Here are a couple of snaps of the progress of autumn — if progress it is — on the face of it this tree hasn’t altered much in the last week (by the way, the dog run is the grassy area in the distance, immediately to the right of the tree):
Around the far side, looking from the dog run, the orange extends further down:
While I was at it, I took some more dog pictures:
But what I really want to talk about is something else…
Through her interest in horses, my daughter meets a lot of rich young families from the western suburbs of Oslo. The other day she was with some of these people and their horses, talking to a mother whose smallest and youngest child was called Socrates.
Now Norway has rules about what you can call your children, there are no Dweezels or Moon Units here, so I was kind of pleased to hear that the Greeks are acceptable models.
My question is this: what are Socrates’s siblings called? Plato and Aristotle? Is their sister Athena or is she just known as the Delphic Oracle?
Or do their parents introduce them with “Say hello to young Ken and Janet and our own personal favourite, little Socrates”?
A Bad Guide 
Fascinating pictures!
In high school I had a Greek schoolmate called Aristoteles. He came from a village near Budapest entirely populated by Communist Greeks fleeing before the civil war in 1948. I remember my first thought was the same: “is his brother called Plato and his sister Athena?” And yes, when he invited me to his home it turned out that his sister was Athena, and his brothers Odysseus, Agamemnon and Democritus. Imagine the shock of a fourteen year old boy at the sight of a village half Olympus and half the Academy of Athens.
A few years ago we had a PhD student here named Cleopatra.
There was an era when Highlanders were particularly prone to call their boys Alexander, Hector or Aeneas. Alexander is still reasonably popular.
P.S. I like the story of an American who taught philosophy and deduced that his students didn’t have much sense of the passage of historical time when he marked some work that referred to “Mr Aristotle”.
Studiolum: his sister was Athena, and his brothers Odysseus, Agamemnon and Democritus. Imagine the shock of a fourteen year old boy at the sight of a village half Olympus and half the Academy of Athens.
Yeah, that’s pretty shocking. I was thinking the same thing: I kind of like Aristophanes as a name, but then would you call your subsequent children after Greeks or after playwrights?
Cleopatra’s not bad, she can go as “Cleo” if she’s shy (or even “Pat” if she’s very shy) .
his students didn’t have much sense of the passage of historical time when he marked some work that referred to “Mr Aristotle”.
Whereas what he meant was Mr Onassis. Actually, I do think of Alexander and Hector as Scottish names, now you mention it (I never heard of a Scottish Aeneas). Is it a Scottish Greek-revival hangover?
Sokrates owes its popularity to the late Anne-Cath Vestly‘s children’s books. His big sister Aurora‘s name has been highly popular in Norway for a couple of decades, since the current trend of pretentious naming started. The names were, of course, chosen for a different reason by the author. In the books the children’s mother is a lawyer while their father is staying at home, taking care of the house and working on his Greek Ph.D. thesis. Out of the books I think she wanted to ease the burden of having an odd name.
How is Sokrates pronounced in Norsk?
[‘so:.kra”tes]
This may well be due to Vestly’s own pronunciation in decades of radio readings.
I don’t know, Crown. In this list you’ll see a Hector, an Aeneas and Alexanders galore.
http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/online/content/index1207.htm
And this list has an Alexander Aeneas as chief by 1645.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiefs_of_Clan_MacDonell_of_Glengarry
“Alexander, who is said to have been the first of the family [MacKay], aided in driving the Danes from the north.”
His great-grandson fought at Bannockburn under Bruce,.so that puts the old boy as flourishing in the early 1200s.
Here’s a reference to Hector MacLean, Seneschal of Urquhart Castle in 1440. I think I’ll setttle for the habit going back a fair way.
(P.S. “Alistair” and “Alisdair” are Gaelic forms of “Alexander”.)
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wEFuRPsYHwwC&pg=PA933&lpg=PA933&dq=alexander+%2B+aeneas+%2B+hector+%2B+scotland&source=bl&ots=rZBIXypXfQ&sig=-qvnuxDFySVCwYI7F6l_41sEiso&hl=en&ei=0JCSTO_cDtjPjAeH89ywBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCUQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=alexander%20%2B%20aeneas%20%2B%20hector%20%2B%20scotland&f=false
I wonder why the Scots used Greek names back in the 15th century? I like the spelling Dòmhnall Mac Aonghais for Donald MacAngus, it sounds much more Scottish if you say it that way.
I suspect that they’re strictly Trojan names, and the habit grew from belief in these legends –
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/pob/pob_ch13.html
(I mean that Hector and Aeneas are Trojan.)
Interesting. I didn’t know anything about that, I don’t remember covering it at school. I could have been asleep, though. I only really became interested in history when we reached the 18th century.
When I said “I suspect” I meant “Golly, look what Google’s thrown up; I haven’t heard this tosh since it was dismissed as tosh at primary school.” But you suspected that anyway.
Oh, okay. Now I get it.
“Alistair” and “Alisdair” are Gaelic forms of “Alexander”
If I knew that, I’d forgotten it. Thanks! And yes, I was going to mention the whole Briton/Trojan thing, one of those forgotten byways of history.