Doubtfire
Does anyone know any real-life people with the surname Doubtfire? I know about the character in the movie Mrs. Doubtfire, but I didn't know whether Doubtfire is actually a "real" surname or one that was made up just for that movie.
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It's made up. Daniel Hillard was thinking of a name to make-up, when pretending to be a Nanny for his ex-beloved, and saw in a Newspaper article the Headline "Police Doubt Fire was accident". And being a man, I wonder what moniker he adopted ...However, Doubfeyr is a real, Swedish name (pronounced Dow-fiy-air)
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Just to add to what jim has said the 207 has now increased to 236 in the UK.
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it appears there are people who have/had this name in real life:
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/fact.aspx?&fid=6&fn=&ln=doubtfire&yr=1920Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
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Yes, it seems that there were 207 people of this name in Britain in 1998, and none anywhere else. Reaney and Wilson suggest that it's a nickname, doute-fire, meaning "fear fire"; alternatively "a late corruption of DOUGHTY". They list a Robert Doughtfire living in Lincolnshire in 1509.
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