Where have all the Gertrudes gone?

Quote: AZDuffman

I remember the 1980s when "Krystal" and "Alexis" were raising in popularity. Right now a trend for males seems to be to give a first and middle name that can be used as initials. If you want to give a trendy name, adopt a puppy.

Why do I now have the urge to watch Sol? My Three-Name is Arc. (Note: don't bother watching that movie.)

I think I only met one man named Kermit in my life. He was very wealthy and he introduced himself with an incredibly firm handshake and a look in his eye that seemed to say "Go ahead, make my day".

Quote: AZDuffman

Booted from your own site is not the worst I ever heard about unicycles, my brother knows a guy almost got arrested over riding one.

At the risk of hijacking the thread, I'd be interested in the story. Perhaps in the unicycle thread.

Quote:

What I find interesting here is how the trendiness is mostly on female names.

That trend is not difficult to observe. My theory is that in men consistency and conformity are valued. With women it is creativity and individuality. That is why boys tend to often get old classic names their grandfather had and girls get something that is supposed to be unique and fashionable.

Quote: Wizard

At the risk of hijacking the thread, I'd be interested in the story. Perhaps in the unicycle thread.

It is not long at all and should not hijack, though feel free to move it if you feel it should be.

Basically the guy is the kind of guy who wants to learn things. Learn to juggle, whatever. He wanted to learn to ride a unicycle. He was practicing when the unit (Air National Guard) was on a deployment in Spain. Well, over there they equate unicycles with Gypsies. And Gypsies are bad news over there, no town wants them around. So the locals were going to pick him up, IIRC he somehow convinced them who he was with. As a guess it was part a case of, "nobody would make that up" and part the USAF vouching for him.

Moral of the story is when the US State Dept says, "KNOW BEFORE YOU GO" they are not kidding.

Quote: AZDuffman

Well, over there they equate unicycles with Gypsies. .

All over EU, there are traveling fairs and
circuses that are run by Gypsies. They all
contain unicycles, in some of them even
the ringmaster rides one. Gypsies are
really good at balancing things, it seems.

Quote: Evenbob

All over EU, there are traveling fairs and
circuses that are run by Gypsies. They all
contain unicycles, in some of them even
the ringmaster rides one. Gypsies are
really good at balancing things, it seems.

There is a good podcast at Stuff You Should Know about them last month. Nobody wants them but a few tolerate them. They were Hitler's #2 in the death camps.

Quote: AZDuffman

And Gypsies are bad news over there, no town wants them around.

In Spain they are as gitanos (xiˈtanos]) a word of uncertain origin but probably from a 9th century sect called Athinganoi. They have no record of their origin, but linguists and geneticists believe they came from northern India in the early first millenium. The English word "Gypsies" reflects a long held myth that they are from Egypt.

The legend is the King of Persia in the 5th century wanted the poor to be able to have music, so he asked the king of India to send him ten thousand lute playing experts. When they arrived, he gave each one an ox and a donkey and a donkey-load of wheat and asked them to plant the wheat, us the oxen to care for the fields and play their music for free. Unfortunately they ate the wheat and the oxen, and came back asking for more. The King of Persia was so angry that he condemned them to wander in Europe forever.

Quote: Pacomartin

The legend is the King of Persia in the 5th century [..]

In the 5th Century that would have been the Sassanid Empire, and the title of the ruler was King of Kings (as befits a modest oriental potentate, of course). Europe, alas, was part fractured mess, part barbarian tribes, and a small part still in the Roman (Byzantine) Empire (mostly the Balkans and Greece).

In other words, it would have been hard for even the King of Kings to herd 10,000 people into Europe, let them loose there, then keep them out of Sassanid Persia. I'd say he just expelled them, but that would be hard for such a large group. So if there is any truth to this, the number must have been much smaller, say 500 people. That number of ungrateful foreigners might have been expelled (and likely only 50 or so played the lute; the rest would have been their families).

You'd expect most to return home, but I've no idea what the state of India (or the area we call India) was like at the time. The Sassanids may have exerted enough domination over them to keep them from taking their people back, though. So, sure, they might ahve wound up in europe.

If there is any truth to this.

Fact is groups of people moved around all over the world even before the time of H. sapiens. So a close-knit group from India, or thereabouts, might have wound up in Europe in any of a myriad ways, leaving little evidence behind. Consider the Goths and the Huns, two groups that gave the Romans no end of grief (and eventually brought down the Western Empire). No one to this day knows quite where they came from.

I still have never knowingly seen a Gypsy.

There were some self-identified as Gypsies who used to try to come in and pull [really minor] haggling stunts in some retail stores I was associated with in the DC suburbs in the 80s. They would claim to have the last name Johnson IIRC, it was a kind of a code amongst themselves. It was certainly true there was a sort of pride about their heritage, but they clung to a lower class identity too.