Late October, and the kettle in our place is working harder than the heating. It's dark by teatime, damp most of the time, and a lot of tea is getting made for other people.
Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to James. It's a name that turns up in nearly every family, every office and every five-a-side team going, and it's well overdue a post of its own.
Where James comes from and what it means
James comes from Hebrew, and the meaning usually given for it is "supplanter": someone who takes another person's place. It sounds grand. Mostly it makes me think of the person who slips into your warm spot on the sofa the second you get up to put the kettle on.
Whatever you make of the meaning, it's an old name that has never felt old. It suits a baby, a nan's favourite grandson, a head teacher or a pensioner on the bowling green equally well. Not many names manage that.
Jim, Jimmy, Jamie and the rest
James is usually given to boys, and it comes with a whole family of short forms. There's Jim, Jimmy, Jamie, Jamesy and plain old Jay. In Scotland there's Hamish too, which started out as a Gaelic form of the name.
What you call a James tends to depend on how long you've known them. "Jim" on the work rota, "Jamie" to their nan, and the full "JAMES" only when someone has eaten the last biscuit and everyone knows exactly who it was.
How popular James has been in the UK
Very, and for a long time. About 153,313 babies born in Britain between 1997 and 2025 were named James. Across those 29 years that works out at more than 5,000 a year on average, which is a remarkably steady run for any name.
In practice, that means plenty of classrooms with more than one James, and plenty of Jameses who spent their school years as "James B" or "James T". It's the price of picking a classic.
Famous Jameses
With that many of them around, it's no surprise the name has a strong line-up:
- James Watt, the Scottish engineer whose improvements to the steam engine helped change how Britain worked. The watt, as on your light bulbs, is named after him.
- James May, presenter, car enthusiast and a firm believer in doing things slowly and properly.
- James Martin, the chef who has done more than most to make a Saturday morning feel like a Saturday morning.
- James McAvoy, the Scottish actor who has played everything from a faun to a professor.
- Jimmy Anderson, England's long-serving fast bowler, who took more Test wickets than any other pace bowler in history.
- James Bond, who isn't real, but has had more people named after him by accident than any spy should.
Mugs with James on them
On to the mugs. If you want the name and nothing else, the plain James mug does exactly that. Sometimes that's all you need.
For birthdays there's a whole run of Happy Birthday James mugs, and this is where it comes down to the James you're buying for. Our favourite is the tie dye effect version, for the James with a bit of colour about them. There's also a camo version, if you'd rather the birthday wasn't spotted coming.
If you'd rather keep it simple, there are plain colours too: black, blue, orange and yellow. I'd pick their favourite colour, or their team's, and leave it at that. You can see the rest of the range, for every other name in your life, in our Happy Birthday name mugs.
Then there's the James Tron themed mug, for the James who still talks about the film or spent their youth in an arcade. If it goes down well, there's a whole set of Tron themed name mugs for the rest of the household, so nobody feels left out.
A few more places to look
If your James is also a brother or a dad, have a look through our brother mugs and dad mugs as well. And if you're shopping for a Jim, a Jamie or someone else on your list beginning with J, K or L, the Names J-L collection is the place to start.
A mug won't stop anyone being supplanted from their seat on the sofa. But with their name on it, at least nobody can pinch their mug while they're off putting the kettle on.
