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ArchivesMy column on Clyde
Here is the link to today's column:
https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-clydes-early-20th-century-popularity-mostly-blue-collar/article_fe6d044a-427c-11ee-acdb-0fbe11fccfe7.html
As I mention in the column, I really can't find a single explanation for Clyde's 19th century rise as a given name that's satisfactory to me. The entry for Clyde on this site mentions the creation of the title Baron Clyde for the British general Colin Campbell in 1858. The timing is right, but considering that most of the Clydes born in the 1860s and 1870s had working class parents in the Midwest, it is hard for me to believe that this could be the only factor. Baron Clyde retired a couple of years after he was given that title, died in 1863, and the title died with him since he had no children. Why would so many farmers and mechanics in Ohio and Michigan have named sons after him?
There are two other explanations in the column, about the poem "Clyde" and the Clyde Line steamship company, but neither of them by itself seems adequate to explain the pattern of use. I should mention there was a local Revolutionary War hero in the Mohawk Valley area of New York State named Samuel Clyde. That might fit geographically as Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa had a great many early settlers from upstate New York. But why wouldn't Clyde have boomed a bit earlier than the late 1850s if a Revolutionary War hero was responsible?
So at this point I think the big increase in Clydes is still a bit mysterious and we can just say the name was "in the air" and fit in with the fashions of the time.
https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-clydes-early-20th-century-popularity-mostly-blue-collar/article_fe6d044a-427c-11ee-acdb-0fbe11fccfe7.html
As I mention in the column, I really can't find a single explanation for Clyde's 19th century rise as a given name that's satisfactory to me. The entry for Clyde on this site mentions the creation of the title Baron Clyde for the British general Colin Campbell in 1858. The timing is right, but considering that most of the Clydes born in the 1860s and 1870s had working class parents in the Midwest, it is hard for me to believe that this could be the only factor. Baron Clyde retired a couple of years after he was given that title, died in 1863, and the title died with him since he had no children. Why would so many farmers and mechanics in Ohio and Michigan have named sons after him?
There are two other explanations in the column, about the poem "Clyde" and the Clyde Line steamship company, but neither of them by itself seems adequate to explain the pattern of use. I should mention there was a local Revolutionary War hero in the Mohawk Valley area of New York State named Samuel Clyde. That might fit geographically as Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa had a great many early settlers from upstate New York. But why wouldn't Clyde have boomed a bit earlier than the late 1850s if a Revolutionary War hero was responsible?
So at this point I think the big increase in Clydes is still a bit mysterious and we can just say the name was "in the air" and fit in with the fashions of the time.
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Replies
Very interesting, as always. Did those working-class parents in the Midwest include farmers, or farm workers? I had a picture book when I was a small child, given to me by someone with grown-up children so it went back a long time and had been published in the USA. It was set on a farm, and there were two horses named Clyde and Prince. That's all I remember, but the book could have appeared in the 1940s or even 1930s. Maybe a human name had passed into animal use? I only remember it because my family knew a Clive, and I guessed that Clyde was a misprint.
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