Mother Goose Investigations – Why No Christian Names?
It seems strange that in a Christian country (the UK) the most common male name in a nursery rhyme is Jack (Jack be Nimble, Jack and Jill went up the hill, This is the House that Jack Built) and Tom seems very popular as well (Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son, Little Tommy Tucker). We talk about Polly putting the kettle on, about Jumping Joan, there’s even a strange little imp named Jerry Hall. Where are the religious names?
Well there’s a very obvious exemption to this, the name Mary (Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, Mary had a Little Lamb). You can’t really get a more Christian name than Mary. But since in the Bible was both the holiest name (the Virgin Mary) and one of the most profane (Mary Magadelene) it is difficult to work out how we should take the name in this poems.)
Changing names to religious name happened in the two little dicky birds. First they were called Jack and Gill, then religious sensibility turned them into Peter and Paul. Certainly the Puritans would have been against using religious figures in rhymes, but we had a for long time rhymes starting ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.’
Maybe what we get from this is that they are certainly nursery rhymes, not Sunday School rhymes, or rhymes from School (where religious learning has been usually prevalent). These are names of normal children stuck into the world of rhyme. If we stuck names like Methusalah or Solomon they’d seem fake. Not only that but they’d be hard to scan.
Nursery rhymes will certainly not become religious now, but nor have they included names linked to other faiths. They have this feeling of being stuck in their ways.
Paul Wimsett is an eBay seller and has also self published work on Createspace and Lulu.com
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