What are we talking about today?

I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

11 January 2014

Ben

My name post is late this week, yes. I was building anticipation!

I watched a few episodes of The Waltons during the Christmas/New Year week, just for my own amusement, and ran across a YouTube comment that said Ben Walton was good-natured. Which was amazing, because I've always thought of Ben as the cranky Walton.

Ben
Is short for Benjamin, which is a Hebrew name meaning "son of the south" or "son of my right hand." Ben's pretty popular around the world: #1 name for boys in Chile; #8 in British Columbia, Canada; #9 in Bosnia and Herzegovina; #15 in New South Wales, Australia; and #16 in the U.S. Ben's first popularity peak in the U.S. was in 1889, when he got up to #21, then he took a bit of a nose dive until the late 1960s, when he started creeping up again to his current highest point of popularity.

I had trouble choosing a pic
for this post. So: Dr. Regina
Benjamin, former U.S. Surgeon
General. Source.
Famous Bens: Benjamin Franklin; Benjamin Harrison (23rd U.S. president); Benjamin Disraeli, former British Prime Minister; the Biblical son of Jacob, who was the father of one of the 12 tribes of Israel; Ben Affleck, actor; Ben Stiller, actor who annoys me; Ben Barnes, actor (Prince Caspian); Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. (I also want to mention Ben Savage (Boy Meets World), but his full name is Bennett, not Benjamin.)

Fictional Bens: Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (M*A*S*H); Ben Seaver (Growing Pains); Benjamin Tennyson (Ben 10); Benny Pearl (Benny and Joon); Ben Grimm (The Thing, Marvel Comics); Benjamin Button (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button); Ben Walton.

My Bens: I have a couple Benjamins in a character list, but haven't written one yet. I know a whole bunch, though, probably from being born while the name was on the rise in popularity-- there was always a Ben or two in my class all through school, and I've taught a few in Sunday School. Definitely no shortage of people named Ben in my life.

Are you a Ben? Do you know a Ben? Is it just me, or does every name I've looked at so far start to look weird after I've written it down 30 or so times?

Sources:
As said by: At the hour:
Relating to: , ,

2 comments:

J E Oneil said...

I've come across a couple of Bens over the years. I don't think I've ever used it as a character name, though.

Any word starts to look weird after you look at it over and over again. I got into a thing where I couldn't figure out why "always" was a real word.

11 January, 2014 16:46
Su said...

"Always" should not be a real word.

14 January, 2014 00:07

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