Pub names


Pub names are used to identify and differentiate pubs. Many pubs are centuries old, from a time when their customers were often illiterate, but could recognise pictorial signs. Pub names have a variety of origins, from objects used as simple identification marks to the coats of arms of kings or local aristocrats and landowners. Other names come from historic events, livery companies, and occupations or craftsmen's guilds.
Unlike Ireland, where the names of pubs tend to be based on the name of the owner, or a former owner, in mainland Britain this has been unusual, probably because pubs wanted names that could be related to an image on their pub sign, a key means of identifying them in an age of restricted literacy. In Australia a high proportion of older pubs have names ending in "hotel", and generally their names reflect hotel naming conventions.

Methodology

Although the word "the" appears on much pub signage, it is ignored in the following examples; the word "ye' is likewise ignored as it is only an archaic spelling of "the". "Y" represents an obsolete character for the th sound. Its later forms resembled a blackletter y, and it was never pronounced with a y sound. Similarly, other archaic spellings such as "olde worlde" are not distinguished below.

Animals

Names like Fox and Hounds, Dog and Duck, Dog and Gun, etc., refer to hunting. Animal names coupled with colours, such as White Hart and Red Lion, are often heraldic. A white hart featured as the badge of King Richard II, while a red lion was the badge of John of Gaunt and a blue boar of the Earls of Oxford.

Branding

Some pub chains in the UK adopt the same or similar names for many pubs as a means of brand expression. The principal examples of this are "The Moon Under Water", commonly used by the JD Wetherspoon chain, and the "Tap and Spile" brand name used by the now defunct Century Inns chain. The "Slug and Lettuce" is another example of a chain of food-based pubs with a prominent brand; founder Hugh Corbett had owned a small number of pubs, to which he gave humorous or nonsensical names, with the effect of differentiating them from competitors.

Found objects

Before painted inn signs became commonplace, medieval publicans often identify their establishment by hanging or standing a distinctive object outside the pub. This tradition dates back to Roman times, when the owners of tabernae used to hang some vine leaves outside their property to show where wine was sold.
Sometimes the object was coloured, such as Blue Post or Blue Door.

Heraldry

The ubiquity of the naming element arms shows how important heraldry has been in the naming of pubs. The simpler symbols of the heraldic badges of royalty or local nobility give rise to many of the most common pub names.

Items appearing in coats of arms

Names starting with the word "Three" are often based on the arms of a London Livery company or trade guild :
Many coats of arms appear as pub signs, usually honouring a local landowner.
Some "Arms" signs refer to working occupations. These may show people undertaking such work or the arms of the appropriate London livery company. This class of name may be only just a name but there are stories behind some of them.
, Wales

Names from books

Images from myths and legends are evocative and memorable.
Common enough today, the pairing of words in the name of an inn or tavern was rare before the mid-17th century, but by 1708 had become frequent enough for a pamphlet to complain of 'the variety and contradictory language of the signs', citing absurdities such as 'Bull and Mouth', 'Whale and Cow', and 'Shovel and Boot'. Two years later an essay in the Spectator echoed this complaint, deriding among others such contemporary paired names as 'Bell and Neat's Tongue', though accepting 'Cat and Fiddle'. A possible explanation for doubling of names is the combining of businesses, for example when a landlord of one pub moved to another premises. Fashion, as in the rise of intentionally amusing paired names like 'Slug and Lettuce' and 'Frog and Firkin' in the late 20th century, is responsible for many more recent pub names.

Personal names or titles

Some pubs are known by the names of former landlords and landladies, for instance Nellie's in Beverley, and Ma Pardoe's in Netherton, West Midlands. The Baron of Beef, Welwyn, Hertfordshire is named after a nineteenth-century landlord, George Baron, listed in Kelly's Directory for 1890 as "Butcher and Beer Retailer". Others are named after various people.
An "arms" name, too, can derive from a pub's town.
The most common tree-based pub name is the Royal Oak, which refers to a Historical event.

The pub building

Many traditional pub names refer to the drinks available inside, most often beer.
Other pub names refer to items of food to tempt the hungry traveller. For example, The Baron of Beef in Cambridge refers to a double sirloin joined at the backbone.

Puns, jokes and corruptions

Although puns became increasingly popular through the twentieth century, they should be considered with care. Supposed corruptions of foreign phrases usually have much simpler explanations. Many old names for pubs that appear nonsensical are often alleged to have come from corruptions of slogans or phrases, such as "The Bag o'Nails", "The Cat and the Fiddle" and "The Bull and Bush", which purportedly celebrates the victory of Henry VIII at "Boulogne Bouche" or Boulogne-sur-Mer Harbour. Often, these corruptions evoke a visual image which comes to signify the pub; these images had particular importance for identifying a pub on signs and other media before literacy became widespread. Sometimes the basis of a nickname is not the name, but its pictorial representation on the sign that becomes corrupt, through weathering, or unskillful paintwork by an amateur artist. Apparently, many pubs called the Cat or Cat and Custard Pot were originally Tigers or Red Lions with signs that "looked more like a cat" in the opinion of locals.
, interpreting the name as a howdah
The amount of religious symbolism in pub names decreased after Henry VIII's break from the church of Rome. For instance, many pubs now called the King's Head were originally called the Pope's Head.
Royal names have always been popular. It demonstrated the landlord's loyalty to authority, especially after the restoration of the monarchy.

Games

Football club nicknames include:

Air

A large number of pubs called the Railway, the Station, the Railway Hotel, etc. are situated near current or defunct rail stations.
Five stations on the London Underground system are named after pubs: Royal Oak, Elephant & Castle, Angel, Manor House, Swiss Cottage. The area of Maida Vale, which has a Bakerloo line station, is named after a pub called the "Heroes of Maida" after the Battle of Maida in 1806.
Mainline stations named after pubs include Bat & Ball in Sevenoaks.
An authoritative list of the most common pub names in Great Britain is hard to establish, owing to ambiguity in what classifies as a pub as opposed to a licensed restaurant or nightclub, and so lists of this form tend to vary hugely. The two surveys most often cited, both taken in 2007, are by the British Beer and Pub Association and CAMRA.
According to BBPA, the most common names are:
  1. Red Lion
  2. Royal Oak
  3. White Hart
  4. Rose and Crown
  5. King's Head
  6. King's Arms
  7. Queen's Head
  8. The Crown
and according to CAMRA they are:
  1. Crown
  2. Red Lion
  3. Royal Oak
  4. Swan
  5. White Hart
  6. Railway
  7. Plough
  8. White Horse
  9. Bell
  10. New Inn
A more current listing can be found on the Pubs Galore site, updated daily as pubs open/close and change names. As of 18 December 2019, the top 10 were:
  1. Red Lion
  2. Crown
  3. Royal Oak
  4. White Hart
  5. Swan
  6. Plough
  7. Railway
  8. White Horse
  9. Kings Arms
  10. Ship
The number of each is given in brackets.