# Was the name Sherlock common/uncommon in 19th century? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 6, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373 "2012-07-06T00:56:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373/21 "2012-07-07T00:01:01Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > The Sherlock stories have some other characters with strange first names, too. Off the top of my head, there’s “Cadogan”, “Enoch”, “Hosmer”, and “Jabez”. I’ll look through my book and come up with some others, I’m sure. Enoch and Jabez are Biblical names. If you hear a bizarre old-timey name and can’t figure out where in the world it might have come from, the answer is usually the Bible. The other two appear to be last names that later became first names. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373/22 "2012-07-07T03:32:38Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > Justice Holmes? It seems more likely that he would admire the elder Holmes (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.) who was a doctor, like Doyle, and not the guy who was on the Massachusetts Supreme Court. I agree. Oliver Sr. was also known as a medical reformer, an author and poet, all of which would have commended him to Conan Doyle: [Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Sr). He was better known than his son, the lawyer and jurist, at the time ACD began writing the Holmes stories. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373/23 "2012-07-07T12:45:47Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Agatha Christie (in, I think, _The Labours of Hercules_) makes a point about the odd names of detectives, and imagines Sherlock (and Mycroft’s) mother talking with Hercule’s mother. Obviously, Agatha Christie, writing in the 1940s, didn’t think it was a common name. (For that matter, how many Neros do you know? ) IIRC, this was a joke Hastings made when he discovered that Hercule Poirot had a brother named Achille. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373/24 "2012-07-07T16:42:41Z")
> [@Miss\_Mapp](#): > > IIRC, this was a joke Hastings made when he discovered that Hercule Poirot had a brother named Achille. Although it’s not completely clear in the Poirot novels whether Hercule _really_ had a smarter but less ambitious brother named Achille or whether he was himself making a joke based on Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. The Agatha Christie Ltd. site seems to be down right now, but here’s [the Google cache of their page on Achille Poirot](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:U6JRSfAA6EsJ:agathachristie.com/insight/papers/2009/04/06/did-achille-poirot-really-exist/). (It contains major spoilers for _The Big Four_ and _Curtain_.) ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373/25 "2012-07-07T18:34:51Z")
Do we know Sherlocks parents names? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373/26 "2012-07-07T19:34:38Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > Do we know Sherlocks parents names? I thought the non-canon _Seven Percent Solution_ might venture a guess. No dice. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373/27 "2012-07-07T20:00:52Z")
In hindsight, I missed a chance to say “Sarah and Eben”. Oh, well… ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373/28 "2012-07-07T20:56:52Z")
No, Conan Doyle told us nothing, really, about Holmes’s life before he met Watson. Fertile ground for speculation, but no hard facts to work with. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-name-sherlock-common-uncommon-in-19th-century/627373.md?page=1)