Julia Cresswell

Julia Cresswell is the author of over a dozen books, all of which are connected with the history and development of words, names and language. She was educated at the Cheltenham Ladies College and St Hugh’s College, Oxford, where she studied English with a special emphasis on the medieval and the history of the language. Here, she first became fascinated with the way the English language has developed and the influences that have directed its development. She subsequently gained a PhD at the University of Reading. She has split her working life between writing and teaching. She has taught for both the Oxford universities and at some of the many American university programmes in Oxford. She now concentrates on the American colleges and summer schools for the Department of External Studies at the University of Oxford. Her numerous books include The Cat’s Pyjamas: The Penguin Book of Cliches (Penguin, 2007), Naming Your Baby: The Definitive Dictionary of First Names (A & C Black, 2007), First Names (Collins, 2003), From Trojan Horse to Soup Dragon: Collins Dictionary of Allusions (Collins, 1997), Bloomsbury Dictionary of First Names (Bloomsbury, 2001) and The Guinness Book of British Place Names (with Fred MacDonald, 1993). She is married with one son and lives in North Oxford.