Guernsey Names: Interesting Combos from the Channel Islands

Guernsey Names: Interesting Combos from the Channel Islands

Since I happen to be  married to someone who was born and raised on the island of Guernsey–yes, the Guernsey of cows and Potato Peel Pie Society fame–I’ve spent quite a bit of family time there and, out of curiosity, also check the Guernsey Press site online fairly regularly–particularly the names in the birth announcements, of course.

Even though Guernsey is closer to the French shore of the English channel than the English, and many of the familes have surnames like Le Maitre and Vaudin (my mother-in-law’s maiden name), and my husband Chris grew up with boys named Marcel and Henri, very few modern parents there are using Gallic first names for their babies, so that these birth announcements aren’t all that different from those in the English papers.

The names might be similar, but the combinations of firsts and middles strike me as very different from what would be found in the US.  Poppy InaLexi LuJake Max?

Here are some of the most recent:

GIRLS

AMIE JUNE

AYLA JANE

BROOKE ELLEN

CHLOE ROSE

ELIZA MOLLY

EMILY ALICE DIANA

GRACIE ANYA

HARRIET DAISY

HOLLIE ELOISE

KATHERINEKITTYWILLOW

KITTY ELIZABETH

KYA

LEXI LU

LILY MAE

LUCIA EMILIA (Dad named Mirio)

LYLA GRACE

MATILDA ROSE

NANCY ALICE

OLIVIA SUZANNE

POPPY INA

ROSIE MAE

SANDRIANNA

SARAH PATRICIA

VERITY JUDE

YVIE-MAE

And among the boys:

ALFIE

BARNABY WILLIAM

BENJAMIN GEORGE WILLIAM

CARLOS

CHARLIE DAVID

CHARLIE GRAHAM EAMON

CHARLIE JACK EDWARD

DANIEL LEWIS

EDWARD THOMAS

ETHAN JAMES

FINLAY MITCHELL

FINLEY WILLIAM

FREDDIE

GEORGE WILLIAM RALPH

HARRISON

HARRY PATRICK

JACOB FREDDIE

JAKE CHARLES WALLACE

JAKE JOHN

JAKE MAX

JAYDEN DAVID

JESSE ROSS

JOSEPH AARON

JOSEPH JACOB

KRISTIAN ANTHONY ALAN

LEO

LOUIS VICTOR

MAX  DANIEL

NOAH LEONARD RHYS

OSCAR

ROBERT ALFIE

By the way, the little girl in the illustration with the Guernsey cow is my daughter Chloe.

About the Author

Linda Rosenkrantz

Linda Rosenkrantz

Linda Rosenkrantz is the co-founder of Nameberry, and co-author with Pamela Redmond of the ten baby naming books acknowledged to have revolutionized American baby naming. You can follow her personally at InstagramTwitter and Facebook. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed New York Review Books Classics novel Talk and a number of other books.