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"I just thought: I wonder if I could get guys called Trevor to reclaim the name?" says Trevor Cunningham. "So I went on LinkedIn and I just looked for Trevors, and I started contacting them." And, having found way more Trevors than he had ever met in his life, Trevor set up AskTrev.com, a site where people can get advice for free from people named Trevor. Such as engineer Trevor Murphy, who explains why he joined this society of Trevors.

Contact me via theallusionist.org/contact if you are willing to share your feelings about your name, and especially if you've embarked upon a project to change the perception of your name, and/or gathered with other people just because you share this name.

By the way! Registration is open for the online Open University conference Telling the truth? Authorship, audiences and authenticity across discourse, texts and narratives. One of the organisers is alumsionist Rachele De Felice of the Please episode, and I'll be talking about Draculae on one of the panels.

Speaking of Draculae: Iris Ichishita who featured in the series has brought back her podcast Powers of Darkness, all about the Icelandic and Swedish versions of Dracula, and I appear in a new episode discussing secret societies. I'm afraid I told them about PigGate.

EXTRA MATERIALS:

I'm on last week's episode of The Bugle, talking about Hitler being a somewhat unremarkable first name in Peru.
I need to watch this French documentary about being called Kevin.
I did watch this English documentary about being called John Smith, and liked it a lot.
Remember when comedian Dave Gorman managed to meet hundreds of other Dave Gormans?
“The Trevor you are most likely to meet is around 63 years old.”
Trevor data in a few different countries.
Check your name rank.
About Trevor Cunningham’s sick bag collection.
Ian Dury’s ‘Clevor Trever’.
There are lots of episodes about names in the Allusionist back catalogue! I’m particularly partial to "Yes, As In”.

Sign up at theallusionist.org/donate to fund the continuing existence of this independent podcast. For $5/month or above, get the ad-free version of the show. Donors at all levels can join me for regular livestreams where I read relaxingly from my ever-expanding collection of vintage dictionaries, plus you get bonus written content including behind the scenes info about every episode, membership of the Allusioverse Discord community, and watchalong parties for films and TV shows: together we're watching the 2026 season of Great British Bake Off, and each week you get my drawings of Paul Hollywood in the style of medieval marginalia.

YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
anadromous, adjective, zoology: (of a fish) migrating up rivers from the sea to spawn. The opposite of ‘catadromous’.
Origin 18th century: from Greek anadromos (from ana- 'up' + dromos 'running’) + -ous.

the dictionary definition of anadromous, adjective, zoology: (of a fish) migrating up rivers from the sea to spawn. The opposite of ‘catadromous’. - Origin 18th century: from Greek anadromos (from ana- 'up' + dromos 'running’) + -ous.

CREDITS:

Trevor Cunningham is the founder of AskTrev.com, and the website oldierage.com, and author of the kids’ book The World’s Longest Bicycle.
Trevor Murphy is an engineer. Ask him for advice via AskTrev.com! He’s waiting!
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch, and the podcast we are both in, Answer Me This.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… If I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow.

Back in a couple of weeks with a new episode - HZ.

Our ad partner is Multitude. If you want me to talk compellingly about your product, sponsor an episode: contact Multitude at multitudeshows.com/ads. This episode is sponsored by:

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TL;DR version:

For the show's financial survival (hopefully), over the next few weeks I'm having to switch on programmatic advertisements. This means, for the first time in the show's nearly 12-year existence, you may be subjected to ads that are not voiced, scripted and individually approved by me.

If you would prefer to listen to the show without ads in it, patreonise the show at the Gravy, Wedge or Check tiers, which include the perk of an ad-free RSS feed.

Click through to read the rest of the post about why I’m doing this thing I don’t want to do.

sorry lads, we're getting bad ads

For the show's financial survival (hopefully), over the next few weeks I'm having to switch on programmatic advertisements. This means, for the first time in the show's nearly 12-year existence, you may be subjected to ads that are not voiced, scripted and individually approved by me.
If you would prefer to listen to the show without ads in it, patreonise the show at the Gravy, Wedge or Check tiers, which include the perk of an ad-free RSS feed.