Names that Enid used less frequently?

[pete9012S]

Character's names that Enid used less frequently?

I noticed as a child that Enid used some names much more than others. Jack, Betty, Fanny, Tom, etc etc.

What characters names have you spotted that she used much less frequently?

Can we list twenty of the lesser used names and the books they appeared in?

1. Kit - The Boy Next Door
2. Mrs Boggs - The Mystery Of The Missing man
3.

[Boodi 2]

1. Kit - The Boy Next Door
2. Mrs Boggs - The Mystery Of The Missing man
3. Mrs. Layman in Five have a Mystery to Solve
4. The Sticks in Five Run Away together

[Boatbuilder]

1. Kit - The Boy Next Door
2. Mrs Boggs - The Mystery Of The Missing man
3. Mrs. Layman in Five have a Mystery to Solve
4. The Sticks in Five Run Away together
5. The Lenoirs in Sugglers Top

[timv]

Cyril , Melisande and Roderick from the Six Cousins series. I suspect that Enid chose these names deliberately for the series as showing that the three well-off 'townee' cousins did not have 'normal' names for boys and girls and that their mother, the 'over the top' show-off Rose, had chosen them in a pretentious manner - and that Rose did not know or care that the children could get teased for them. (Melisande is especially rare - I have come across it twice, once in the name of the opera 'Pelleas et Melisande' and once as the name of a Crusader Queen of Jerusalem in the twelfth century!) Roderick also appears in literature but Enid doesn't give us any more boys by that name, and 'Cyril' was seen as being rather 'upper class' and pretentious when I was at school in the 1960s-70s - I never came across any boy called that. It fits his longish hair, not liking 'dirty' farm-work, and fondness for poetry when he first comes to Mistletoe Farm, and marks him out at Jack's local state secondary school - though Enid kindly shows us that he soon gets used to hard work and cares more about looking after his sister and mother than Jack does.

Enid seems to have chosen fairly 'commonly used' names for most of her child characters, at least as seen in naming in the 1930s to 1950s - helping the readers to identify with them and hinting that they had 'sensible' parents. That would make Rose Longfield stand out more as the opposite. But it's all too typical that the publishers reissuing the Adventurous Four books hastened to rename the girls (one or both??), just because their names (Jill and Mary) were less 'usual' in modern times so might appeal less to readers - rather a pity.

[Daisy]

Cyril was also in Five go off te Camp. I know someone with that name -he was about 10 years older than me. But it is uncommon.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Is there definitely a Cyril in Five Go Off to Camp, Daisy, or are you thinking of Cecil? I remember Cecil Dearlove, but is there a Cyril as well?

1. Kit - The Boy Next Door
2. Mrs Boggs - The Mystery of the Missing man
3. Mrs. Layman - Five Have a Mystery to Solve
4. The Sticks - Five Run Away Together
5. The Lenoirs - Five Go to Smuggler's Top
6. Cyril, Melisande and Roderick - Six Cousins series
7. Darrell, Gwendoline, Mary-Lou, Alicia, Clarissa and Zerelda - Malory Towers series
8. Fenella - Come to the Circus!
9. Yolande, Claude, Rene and Gideon - The Put-Em-Rights

[Anita Bensoussane]

Melisande is especially rare - I have come across it twice, once in the name of the opera 'Pelleas et Melisande' and once as the name of a Crusader Queen of Jerusalem in the twelfth century!

I've also come across it in the short story 'Melisande: or Long and Short Division' by E. Nesbit. Oh, and there's a character called Melisandre in George R. R. Martin's 'A Song of Fire and Ice'/'Game of Thrones' series. Another version of the name is Millicent, which Enid Blyton uses in the short story 'Millicent Mary's Surprise' and as a middle name in the Malory Towers series (Daphne Millicent Turner).

[pete9012S]

Also I think Enid only used the name 'Quentin' for Uncle Quentin in the Five Books.
Did she name anyone else Quentin in any other story?

[Anita Bensoussane]

I can't think of any other Blytonian Quentins offhand, Pete.

[Nair Snehalatha]

No--It was not Cyril.in Five go off to camp-- It's Cecil
Jock, Richard, Aily, Yan, Sooty,.Marybelle ,.James, Alf( the fisher boys who looked after Timmy) Dan.Lou,.Nobby,. Leslie, Bertha-- all these from the FF-- are lesser used names by Blyton

[Anjalli]

10. Madame Tatiosa from The Circus of Adventure.
11. Zoe and Boysie from Pantomime Cat.

Pete, can you please add to the list as I am not on the computer, thank you.

[Boodi 2]

Another less frequently used name that appears in the "Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm" is Benedict, the "hermit" who befriends Cyril

[Moonraker]

0 results for Nigel in books
0 results for Nigel in short stories and poems
0 results for Nigel in magazines
0 results for Nigel in periodicals

[GloomyGraham]

Of course, there's my namesake 'Gloomy Graham' from Holiday House which is, I think, the only use of it in one of her books.

I believe I've seen it in one or two of her short-stories from the magazines though.

And there was a Wilfred in that book too, I seem to recall.

[Katharine]

0 results for Nigel in books
0 results for Nigel in short stories and poems
0 results for Nigel in magazines
0 results for Nigel in periodicals

Maybe Enid thought it is such a special name that no character or story could possibly do it justice?