A discussion here today on men’s hats brought up some speculation on the origin of names for hats and left some unanswered questions that perhaps someone can help with. I’ve done some looking and failed, mostly, to find complete answers.

The Bowler hat was not named for its bowl shape as many think, but was designed by hat-maker William Bowler. But how did Yousns® come to call it a Derby?

Fedora …all I can find is the statement “After Fedora, a play by Victorien Sardou (1831-1908).” But why was the hat named after this play? Does anyone know?

Stetson is easy – it was named after the hat-maker John B Stetson who designed the style.

The Trilby was named for a hat that was worn in the London stage version of the novel Trilby in 1897, but did it exist, and what was it called, before that?

Homburg, all that is said is “After the German town, Bad Homburg”, but why?

Wideawake. Why? Also a name for the sooty tern, but I can’t see a connection there!

Derby, per AHD3, after Edward Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby. Which only gets us one step closer to the answer.

OED puts it 23 years later than Bowler, 1883 and 1861 respectively. But it calls bowler colloquial, which it does not say of derby.

I don't remember where it was that I previously looked in on a hat discussion. Coulda been another board. But anyway, at that time someone provided this website http://www.hatsuk.com/ which gives a whole lotta hat info. Maybe you can find some answers there. (I'm a bit pressed for time right now, myself.)

Googling for Bowler and Earl of Derby brought the answer that while Bowler designed the hat, the Earl of Derby was the guy that wore it.

While looking for this gen I found a wonderful site that gives a vast quantity of names of hats and also lots of fascinating information on them. It is the data provided to ‘4th Grade Interdisciplinary Unit’(?) students to enable them to take a test. Do take a look at it; a mind boggling collation!

http://www.prof-dev.okcps.k12.ok.us/coreunits/4hats.htm

It confirmed what I suspected but hesitated to say originally; that it is surprising how many names for men's hat styles there are and how few for women's. I wonder why that is. Must be a Mars and Venus thing to do with a desire to categorise and label!

Edit: thanks Bean, that's an interesting site. I shall enjoy browsing it and its links.

As a USn, I'm curious to know, how do Brits pronounce derby, when referring to the hat--with the er sound (as in her) or the ar sound (as in Berkley Square)?

I was going to ask "What's a titfer?" as I suspected it was a word you made up on the spur - I mean it just sounds like the setup for a joke. But I looked it up and My gosh! It's a real word! (Or, I mean ... it's in the dictionary.)

k

er sound (as in her) or the ar

and how about clerk/clark? which I'm sure is a yert...


Henway

Yeah, like FF said. Oh, the things one learns around here....

Well, taking them from the top:

Brits don't call the hat a derby; we call it a Bowler, so the issue doesn't arise. If speaking of the town or the horse race we pronounce Derby like Barbie.

Titfer comes from rhyming slang - tit for tat: hat, hence titfer. By the way, I'm sure this is generally known, but just in case, despite Hollywood's portrayal of London, very very few people use rhyming slang in normal conversation, it is usually done for fun, so if you visit London, don't expect to need to use it! Of course, you know what taxi drivers are like - they sometimes feel obligated to live up to their image!

Clerk is pronounced like 'ark' (generally, but there is some transpondial drift taking place).

to come full circle, we have a woman here in Denver who has made a career out of making lace for women's hats. She's a titfer tatter.

pretty cheesy, TEd.

I work, about half of the time, in Derby. I really like to wind the locals up by calling it "dirby" rather than "darby". When they kindly "correct" me, I reply that just because they can't spell, they shouldn't turn that into my problem. Most of 'em don't have any comeback ...

wind the locals up by calling it "dirby" rather than "darby"

Try calling it a "dairby" and see what happens.

wind the locals up by calling it "dirby" rather than "darby"

Try calling it a "dairby" and see what happens.

...they'll think you're Irish?

...they'll think you're Irish?

Nah, you don't have to go any further than Northamptonshire (where I live) to hear it pronounced like that. Funnily enough, the Derbyshire accent is pretty flat, as easy to understand as RP.