There’s always the alternative spelling to Brian, BRIVOLBN7Q.
Well, basically, Brian was the keyboardist, and Bryan was the singer - but although Bryan should have provided the bulk of the band’s stage presence, he continually found himself being overshadowed by Brian, who dressed in flamboyant clothes and looked like a space ostrich.
Ultimately Brian decided to move on to broader and more diffuse horizons, and Bryan got to keep the band. Opinions differ as to whether Brian was pushed or not. The problem was… well, it was the same as the early Human League. Brian and Bryan had a bold artistic vision that was almost but not quite compatible; it’s not as if they were radically at variance with each other, they just couldn’t find common ground. They both went on to be very successful in their chosen fields, although Brian is nowadays far trendier than Bryan. There’s a sense that Bryan allowed himself to be seduced by the thing he mocked, whereas Brian was less easily swayed by decadence.
As for why they spelled their names differently, that’s easy. They didn’t want people to mix them up.
Don’t know about the difference between Brian and Bryan, but I do know that the difference between them and Brien is that Brien used to work where I do…
Odd spelling I’m aware of: Sckilay’re (skyler)
Brian is obviously the superior spelling, with Bryan is a pale imitation
Brian
The same sort of well-informed, non-snarky answers I got here:
[snark]
No. You got what you deserve in this thread. You got more than you deserved in the other.
[/snark]
There is a whole chapter in Freakonomics about black-sounding names and spelling variants. The upshot is, the more bizarre and non-traditional the name or spelling, the more likely the owner is to fail at life. Why? Good question. Perhaps the less educated parents (hence, less educated offspring) are more likely to indulge in “Prinssesse” spelling? People make instant assumptions about owners of such names?
Regardless, I am more likely to see Bryan as pretentious snob higher-class rather than indulgent uneducated lower-class. It’s too plain and common for the latter.
they are both boys names and one is better endowed.
Why are these “black-sounding” ? They abound in my white family among the poor / uneducated and recent-immigrant sectors.
The Celtic etymologiesgiven for Brian are sound, though I’m not sure what they mean by “Old Celtic”—not, to my knowledge, a thing. Perhaps they mean proto-Celtic but that’s really reaching in this case. I’ll add another possibility for the Irish one: a diminutive of breo / bri, which means “flame,” thus a name for a redheaded kid.
Hey, I didn’t write the book. I just read it and recommend it.
(I thought I made clear that Brian/Bryan were not in that category)
http://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/qjecon/v119y2004i3p767-805.html (requires paid subscription for full text)
I agree.
Brian
and “Y” is only sometimes a vowell.
I have a cousin named Bryon.
Bill?
“Bryan”. Try to keep up.
Here’s what I think they mean. There is a Celtic toponymic element Briga meaning “hill”. There is a related adjective Brigant meaning “high” or “noble”. This gives us various European placenames such as Bregenz, Braganca, Burgundy…
If their explanation is correct, their claim is that Brian is derived from Brigant, which seems quite plausible to me.
The word bre that they are calling “Old Celtic” is presumably the modern Gaelic word “brí” or “bré” meaning a steep slope, which of course derives from that older word Briga (and appears in English as “brae”).
As the source is probably a “Big Book of Name Origins”, I doubt whether the writers were particularly aware of or interested in the difference between “Old Celtic” and modern Irish.
My objection is that there is no language called “Old Celtic” by Celticists.
Irish Brian cannot come directly from brigant-. Irish would not have lost the -g-, and it would have simplified -nt to -t (Old Irish), later written as -d. (Thus Brigit > Brighid / Bríd, which does come from that etymon). The Brythonic languages, however, did lose intervocalic G, and if this is the root it has to have come into Irish from Old Welsh. The English “Brian” probably is, at least the first element. Like “Alan” and “Joel” and a couple of others, it’s one of the name brought over by the Breton nobles who participated in the Norman invasion of 1066.
Modern Brian mostly comes from Irish, which is mostly likely a different word altogether. I’ve provided an alternative etymology above, an exact parallel to Aedan and a semantic parallel to Kenneth (in other words, plausible as a name in Irish). Experts disagree, though, so there isn’t a GQ answer as to where Irish Brian comes from.
At the risk of outing myself on here, my real first name is Bryann. Yes, with 2 n’s. I’m nearly 41 and I still get annoyed when people use only one. If they call me Brian I honestly don’t realise they are referring to me. It’s a totally alien spelling to me.
And if you’re ever at a book signing with Brian Blessed, don’t ever tell him that his name is spelt the common way. My shoulder still hurts 20 years later.
How is your name pronounced?
Or are you only referring to the written word?
Brrian
sorry, couldn’t resist.
So are you planning to start a new thread for every name with spelling variants you encounter? Let me save you one. Shannon means “small and wise” while Shannen means “can’t get along with female castmembers.”
Agreed.
I’ll definitely defer to your expertise in this area, but you have confused me a little by saying that an intervocalic “g” wouldn’t get dropped in Irish. As far as I can see, intervocalic “g” almost always gets dropped in Irish, as in your own example “Bríd”. Did you mean that it would not have lost the “g” 1000 years ago in time for Brian Boru?