Holiday Season

It’s the Holiday Season in the USA. I can’t remember what we called it in the UK. Christmas….?

Anyway, everywhere you look and all that you hear there is ‘Holiday’ stuff.

Oh yes it is!

Sometimes, when I hear it, I think ‘Is it? Ooh, I must pack my bikini and get a wax.’ And then I realise that they mean ‘holiday’ as in a couple of weeks (or is that months, from Halloween to Christmas…?) of festivities and wot not.

Holiday shopping, holiday tree, holiday lights, holiday outfit, holiday pants, holiday socks, holiday saucepan…you name it – if it’s got holiday at the front then it’s part of the celebrations.

I’m just off to have a ‘holiday cup of tea’. That’s in a cup with bells on. It’s very annoying.

USA vs UK kids names

Sometimes I have trouble finding things in the USA with Harry’s name on. You know, like pencil cases or door stickers or key rings. (Even in the Harry Potter shop at Universal I couldn’t get one!)

Anyway, I can find plenty of Jaydens and Masons and Grasons and Hunters and Wyatts, but not Harry.

Jackson and Sophia are both on top of the baby names world this year in the USA. Jackson is enjoying the supreme spot on the boys’ list of popular names for the first time. Sophia is relishing her fourth year as the leader of the girls’ list.

USA top five

This is all very interesting, especially given that in the UK Harry and Amelia topped the list.

Poor Harry, how common…..but he does share his name with:

i) a hot celeb that is Harry Styles (yes, I know at my age I should not be having inappropriate thoughts about a 19-year-old boy band member, but it is what it is), and

ii) Prince Harry, who is the most fun royal ever, and

iii) Harry Potter, top banana boy wizard.

There’s not too much to complain about – especially since practically every American has heard of at least one of these ‘Harrys’. For the record, he is not named after any of them (that would be weird with Harry Styles, since he would have been 13 when Harry was born and I’d never even heard of him then, let alone…oh nevermind 😉 )

Must. Not. Dream. About. Him.

Anyway, British parents’ desire to give all children the very popular names Jack or Lily could have sociological repercussions, I read today. I know a lot of little girls called Lily, that’s for sure!

Researchers believe that over-reliance on the two reassuringly middle-class names could cause practical and psychological problems. Why?!

Sociologist Donna Sheridan says: “The names Jack and Lily have gone beyond the point of popularity to become a national epidemic.

“We’re starting to see primary schools where 98% of pupils are called Jack or Lily, resulting in teachers being unable to address any of their pupils individually.

“In one Year 3 class, all the boys completely ostracised the only one not called Jack, a boy called Ian. Or as they called him, ‘the un-Jack’.

“I believe they having been making plans to drown him.”

One teacher said that her class “….consists of Lilys numbers 1-12 and Jacks 1-14, for example I might say ‘Jack 3 give Jack 9 his pencil back’.”

Oh, British Middle Class issues! 😉

So it is an art! 😉

In the USA Miley is getting popular – let’s just hope those kids don’t follow in her twerking footsteps. And Breaking Bad names Walter, Skyler, Jesse, Hank and Saul are emerging as trending too. I would imagine that Downton Abbey names would push their way to the top on both sides of the pond…..Violet, Mary, Cora, Edith, Sybil…? Um, maybe not!