Three Common Names That Were Just Made Up By Authors

Plus, the heartbreaking origin of “Wendy.”

Jack Shepherd
Cellar Door

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When I was a tweenager, I looked up the origin of my name (not to date myself, but it was probably in a physical book of some kind) and was given a profoundly unsatisfying, unelaborated one-word answer: Jack means “Supplanter.” I’ll note, as a brief aside here, that while most men my age named Jack are secret Johns, I am a pure, unprocessed, unadulterated Jack, just like my impossibly numerous Gen-Alpha brethren, whose mothers are forever shouting after them at the playground and looking at me weird when I turn around expectantly.

I have since confirmed that this terse, unlikely etymology is actually more-or-less true: Jacks start appearing in the record in the 13th century, and the word “jack” (as I have been hyper-aware for my whole life) has a long, varied, and vibrant history, initially as a generic catch-all meaning something like what we mean when we say “bro” nowadays, as in “jack of all trades,” “every man-jack of them,” and “jack-tar” (sailor-bro, essentially). The idea of “jack” as a generic guy was carried over to describe objects that do generic work, like the “jack” a mechanic…

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Cellar Door
Cellar Door

Published in Cellar Door

A magazine about words, language, writing, and literature, for anyone who likes to play with words.

Jack Shepherd
Jack Shepherd

Written by Jack Shepherd

I have a newsletter about crossword puzzles and a podcast about rom-coms. Formerly editorial director @BuzzFeed. Email: JackAShepherd at gmail