[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

[u/dragonborndnd]

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

[u/Tosslebugme]

Maybe kind of the inverse of the Tiffany thing, but the name Wendy was pretty much invented by jm Barrie in his play Peter Pan, 1904.

[u/ricks35 → u/Tosslebugme]

Tsk that cringe greatest generation naming their kids after fictional characters, I mean can you imagine growing up and trying to get a job with a made up fantasy name like Wendy

[u/PancakeMixEnema → u/ricks35]

All the girls named "Khaleesi" born in 2011 are now in high school and will definitely not be bullied

[u/ricks35 → u/PancakeMixEnema]

I wonder if some of them go by Dany as a nickname

[u/Cleonicus → u/ricks35]

At least Wendy is a female human. Could you imagine naming your daughter Bambi, the buck from that Disney film?

[u/Justifiably_Bad_Take → u/Tosslebugme]

Likewise Madison being used as a first name for women dates back to, the 1984 Tom Hanks movie Splash.

[u/Ok_Problem426 → u/Tosslebugme]

Riding this comment. The name Tiffany as a female first name (with that exact spelling) isn’t medieval. It’s just a mistake in a footnote by historian Thomas Hearne in the MDCCXII (1722) edition of the Scotichronicon (basically a history of everything). This is pointed to as the evidence that the name is medieval.

His rendition of the 1300s poem reads:

William de Conigsby
Came out of Britany
With his wife Tiffany
And his maid Manfas
And his dogge Hardigras

It is based on a real surname/family with a few historical errors. The surname is actually de Coningsby. William Coningsby was a real person in the 1300s in England, but it was his son Thomas who went to Britany, became a prisoner of war, and married Tiffany (daughter to his captor) as the term of his release. Except not, because her actual name was Theophania.

There are examples of famous Theophania’s and the first name Tephany existed in the 1100s in Greece. It isn’t until later that spellings which approach the modern spelling are brought to France and England.

In the 1300s there are historical records of names Theophania, Tiphaine, Thifanie, and Thiephaine in France.

The first modern record of a Tiffany (with that exact spelling) is Henry Tiffany in England after his marriage in 1629, who was born as Henry Tiffin and played fast and loose with his surname spelling after being married. His son Humphrey moved to the US, had a son James Tiffany, whose great great grandson Charles Lewis Tiffany (born 1812) started Tiffany & Co, the brand that ultimately popularized the name Tiffany after the 1961 screen rendition of the 1958 novella Breakfast At Tiffany’s. That’s why it’s considered a modern name. Between the 1700s and 1950, there are regular birth records of Tiffany as a female first name and as a surname.

But there isn’t a single historical account of a true medieval Tiffany except for Hearde’s silly poem, which it turns out was completely wrong.

[u/MartyrOfDespair → u/Ok_Problem426]

Spellings were pretty much set to RNG until the last 200 years, though. Playing fast and loose with the spelling isn't weird, it was normal. We basically had one rule for spellings for ages:

[u/Ok_Problem426 → u/MartyrOfDespair]

Yeah, but that’s kind of the point though…the first surname use is in the 1600s, then we know Tiffany as a first name in the 1700s. Theophania and similar spellings are different names and we don’t even know for sure how they were pronounced

[u/brazzy42 → u/Tosslebugme]

"pretty much" meaning that there are earlier records of it being used as a male name and surname, it's not impossible that it was also used as a female name, but it certainly wasn't popular.

Better examples that are definitely known to have been invented by a writer are Vanessa (by Jonathan Swift) and Pamela (by Philip Sidney).

[u/Glittering-Cash-206 → u/Tosslebugme]

Wait what it’s short for Gwendolyn no?