Early Examples Of The Children's Rhyme "What's Your Name Puddin Tane"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post presents examples of the rhyme "Puddin Tane" (or similarly sounding words). These examples are date from the 16th century on.

This post is presented for folkloric and recreational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

****
COMMENTS ABOUT THE RHYME "PUDDIN TANE"
These comments are presented in chronological order accordint to their posting date online, with the oldest comments given first.

COMMENT #1:
From: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0110A&L=ads-l&P=R5702 [link no longer working]
Subject: Pudding tame
From: "Douglas G. Wilson"
Reply-To: American Dialect Society <[log in to unmask]>
Date: October 4, 2001
"Of course in researching the history of "poontang" I came upon remarks to the effect that this word seems to be reflected in a children's rhyme (still current, I think) along the lines of
What's your name?
Pudding tame.
[Ask me again and I'll tell you the same.]

In fact "pudding tame" and variants (pudding/puddin' [and] tame/tane/tang) are used today with the sense "I won't tell you my name" (e.g., often as a 'handle' or pen-name on the Internet, = "Anonymous"). The expression was used in the "X-files" TV program in 1999.

The rhyme appeared in the US by 1895, when it was cited in "Dialect Notes". Already we're out of the "poontang" milieu, I think; but in case there's any doubt, I find quoted from 1861 a version supposedly from ca. 1825 (apparently from Sussex?):
What's yer naüm?
Pudding and taüm.

Back a little further (ca. 1590), I find reason to believe there was approximately:
[What is your name?]
Pudding of Thame.

Now at least the expression has some surface sense, maybe. Thame is a place-name -- in particular a town in Oxfordshire, I believe. So "pudding of Thame" might have been the name of a food, perhaps similar (or at least analogous) to Oxford sausage, say. Still the expression is meaningless in the context, and I wonder whether

(1) it might even earlier have been something else ("pudding at home"? "Pudding Tom"? "pudding time"?) which maintained the rhyme in some early or regional pronunciation, and whether
(2) there is some recognizable double-entendre or other joke here in16th-century (or earlier) English.

Any ideas?
-- Doug Wilson
-snip-
This is the complete post from that site. It was referenced in a discussion of the word "poontang" by the "take my word for it" website http://www.takeourword.com/pt.html "The Etymology of Slang Sexual Terms." That take my word for it page included a hyperlink [that is now broken] to the comment that's given above along with this statement: "He [linguist Doug Wilson ] concludes that the two [poontang and Puddin Tane] are not related, and he gives some good evidence."
-snip-
I've re-formatted this post to make it easier to read

****
COMMENT #2:
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=94034 Origins: Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky, posted by Jim Dixon, April 11, 2009
The quote from McDougal* reminds me of a parallel smart-alecky reply:
"What's your name?" – "Puddentain. [However you spell it.] Ask me again, I'll tell you the same."
I learned that from a "Little Rascals/Our Gang" comedy that was shown on TV when I was a kid in the 1950s. (Who said it? Stymie?)

– but it goes back at least to –

From The Beulah Spa (a play) by Charles Dance (London: John Miller, 1833):
MAG. ... What is her name?

HEC. Pudding and tame—if you ask me again I shall tell you the same.
-snip-
The words "the quote from McDougal" refer to a blogger's comment that is unrelated to this subject.

****
COMMENT #3:
From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=104417 "Folklore: Puddin Tane & Other Rhyming Sayings" [hereafter known as Mudcat: Puddin Tane]
- posted by Lighter, September 16, 2007
Alice Kane was born in 1908 and grew up in Ulster. Her book, Songs and Sayings of an Ulster Childhood, written with Edith Fowke, includes the following:

"What's your name?" - Mary Jane.
"Where do you live?" - Down the lane.

Her mother knew,

"What's your name?" - Curds and cream' (pronounced crame)
"What they call you?" - Pudgy dolly.

I suppose "call ye" sort of rhymes with "dolly."
-snip-
“Uster” is a province in the northern part of Ireland.

****
COMMENT #4:
From Mudcat: Puddin Tane, posted by kytrad*, September 15, 2007
Well I'm older than all of you, and our KY mountain village was quite isolated until just after the turn of the last century, early 1900s, thereabouts. We had never heard the word 'poontang,' but we did have the rhyme under discussion. Here's how it goes:

What's your name?
Puddin & Tame
Where d'you live?
Up the lane
Where d'you go?
Go to school
What d'you sit on?
Sit on a stool
What d'you look like?
Look like a fool!

There may have been one or two other rhymes in there- can't remember it all just now. It was said only for the fun of the rhyming, and sometimes for tricking someone into saying, "look like a fool," when all the gang would laugh at the joke.
-snip-
*”kytrad” is the Mudcat forum screen name for the acclaimed American folk singer Jean Ritchie

****
COMMENT #5:
From Mudcat: Puddin Tane, posted by Azizi, September 1, 2007

The following examples are from this resource: Western Folklore, Vol. 13, No. 2/3 (1954), pp. 190-198 - "Children's Taunts, Teases, and Disrespectful Sayings from Southern California," by Ray B. Browne.

{h/t to Joe Offer for pointing out this article in his post on Mudcat's "Depression Era Children's song" thread}

[Note: the numbers ascribed to these examples by the article's author]
27a.
What's your name?
Pudd'n Tame.
Ask me again
And I'll tell you the same.

27b.
What's your name?
Pudd'n Tame.
Where do you live?
Down the lane.
Ask me again
And I'll tell you the same.

[footnotes: from California, also from Alabama, ca. 1935; cf. Musick, 432; for one version same, and one: "What's your name / John Brown / ask me again / and I'll knock you down."]

27c
What's your name?
President Monroe
Ask me again
And you still won't know.

****
COMMENT #6: From Mudcat: Puddin Tane - These words were first posted by Snuffy and the ending rhyme was added by Bryn Pugh who indicated that he remembered that entire rhyme from 1949

What's your name?
Mary Jane
Where d'you live?
Down the grid
What house?
Mickey Mouse
What number?
Cucumber
What street?
Pig's feet
What shop
Lollipop

****
COMMENT #7
From Mudcat: Puddin Tane, Azizi Powell, remembrances from my childhood [Atlantic City, New Jersey,in the 1950s]
What’s your name?
Puddin Tane
Ask me again and I’ll tell you the same. [mid to late 1950s?]

[also]

What’s the word?
Thunderbird. [early to mid 1960s?]
-snip-
"Thunderbird" was (is?) a brand name for a cheap bottle of drinking alcohol.

****
[Note: The last three commenters don't include any dates in their remembrances of these rhymes.]

COMMENT #8: From Mudcat: Puddin Tane, posted by Guest, Young Buchan, October 7, 2007
As children in Suffolk, if someone asked 'What's your name?' we always eplied Puddeny Crane, from a rhyme which I always assumed was widespread, but may not have been, since I tried googling various bits of it and didn't get a huge response:
What's your name? Puddeny Crane
Where do you live? Down the lane
What do you keep? A little shop
What do you sell? Candy floss [or sometime lollipops]
-snip-
I think this blogger means Suffolk, UK.

****
COMMENT #9: From Mudcat: Puddin Tane, posted by Guest Schuyer, October 11, 2010
I remember this from a song my sibling, friends, and I sang when we was in a kid. It went:

What's your name?
Puddin' Tane.
Where do you live?
Down the lane.
What's your phone number?
Cucumber.
What'd you eat?
Pigs feet.
What'd you drink?
A bottle of ink.

I believe there was also a part after saying "A bottle of ink" where we said "to make you stink" or something like that

****
COMMENT #1O: From Mudcat-Puddin Tane , posted by Guest Patience, September 7, 2011

When I was a child, my Dad would teach me to say:

What's your name? Puddin' Tane.
Where do you live? Down the lane.
What's your number? Cucumber.
What do you eat? Bread and meat.

Hence, my Dad and one of the next door neighbors always used to call me "Puddin'".

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.