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Question for the Americans - is Mavis Beacon a reasonable name for someone to be called where you come from? I grew up in the UK and for me it was always obvio

Question for the Americans - is Mavis Beacon a reasonable name for someone to be called where you come from? I grew up in the UK and for me it was always obviously just a company who had an eponymous avatar that lead the teaching. I would put that down to the fact that I would never expect Mavis Beacon to be the name of a person but a perfectly reasonable name for a company.

MrRadar 6y ago
> Question for the Americans - is Mavis Beacon a reasonable name for someone to be called where you come from? I would say so. Mavis is a bit old fashioned, but it was a very common name at one time[1]. Beacon is not a common last name, but IMDB does list a few people with that as their last name[2] (and a lot more with "Deacon" as their last name; I could totally buy the B and D getting switched out at some point in the family's history, especially if they immigrated in the 19th century when record-keeping was much less stringent). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis [2] https://www.imdb.com/find?q=beacon&s=nm&ref_=fn_al_nm_mr https://www.imdb.com/find?q=beacon&s=nm&ref_=fn_al_nm_mr
geoduck14 6y ago
American here. It is a totally weird name.
- casion 6y ago
  Where are you from? I'm from the "deep south", and I find it to be a perfectly reasonable name.
  - geoduck14 6y ago
    Dallas, TX I don't know any Mavises
- stan_rogers 6y ago
  It's just an old name that's a couple-three generations out of fashion. It was a common-enough name for older female characters in 1960s sitcoms, so for a lot of HN types it would likely be a great-grandmother-era name.
Tommah 6y ago
The old real Mavis I have ever heard of is Mavis Leno, the wife of comedian Jay Leno. He used to mention her on his show sometimes.
- Tommah 6y ago
  (I meant "only", not "old")
dec0dedab0de 6y ago
It's weird but no more weird than carmen sandiego, homer simpson, betty crocker or arnold schwarzenegger
- lostlogin 6y ago
  Aren’t those all fictional except for Schwarzenegger who is real and Austrian?
  - dec0dedab0de 6y ago
    That's what I was trying for, but I didn't check if any of the fictional ones were based on real people. It was a light hearted way to illustrate that there are so many names that it's common to hear some that sound weird to you.
- porknubbins 6y ago
  The real singer from whom they borrowed the “Mavis” is named Mavis Staples. Which, to my ear, if I didn’t know she was a real person sounds just uncanny enough to have been made up by a company as marketing.
djur 6y ago
Well, as the article explains, "Mavis Beacon" was not the name of the company. It was indeed intended to be a person's name. To me, it has the feeling of a name that _could_ be real but which is also a little bit on the nose -- kind of a Holly Golightly situation.
Zelphyr 6y ago
The US being a “melting pot” probably means that unusual names are more common than the UK which is homogeneous by comparison. Also, and I don’t know if other countries do this, but Americans just love coming up with unusual and distinct names for their kids. “Oprah”, for example. “Lincoln” for both a boy and a girl seems to be in vogue at the moment.
- keiferski 6y ago
  > Winfrey was born Orpah Gail Winfrey; her first name was spelled Orpah (not Oprah) on her birth certificate after the biblical figure in the Book of Ruth, but people mispronounced it regularly and "Oprah" stuck.
ErikAugust 6y ago
It’s a little less obvious however than Carmen Sandiego.
User23 6y ago
For me the name Mavis will always bring to mind a rather colorful character from the incomparable Illuminatus! Trilogy.
chipotle_coyote 6y ago
It's not common, but it's not unprecedented, either. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Mavis Staples, a legendary blues singer who's won multiple Grammy Awards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Staples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Staples
- szhu 6y ago
  The article has: > Abrams said Crane came up with the first name, "Mavis," in honor of singer Mavis Staples. "Beacon," had something to do with a "beacon of light," Abrams said.
telesilla 6y ago
It's a perfectly normal name for someone around the age of 80, I know several.
jen20 6y ago
I had a pre-school teacher (in the 80s, in the south of England) named Mavis, and knew of several other older people with that name. It doesn't seem like an unreasonable name even in the UK.

MrRadar 6y ago

> Question for the Americans - is Mavis Beacon a reasonable name for someone to be called where you come from? I would say so. Mavis is a bit old fashioned, but it was a very common name at one time[1]. Beacon is not a common last name, but IMDB does list a few people with that as their last name[2] (and a lot more with "Deacon" as their last name; I could totally buy the B and D getting switched out at some point in the family's history, especially if they immigrated in the 19th century when record-keeping was much less stringent). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis [2] https://www.imdb.com/find?q=beacon&s=nm&ref_=fn_al_nm_mr https://www.imdb.com/find?q=beacon&s=nm&ref_=fn_al_nm_mr

geoduck14 6y ago

American here. It is a totally weird name.

casion 6y ago
Where are you from? I'm from the "deep south", and I find it to be a perfectly reasonable name.
- geoduck14 6y ago
  Dallas, TX I don't know any Mavises
stan_rogers 6y ago
It's just an old name that's a couple-three generations out of fashion. It was a common-enough name for older female characters in 1960s sitcoms, so for a lot of HN types it would likely be a great-grandmother-era name.

Tommah 6y ago

The old real Mavis I have ever heard of is Mavis Leno, the wife of comedian Jay Leno. He used to mention her on his show sometimes.

Tommah 6y ago
(I meant "only", not "old")

dec0dedab0de 6y ago

It's weird but no more weird than carmen sandiego, homer simpson, betty crocker or arnold schwarzenegger

lostlogin 6y ago
Aren’t those all fictional except for Schwarzenegger who is real and Austrian?
- dec0dedab0de 6y ago
  That's what I was trying for, but I didn't check if any of the fictional ones were based on real people. It was a light hearted way to illustrate that there are so many names that it's common to hear some that sound weird to you.
porknubbins 6y ago
The real singer from whom they borrowed the “Mavis” is named Mavis Staples. Which, to my ear, if I didn’t know she was a real person sounds just uncanny enough to have been made up by a company as marketing.

djur 6y ago

Well, as the article explains, "Mavis Beacon" was not the name of the company. It was indeed intended to be a person's name. To me, it has the feeling of a name that _could_ be real but which is also a little bit on the nose -- kind of a Holly Golightly situation.

Zelphyr 6y ago

The US being a “melting pot” probably means that unusual names are more common than the UK which is homogeneous by comparison. Also, and I don’t know if other countries do this, but Americans just love coming up with unusual and distinct names for their kids. “Oprah”, for example. “Lincoln” for both a boy and a girl seems to be in vogue at the moment.

keiferski 6y ago
> Winfrey was born Orpah Gail Winfrey; her first name was spelled Orpah (not Oprah) on her birth certificate after the biblical figure in the Book of Ruth, but people mispronounced it regularly and "Oprah" stuck.

ErikAugust 6y ago

It’s a little less obvious however than Carmen Sandiego.

User23 6y ago

For me the name Mavis will always bring to mind a rather colorful character from the incomparable Illuminatus! Trilogy.

chipotle_coyote 6y ago

It's not common, but it's not unprecedented, either. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Mavis Staples, a legendary blues singer who's won multiple Grammy Awards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Staples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Staples

szhu 6y ago
The article has: > Abrams said Crane came up with the first name, "Mavis," in honor of singer Mavis Staples. "Beacon," had something to do with a "beacon of light," Abrams said.

telesilla 6y ago

It's a perfectly normal name for someone around the age of 80, I know several.

jen20 6y ago

I had a pre-school teacher (in the 80s, in the south of England) named Mavis, and knew of several other older people with that name. It doesn't seem like an unreasonable name even in the UK.