 
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