Use of English Communication

USE OF ENGLISH COMMUNICATION (Rembeczkiné L.
Olga)
https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/ What’s in a name
Match
Presenter 1: Today we are going to talk about names, particularly fashions in names, you know,
the kind of names famous people use for their children. You’ve been looking into this recently,
haven’t you Finn?
Presenter 2: 1)………………………………………………………………
Presenter 1: Nouns, what sort of nouns?

Presenter 2: 2) ………………………………………………………………..
Presenter 1: Mmm. I suppose Passion is used to mean ‘extreme enthusiasm’ nowadays, and

people use the word a lot, so maybe it’s a good choice for a modern name. Haven has a nice,
safe feel to it.
Presenter 2: 3) ………………………………………………………………….
Presenter 1: Ridge, like a mountain ridge? The top of a mountain range?
Presenter 2: 4) ………………………………………………………………….
Presenter 1: Lyric, wow!

Presenter 2: Yes, it came in at number 325 in the US a couple of years ago. That doesn’t sound
very popular, but there are so many different names being used at the moment that it means it
isn’t so unusual. Other noun categories are months – May, June and April are common, but
January is uncommon and November very unusual. And then you have colours. Beyoncé and
Jay-Z called their daughter Blue Ivy – a very distinctive name, a colour plus the name of a plant.
Blue is very popular for girls right now, and Red or Grey for boys.
Presenter 1: I’ve just thought of another category. Food names, like Olive or Clementine.
Presenter 2:5) …………………………………………………………………………
Presenter 1: Yes, poor child.

Presenter 2: Actually, Apple is becoming more and more popular, although people think that’s
because of the technology connection, not the fruit. New names always seem strange at first, but
you quickly get used to them, like all the names from places or jobs. Chelsea and Brooklyn seem
like normal names now; they were strange when they were first used. Taylor, Mason, Cooper are
all first names from jobs.
Presenter 1: And they are also surnames, I think that’s how they started.
Presenter 2: You’re probably right there.
Presenter 1: What about the Beckhams’ daughter, Harper?
Presenter 2: She was named after Harper Lee, the American novelist who wrote To Kill a
Mockingbird. That’s another trend, naming children after famous writers, musicians – the British
band One Direction have had an effect on names – or fictional characters, like Bella or Edward
from the Twilight series, or Hermione from Harry Potter.
Presenter 1: Sorry, can I just interrupt there. I’ve just has a message passed on by the producer.
A listener has just phoned in with a very strange story about a family in Holland with six children.
Their names are all anagrams of the letters: A, E, L and X.
Presenter 2: Ah yes, I’ve heard about this. This family are famous in the world of bloggers on
names. Let me see if I remember the names … Alex and Axel … and Lexa – they’re the easy
ones – Xela ('Zela') and Xael ('Zay-el') and the last one is Xeal ('Zeal') – I’m guessing about the
pronunciations, by the way.
Presenter 1: You mean there are names X-E-L-A and X-A-E-L?
Presenter 2: 6)………………………………………………………………..
Presenter 1: Nooo, you’re kidding!
Presenter 2: All seem horrible to me, but all are possible names. This is similar to another trend
of giving children names all starting with the same letter, like the Kardashian family, all beginning
with K, Kim, Kourtney and so on.
Presenter 1: The Kardashians have had enough publicity, let’s not talk about them. What about
your name? Finn, that sounds like a good Irish name …
a)
OK, then there are names which come from nature or animals, although with some of
these it’s hard to know whether they come from nature or a surname – that’s another
trend. Here we have Frost, Wolf, Fox, Bear, for boys, of course. And a new name: Ridge.
b) Yes, but they are very unusual. I think the Dutch family are stopping at six children, but
there are about eighteen more possible anagrams they could use.
c) I have indeed and it’s a fascinating topic. The US leads here with new names and we in
Britain follow sometimes, but we tend to go for the more traditional names. So, the big
trend is using nouns as names.
d) Well they can be abstract qualities like Honor or Passion. There’s a long tradition of this
kind of name, like Faith or Charity, which used to be common names. A new name is
Haven, that’s growing in popularity. And similar names like Shelter, Harbor and Bay also
convey feelings of safety and warmth.
e) Yes, that’s another one. Flower names are pretty common, but food names are unusual.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin named their daughter Apple, of course.
f) Yes, weird, huh? It’s seen as a tough, outdoorsy name for a boy. OK, then there are
musical names. Harmony and Melody have been around for ages, but Lyric is a new one.
Key: 1-c; 2-d; 3-a; 4-f; 5-e; 6-b

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USE OF ENGLISH COMMUNICATION (Rembeczkiné L.

https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/ What’s in a name

Presenter 1: Nouns, what sort of nouns?

Presenter 1: Mmm. I suppose Passion is used to mean ‘extreme enthusiasm’ nowadays, and

Presenter 1: Ridge, like a mountain ridge? The top of a mountain range?

Presenter 1: Lyric, wow!

Presenter 2:5) …………………………………………………………………………

Presenter 1: Yes, poor child.

Key: 1-c; 2-d; 3-a; 4-f; 5-e; 6-b

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