Webcheck

Type ‘House Names’ into a web-wide Google search and what do you get? Over 8 million results!

But get just fifteen pages into the resultant listings and other than the paid-for sign makers adverts, the results are a weird and wonderful selection mainly latching on to the word ‘name’, with very few having any relevance whatsoever to House Names.

Apart from the sign makers adverts and own entries, many of which are referred to on our Signs 4 Sale page, here’s what, on the specific day we carried out this experiment – and we acknowledge this could well change on a daily basis, we found in the first five Google pages:

• HouseNames.com – Coats of Arms and surname histories – based in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
• House Names in England – a project undertaken by Woodlands Junior School in Tonbridge, Kent, asking why we give our houses names, and asking people to send a postcard to help their students learn about the places we live. This is just one section on a fascinating, much larger site about Britain, Life in Britain and Britishness.
• An index to House Names in Saxmunden, Suffolk.
• The spelling of House Names – a small site referring to Joyce Miles’ book ‘Owl’s Hoot : How People Name Their Houses’, published by John Murray in 2000 (ISBN 0-646-364227). This is a great little book that we found useful in our research for this site – it’s well worth a look.
• An alphabetical list of House Names in Windsor, England in 1898.
• A snapshot of Mansewood in 1914 including house names, owners and occupiers.
• Thought for the week, from the Sacred Heart Parish in Waterlooville about House Names.
• Changing your house name in the Scottish area of Argyle and Bute.
• www.icons.org.uk – Icons of England of which house names is one category.
• HBoS/Halifax Press Releases including their 2003 House Name Survey.
• A BBC News page about Welsh House Names appearing in South Africa.
• A page selling a book on the house names of Jersey and their meanings, called ‘Des Noms d’Maisons en Jerriais’.
• We Can Think of a Name (.com) for babies, dogs, horses, cats, boats and a small section of house names.
• Features and House Names of Gwydir Street in Cambridge, England.
• The proper pronunciation of over 105 country house names.
• Links to over 350 country houses and related websites, and
• A brief history of house names from The Traditional Sign Maker.

It all goes to prove just how little information is out there about house names, and why we felt a website to help bring everything together could prove beneficial.