In bygone days one's family name often described one's occupation, and those names are still with us, though their meaning is lost on most. In some cultures one's given name describes a positive characteristic. Why is it that we've forgotten the meaning and seem to go for the sound alone? And why are names now cyclically "trendy?"

The only descriptive name I can think of in current use is that of Angelina Jolie Voight, who, thanks to not liking her father, has dropped her family name and calls herself Angelina Pretty. (Jolie is "pretty" in French.) As for being a "little angel," - well - who knows!

Names can be and still are descriptive. There is a woman on my street named Ima Hore. She dislikes the name but everyone else thinks it most apt.

Then there is the well-known urologist Dr Cockburn. Disappointingly. he pronounces his name Co-burn.

When I was in the Army, we had an inept officer named Cherkhov. He insisted it was SHIRT-cuff but we pronounced it JERKoff.

I had a dentist named Les Plack, his real name and he is sadly retired.

This was in the "Untranslatable Foreign Words" forum, where it doesn't fit, so I've moved the thread to a better home.

Well, shucks, arnie, I figured that since most folks don't know what their names mean, that makes them foreign.

Then there was Ima Hogg of Texas fame (1882-1975), who (a) never had a sister named Ura, (2)was never fat and (3)did not hog her wealth but gave it away by the truckload.

Wiki says she was named after a character in an epic poem written by her uncle (self-published no doubt).

Maybe she was the source of the saying, "hog heaven?"

Here is a Word a Day on the subject of surnames.