oddnamesinhistory

[oddnamesinhistory]

Attila Sassy

Hungarian artist

Attila (Aiglon) Sassy (1880-1967), 'Opium Dreams', ''A Ház'', 1909

[oddnamesinhistory]

[oddnamesinhistory]

Random E. Olds

1864-1950, early automotive designer, inventor of the modern assembly line (five years before Henry Ford), and namesake (but not founder, exactly) of Oldsmobile

[oddnamesinhistory]

I thought surely this was some YA villain but no, Wolbert J. Vroom was a real person. I can’t find much information beyond that he was friends with the illustrator MC Escher and commissioned several famous pieces from him, and his son, also named Wolbert Vroom, is a successful architect in the Netherlands.

[oddnamesinhistory]

Yes really, his name was

Stanley Tigerman

1930-2019, American architect and interior designer

Stanley Tigerman designed condo, 1100 North Lake Shore Dr Chicago, 1983

[oddnamesinhistory]

Bonamy Dobrée

1818-1907, governor of the Bank of England so supportive of the slave trade that in 2020 the organization made a public apology for his actions

[oddnamesinhistory]

Stamp Brooksbank

1694-1756, English politician, governor of the Bank of England, and victim of that thing rich families used to do where they would name a kid a distant relative’s surname to try and win their inheritance

[oddnamesinhistory]

Lafayette Head

1825-1897, American soldier and politician, the first Lieutenant Governor of Colorado

[oddnamesinhistory]

Septimus Winner

1827-1903, aka Alice Hawthorne, Percy Guyer, Mark Mason, Apsley Street, and Paul Stenton, American music publisher and composer of such simple little songs that some of them have modernly mistaken for traditional songs and nursery rhymes, author of such classics as "Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone", "Listen to the Mockingbird", and "Queer People There Be".

[oddnamesinhistory]

Eliphalet Wickes Blatchford

1826-1915, American manufacturing president and college administrator

[oddnamesinhistory]

(source: The Dustin (OK) News, December 24, 1920.)

[oddnamesinhistory]

Royal Hiddleston Burpee

American physiologist that created the exercise known as the burpee in the 1940s as a test of fitness, adopted and intensified by the military during WWII. The original exercise was less intense than the version commonly used today by personal trainers. Weirdly I can’t find anything about his biography besides that he was American, not even a birth or death.

[oddnamesinhistory]

Hans de Bull

Dutch artist that I can only find evidence of in a series of prints from the 1590s

[oddnamesinhistory]

In a 1996 by-election, one of the candidates for Australia's parliament changed his name to Steve Grim-Reaper so he wouldn't get mixed up with other candidates

[oddnamesinhistory]

Source details and larger version.

My modest collection of vintage grasshoppers is, well, hopping along.

[oddnamesinhistory]

Odd Names in History: Sir Coplestone Warwick Bampfylde, 3rd Baronet of Poltimore and North Molton (1689-1727), English member of Parliament and aristocrat.

[oddnamesinhistory]

Odd Names in History: Odd Nerdrum (1944-), Norwegian painter. Yep, despite the archaic style, he’s actually alive and working today.