I am currently doing some research which involves a gentleman with the first name of REDVERS. This is a name I've not personally encountered before, though I immediately assumed (correctly) that it was a surname used as a Christian name. Then something really weird occurred! Allowing for possible misspellings and variants, I could find only ONE instance of the forename in the 1841 census, then varying numbers in single figures up to 1891 which had nine. Suddenly in the 1901 census there was an incredible number of 1,336 occurrences of the name, the vast majority of them under the age of 10 and with many, many pages of children with the first name of Redvers aged one or nought. An examination of FreeBMD produced a similar phenomenon - just a few isolated examples before 1899, then an extraordinary explosion of births with Redvers as the first name in the last quarter of 1899, building up to large numbers in 1900-1910, then falling gradually away. Clearly, there must have been somebody famous who was responsible for this extraordinary surge in the popularity in what up to then had been a rare forename. In fact, I don't think I've seen a similar example apart from Florence Nightingale and possibly Horatio Nelson! It didn't take me long to discover with Google that the man responsible could only have been General Sir Redvers Henry Buller VC GCB GCMG, who was born at Crediton, Devon, in 1839 and died in 1908. I am confessing my ignorance here in not being previously very familiar with the said gentleman, though military historians will undoubtedly hold me to task!!! As it turned out, General Sir Redvers Buller (pronounced Reevers, according to Wikipedia) was the one who represented the only entrant in the 1841 census. Why did he become so famous that literally scores of children were named after him from 1899 onwards? Just count the number of children named Redvers at FreeBMD in late 1899-1902! He won the Victoria Cross in the Zulu War in South Africa for outstanding gallantry in 1879 but that doesn't seem to have been the principal reason for his fame. He was made commander of the Natal Field Force at the outset of the Second Boer War, arriving in South Africa in October 1899. Buller was held to blame for some serious defeats of the British troops. Wikipedia says: "Defeats at the Battle of Magersfontein and Battle of Stormberg also involved forces under his command. Because of concerns about his performance and negative reports from the field he was replaced in January 1900 as overall commander in South Africa by Lord Roberts. Defeats and questionable ability as commander soon earned him the nickname "Reverse Buller" among troops. He remained as second-in-command and suffered two more setbacks in his attempts to relieve Ladysmith at the battles of Spion Kop and Vaal Krantz. On his fourth attempt, Buller was victorious in the Battle of the Tugela Heights, lifting the siege on 28 February 1900. Later he was successful in flanking Boer armies out of positions at Biggarsberg, Laing's Nek and Lydenburg. It was Buller's veterans who won the Battle of Bergendal in the war's last set-piece action." When he returned to England Sir Redvers was made the scapegoat for the British setbacks in the Boer War and after making a controversial speech attacking his critics he refused to resign from the army but was dismissed on half pay, being refused a court martial. Seemingly, public sympathy was on Buller's side, especially in his homeland of the West Country, and a statue of him on his horse was erected in Exeter in 1905 while he was still living. I found this unusual tale of a man who became famous and had lots of children named after him, largely for failing and being sacked from the army, so interesting I felt I had to share it! Anyone know of a similar one? -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Famous family trees blog: http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/tag/roy-stockdill/ "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE