Diamond Jubilee

It might well have seemed like a good idea at the time but did any of the babies called Diamond Jubilee back in 1897 really thank their parents for it?

A quick search of the 1911 census turns up more than one person whose age was always easy to guess thanks to their name.

Diamond Jubilee Reckless, born in 1898 in Rotherham in Yorkshire, perhaps got the worst deal given the surname that came after the celebration special.  And given the fact that DJ Reckless was a boy.

Diamond was already established as a girl's name by the time Master Reckless, coal miner's son, was saddled with it.  But he wasn't the only male to mark the royal celebration.  Diamond Jubilee Edwards, a cabman's son from Chelsea and Diamond Jubilee Galsworthy who father ran a pub in Devon were also christened as Queen Victoria marked sixty years on the throne.

In fact, ten babies were given the name Diamond Jubilee between the end of 1896 and the middle of 1898.  Of those that are recorded on the 1911 census, three are boys and two are girls.  Diamond Jubilee Brown of Kings Norton in Worcestershire could perhaps blame her piano maker father's artistic temperament for her unusual name.  The other girl with the name, Diamond Jubilee Roper of Portsmouth, also had instrumental links with a professor of music for a father.  And DJ Roper might have known she'd get a royal name with a sister called Victoria already in the household.

Whether there are as many Diamond Jubilees to mark Elizabeth II's 60 years as queen remains to be seen.  But no doubt now, as then, more parents than children will like the right royal name.