Names: and Their Meaning

Why is it called Lloyd's? Why the Green Man? Leopold Wagner traced the origins of everything the Victorians had a name for — countries, tavern signs, flowers, wines, London streets, nicknames and battles — and found a story behind nearly all of them.

About the Book

1891Published
Leopold WagnerAuthor
37Subjects

Leopold Wagner's Names: and Their Meaning (1891) is subtitled 'A Book for the Curious,' and that is exactly its method — take everything a Victorian could point at and ask where its name came from.

Twenty-five sections cover the countries of the world, tavern signs, royal surnames, national and political nicknames, birds, flowers, wines, battles, dances, carriages, pigments, textiles, the Inns of Court, and London's streets, churches and gardens.

Wagner's standing joke is the confident wrong answer: ninety-nine out of a hundred men would tell you Lloyd's was founded by an insurance man named Lloyd. He kept a coffee house. The book is four hundred pages of that pleasure.

This site reproduces the complete text of the original 1891 edition, digitized page by page from the original printing. The book is in the public domain.

Rights & ReuseThe complete text of Names: and Their Meaning (1891) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.