The Middle Ages weren’t just shaped by monarchs and wars — they were lived by everyday people whose names appear in the records they left behind. Parish registers, royal charters, tax rolls, and literature give us a glimpse into the history of common names in medieval England and other parts of Europe and what they meant to the people who carried them. Some of the most valuable insights about what people were called, and why, come from medieval books created specifically to record names. ...| History Facts
For a long time, America’s discovery was routinely attributed to Christopher Columbus and his voyage of 1492. But the real story of human arrival in the so-called New World is far more complex than that story would suggest, and spans thousands of years before European contact. Indeed, the very question of who “discovered” America — and for the purpose of this article, we’re focusing on the North American continent specifically — depends largely on how we define “discovery” ...| History Facts
Much like fashion, the cyclical nature of baby names is influenced not only by cultural shifts, but also by historical events and popular media. For instance, in 1931, the name Bella was ranked No. 985 in the top 1,000 female names by the Social Security Administration, which uses Social Security card application data to determine the popularity of names, before falling off the list entirely for 69 years. We can’t be sure why the name made the list again in the year 2000, coming in at No. 7...| History Facts