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:
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)