| Expectant parents hoping that their child might one day become prime minister should ignore current lists of popular baby names. Of the top ten boys’ names in North America – Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew, Ethan, Andrew, Daniel, Anthony, Christopher and Joseph – only one has ever been shared by a leader of Canada. And that, of course, was Joe Clark, whose nine-month term of office was one of the briefest on record.
If you want your child to succeed in politics, avoid exotic names and go for the ho-hum. Canada’s sole female prime minister seems to have intuited this when, at age 12, she abandoned her parents’ colourful choice of Avril Phaedra and instead became plain old Kim Campbell.
Or consider the first names of male prime ministers over the past four decades. In reverse order, Canada has been led by Stephen, Paul, Jean, Brian, Pierre and Joe. Admittedly, Jean and Pierre offer a dash of European flair, but that soon dissolves when one notes their English equivalents – John and Peter. There we have it: Steve, Paul, John, Brian, Pete and Joe – the names of guys you’d meet down the pub.
Despite Canada’s thriving multi-party system, only the Liberal and Conservative parties have ever held office and so provided a prime minister. Both parties have shown a long-standing preference for plain and ordinary names. In the 140 years since Confederation, the Conservatives – in their various incarnations – have managed to run through no fewer than 24 leaders, including five interim appointees. However, the party has been remarkably, well… conservative, in its range of names.
There have been two Richards (Bennett and Hatfield), three Roberts (Borden, Manion and Stanfield) and six Johns (Macdonald, Abbott, Thompson, Bracken, Diefenbaker and Lynch-Staunton – plus Jean Charest, if you like). Indeed, the party was led by one John or another for the first quarter-century of its existence.
By contrast, the Liberals have had far fewer leaders – just 15, including three interims – but have selected from a wider range of names. Indeed, it’s a mildly interesting political fact that – excluding the equivalency of John Turner and Jean Chrétien – no two Liberal leaders have ever shared the same name (see sidebar 2). Yet the names themselves have, for the most part, been equally as dull as those of their Conservative counterparts. Indeed, the only real standout in the whole bunch is Wilfrid, not least because its spelling (with an "I") continues to trouble students, journalists and encyclopedias alike.
It’s possible, of course, that this preponderance of ordinary or traditional names simply reflects broader social preferences. In the early 20th century, for example, the most popular boys’ names were (in order) John, William, James, George, Joseph, Charles, Robert, Frank, Edward and Henry. Of these, only a James, Frank or Henry did not lead either of the two main parties between Confederation and the Second World War.
Tastes change with time, however, and by the 1950s the top ten boys’ names were Michael, James, Robert, John, David, William, Richard, Thomas, Mark and Charles. Of this list, only Robert, John and William have featured among Canada’s prime ministers during the past half-century. If anything, then, the nation’s ruling parties have been slower to change than society at large when it comes to the choice of name.
A comparison with the United States, where 42 different presidents have held office since 1789, further underlines Canada’s conservatism in this respect. In recent decades, Americans appear to have mirrored the Canadian preference for the mundane, having elected (again, in reverse order) George, Bill, George, Ron, Jimmy, Gerry and Dick – no more exciting than the line-up of a golf commentary team.
Going further back, we come across a far richer selection of names, including Lyndon (Johnson), Dwight (Eisenhower), Calvin (Coolidge), Warren (Harding) and Woodrow (Wilson). Better still, the 19th century offers such delights as Grover (Cleveland), Chester (Arthur), Rutherford (Hayes), Ulysses (Grant), Millard (Fillmore) and Zachary (Taylor). It’s almost as if, consciously or not, Americans were reacting against their nation’s post-revolutionary preference for the meat-and-potato choices of George (Washington), John (Adams number one and number two), Thomas (Jefferson), James (Madison, Monroe) and Andrew (Jackson).
Back in Canada, not only have no two leaders of the Liberal party ever shared the same first name, but at no single time in the nation’s history have opposing leaders of the Liberals and Conservatives shared a common name either. Until now, that is, for the bi-lingual equivalency of Stephen and Stéphane means that Messrs. Harper and Dion share at least one thing in common. Both men were born in the middle of the baby boom, Dion in ’53 and Harper in ’59, and their given name was emblematic of that era. Before the Second World War, the choice of Stephen rarely made the top 100 list of names. From the ’40s to ’60s, it acquired a sudden popularity, reaching the top 30, but since then has steadily declined as a favourite. By 2000, it languished at number 96 – the same as a hundred years earlier – and by 2005 had disappeared from the top 100 altogether.
If there is anything at all to the name game, the recent fate of Stephen might be of concern to both the Liberals and the Conservatives as they prepare for the next federal election campaign. |
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