Country Living with Francis Farragher

It’s probably a clear indication of an idle mind, and possibly too the fear of a blank page and no idea as to the theme of a weekly column, but over recent weeks, I’ve found it hard not to notice that curious link that arises here and there between the name of a person and the occupation or sport that they are involved in.

For those with names like Fox, Hare, Badger, Bear, Rabbitt, Bull, Bullock or Hogg, it probable can become a little tedious and repetitive if the same little jokes are thrown at them all the time. You know the type: “John Fox has a fine clutch of chickens” or “Jane Hare can fairly move” or “Paddy Bull has great strength and talks a lot of rot.” The list probably goes on and on but offhand I can’t think of any more of them.

Back the years too, I’ve heard the tale – and I’m assured that it’s not apocryphal – of an incredulous emergency line operator, who ‘smelled a rat’ when the following scenario was outlined to here.

It concerned a Mr Rabbitt who took ill in a pub called The Hare Inn and who was treated by a medic on call with the name of Dr. Fox. After the initial response of: “Hold on a minute, this is an emergency service, and are you serious,” the operator had to accept the fact that this remarkable coincidence of names was real, and not someone trying to be funny. Thankfully all ended well!

There’s actually a word in the Collins dictionary which applies to a person whose occupation has a very obvious link with their names, called an aptronym, but alas the reverse also applies too. That opposite, called an inaptonym, can quite simply be explained by the example of a cleric called Jaime Sin, back in the 1970s, who was duly promoted to the position of Cardinal. The poor man then had the title of Cardinal Sin, but hopefully he saw the funnier side of it, at least for the early weeks of his rise in the Church hierarchy until it started to be an annoyance.

In the past, where academics have found themselves with very little to do, research papers have been produced to indicate whether or not names like Barber, Farmer, Carpenter or Porter, could somehow prompt these people into career paths connected with their names. Completely and utterly ludicrous, I agree, but this academic study was conducted under the headings of ‘implicit egotism’ or ‘nominative determinism’. Needless to say, it was contradicted by another piece of research under the title of ‘coincidence’. I think I’d ‘go’ with the latter.