It's always been around, using surnames perhaps as a middle name, and then there are the obvious ones like Ryan, Kelly, Michael that you wouldn't bat an eyelid at.

I read about a child called Keegan today and at the zoo over the holidays heard a woman shout "Cooper! Come here you little monster!"

Some sound normal, some sound just awful and don't work.

I would bat an eyelid at Michael (singular) being used as a surname. Bad example perhaps.

Usually one particular social class chooses surnames as first names..

My surname is now used as a boys first name. But if you remove the first letter, it is a proper boys name.

A cousins child does have his grandmothers surname as his middle name. But it is a proper boys name.

My surname is a Christian name with son bolted on.

I won't give my real name but it's the same format as Peterson, Johnson etc.

Obviously from son of Peter etc.

But as it is a more unusual Christian name bolted onto the son part (The Christian name is very common but it's not one of the wellknown Peterson, Johnson etc) not one knows how to pronounce it. They try to complicate it where it's simply the Christian name pronounce exactly as it commonly is with son on the end. (Usually pronounced sen in this country.)

A-list celebrities?

Americans

At school in the 1940's, teaching staff would normally call boys by their surnames, whereas girls were mostly called either by their full name or their christian (first) name..

The majority of people in Wales will have one of the following surnames:

Jones, Davies, Williams, Thomas, Rees, Evans, Price, Howells, Roberts, Lewis, Morgan, Jenkins, Hughes, Edwards, Griffiths.

Of those, I'd say only Thomas and Lewis can be first names.

I know someone called Harrison

I think SSN presenter Natalie Sawyers son is called Sawyer Matterface.

Jones the steam?

I don't know anyone called piggypug.

Isn't this mostly an American thing?

I watched a movie the other night and the kids were called Mason and Cooper.

What's wrong with Kevin and Trevor?

This still happens, most of my daughter's male friends that are all in their early thirties are know by their surnames. I knew them for a while before I knew their Christian names.

Morgan Freeman may disagree.

Or Roberts Blossom

Yep. In fact all those names Cooper, Hunter, Taylor etc just remind me of American soap characters.

We all do. He was Han Solo and Indiana Jones

Yes there is that one. Oddly enough 'Morgan' is also a girl's name in the US,

And Welsh surnames like Pugh and Prichard are a contraction of ap-Hugh and ap-Richard, the prefix "ap" meaning "son of", so Prichard is Welsh for Richardson.

But I expect you knew that, Welsh-lad.

And not so Frantic running around Paris..

Saw your matter face and it was covered in zits

Terrible. I always expected Sam to have zits.

How many threads on names get created a month here? There seems to be a bit of an obsession with bashing other people for their name.

I always get a Joe Dolce earworm from Sam Matterface.