h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Struck me the other day that a lot of names used by men are verbs--especially colloquialisms. I'm now trying to collect a set. Here's the first few I've discovered, any others?

Biff, Chuck, Rob, Bob, Peter, Lance, Pierce, Roger, Mark, Brad, Dick (as in "to dick around"), Frank (cf: postage), Harry, Jimmy (cf: B&E).

Also, are women's names a similar element of grammar? I thought 'adjective', but I'm not having much luck there.

:o)

Wow! How amazing to have noticed that! (And found so many too...)

I don't know, is the short answer. I'll think on it

Welcome!

Women's names: verbs: Sue
nouns: Peg
Pretty feeble, I guess!

nouns: April, May, June, Hope, Chastity, Verity, Felicity, Charity, Prudence, Rose, Jasmine, Daisy, Paris, Ruby, Sapphire, Pearl, Crystal, Heather, Dawn, Faith, Olive, Carol, Sherry, Candy, Ivy...

Might I suggest nouns that sound like names, and if they're not, jolly well ought to be...

female:
Oubliette; Telephony; Miasma; Pleurisy; Souchong; Serviette; Lintel; Ulna; Tango; Nasal

male:
Stalag; Receiver; Brownian; Bronchitis; Assam; Napkin (as in Napkin Cole); Plinth (Plinth Charles, of course); Radius; Galliard; Proboscis

I love the girl's names!! If I ever have daughters...

And, I'm pretty sure that Assam is a man's name in many arabic countries.

:o)

Some more verb names I've noted:

Bill, Will, Harry, Grant, Ralph (it's a colloquialism).

And a big reach: Cary

:o)

So ... is Lance a noun or a verb?

Well it's certainly a noun. Hang on... And it's a verb as in 'to lance a boil' (lovely image, hm? )

...as opposed to a hygenic knight, who might boil his lance ....

And then lance his boils with his boiled lance!

Who boils the boil lancer's lance while the lance boiler's busy lancing the boil lancer's boils?
ROFL!

If a boil is lanced in the middle of the forest and nobody sees, does it make a mess?

...Only if the lancer's name is Zarathustra, I reckon .... or Zen ......

Zen lancing?

The sound of one lance clashing ....

The problem with classifying women's names as nouns, is that, well, of course they are, that's what names are--nouns.

I accept that its an interesting categorisation, but I was wondering if there was some other grammatical element that might have been subsumed into naming girls. Maybe past participles, or something.

:o)

The only example I can come up with is for a boy's name ... Fred ...past participle of the verb "to fr" ......

Lovely effort!

I still think there's hope in adjectives, such as:
Buffy, Nancy, Gay, Misty, Emily (?)

Must be somewhere there. And I'm still collecting verb boy's names.

:o)

Another one came to mind as I was thinking h2g2: Ford

There there's: Jerry (as in to jerry build)--another reach.

Really starting to slow down here. Any other offers?

:o)