History
Although the word geōrgos was not used as a name in ancient Greece, it was used as one of Zeus's epithets in Athens: Ζεύς Γεωργός (Zeus Geōrgos), the god of crops and harvest.
In the Western world, the name is known from the eleventh century as a result of the Crusades. The name was extended due to the popularity of St. George and the Golden Legend, widespread in the European courts of the thirteenth century.
In Germany, the name has been popular since the Middle Ages, declining later use. In Britain, despite being St. George the patron of England since the fourteenth century, the name did not become popular until the eighteenth century following the accession of George I of England. In the U.S.A., statistics from mid-nineteenth century placed him among the five most popular baby names. The trend continued until the 1950s, when the name began to lose popularity. The same trend occurred in France as one of the top ten in the early twentieth century, has come to be at position 20.
Read more about this topic: George (given Name)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)