It’s that time of year when… Finders International digs out its Christmas-related genealogy stats! That’s right, just like every other industry, ours isn’t immune to the call of snow-painting our copy. From famous people born on Christmas Day, to those whose names have a definite festive slant, they are all here. Enjoy!
Famous people born on Christmas Day. Anyone whose birthday is 25 December knows what a rough deal that is. As a child, everyone combines your Christmas and birthday presents into one, and the celebration is nothing like as individual as the non-25 December ones because everyone else gets spoiled too.
Here are the famous people who’ve had to put up with the combined Christmas/Birthday present deal.
- Sir Issac Newton, English mathematician, astronomer, theologian and physicist born in 1642.
- Humphrey Bogart – do you suppose when he asked Sam to play it again, the American screen and stage actor was actually asking for Happy Birthday, instead of Jingle Bells?! Bogart was born in 1899.
- Annie Lennox, the Scottish singer, songwriter, political activist and philanthropist, and winner of eight Brit awards. She was born in 1954.
- Sissy Spacek, best remembered for her creepy, Oscar-nominated performance in the classic horror film, Carrie, the actress was born in 1949.
- Dido, the singer famous for providing the snippet from her song Thank You that was used in Eminem’s Stan. Her real Name is Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong, and she was born in 1971.
- Jorgie Porter, the actress who played Theresa McQueen in Hollyoaks and who was born in 1987.
- Chris Kamara, the ex-footballer, ex-manager and now sports TV presenter was born in 1957.
- Alastair Cook, the left-handed English cricketer and former captain of the England Test and ODI teams, was born in 1984.
Christmas-related surnames. Ancestry.com has a whole section dedicated to people with the surname Christmas. Christmas as a surname is pretty rare, as Finders International knows through its regular searches through censuses. It’s thought to originate in medieval times when the Christmas celebration was of enormous importance to the populace. ‘Christmas’ as a name might be given to people who organised the festivities (a big deal) or to someone born on the day.
Gerard Christmas, for example, is recorded in history are the official organiser of the Lord Mayor of London’s annual festive procession. Then, there was Ralph Christemasse of Suffolk, recorded in 1191, and Thomas Christmas who got married in 1626 in London*.
Notable people called Christmas include an Edwin Christmas, an English amateur footballer who played for Southampton in the early 19th Century. Then there was Eric Christmas, an English stage and screen actor who died in 2000, and William Christmas, an American politician and member of North Carolina State Senate 1792-93.
Occasionally, someone ends up with Christmas as a first name too… The first NASCAR female pit crew member and CrossFit champion, for example, is called Christmas Abbot. Her second name is Joy too, just in case no-one got the point there. She can squat 255 pounds and is thought of as one of the fittest women on earth.
Holly, Ivy, Noel and Nicholas might be obvious Christmas-related first names to give your baby if he or she is born on Christmas day, but other ideas include Noelle, Mary and Virginia for a girl, and Caspar, Balthazar, Joseph and Rudolph for a boy.
Finally, everyone at Finders International would like to wish you and yours some very merry festive fun and all the best for 2018.
*Source – the Surname Database