To folks in the US, Bristol is just the name of a number of cities and towns, nothing more, nothing less. Americans like unusual names. Using the name of a city as a child's name is not nearly as weird as a lot of other names. (we have a child at camp this week named 'Princess') I remember vowing in primary school that I would never name my children 'Cathy' or 'Debbie', as there were 3 or 4 of each in every class! I suspect the baby boomer generation as a whole felt that way and went for more unusual names. As those children had children the names became even more diverse.
Remember, we are people divided by a common language. In my mother's time a fair few girls were named 'Fannie', which to US folks is just an old fashioned girls name, even today. There is a mortgage lending program called 'Fannie-Mae', to which no one in the US blinks an eye.
Here in the US, 'Bristol' is just as innocent a name as 'Fannie'. A girl named Fannie in the UK wouldn't survive a day in nursery school!
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Date: 2008-09-02 12:52 pm (UTC)Remember, we are people divided by a common language. In my mother's time a fair few girls were named 'Fannie', which to US folks is just an old fashioned girls name, even today. There is a mortgage lending program called 'Fannie-Mae', to which no one in the US blinks an eye.
Here in the US, 'Bristol' is just as innocent a name as 'Fannie'. A girl named Fannie in the UK wouldn't survive a day in nursery school!