Sunday 28 February 2016

War Names for Babies

From the Halifax Courier, 26th February 1916. 

War Names for Babies. 


The war name fever shows no signs of abatement.  At Liverpool three infant girls were christened "Dardanella" on the same day; in the Potteries an unhappy baby was burdened with the name of "Suvla Gallipoli," and a Glasgow boy will go through life as "Charleroi McVittie."

[I met someone recently who told me of a baby born during the war (I think it was his father or his uncle) who had been named John Ypres.  When the mother wrote to her husband in France to tell him of the birth, he wrote back saying "Call him John. Ypres."   She was supposed to notice the full stop and realise that he was trying to tell her where he was, and get the information past the censor, but she misunderstood.  So he went through life saddled with a name that many British people can't pronounce - during the war, the British soldiers called the town "Wipers".]      

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