He hit nemnede Degarre.

Despite all the advice not to tell anyone what you name a child until it's out and wearing a tiny stocking cap, we're sharing this. In December, we're hoping to introduce Diggory Owain to the world.

Diggory is such a rare name that Wikipedia lists only find three examples before the character in Hardy's Return of the Native: two English clerics and a Welsh war hero. It's such a rare name that in the Middle English romance where it originated, the poet spends five lines discussing what it means and why anyone would name a child that -- see the transcript below from the Auchinleck MS's "Lai of Sire Degarre" (above). Associations with characters in 20th-century fiction (C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling) are best left unmade.

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Excerpt from the Auchinleck manuscript (National Library of Scotland):

He dede vp þe glouen and þe tresour
And cristned þe child wiȝ gret honour
In þe name of þe trinite;
He hit nemnede Degarre.
Degarre nowt elles ne is
But þing þat not neuer whar it is,
O þe þing þat is negȝ forlorn also;
Forþi þe schild he nemnede þous þo.
(fol. 79v)

He put up the glove and the treasure
And christened the child with great honor
In the name of the Trinity;
He it namèd Diggory.
"Diggory" nought other is
Than a thing that knows never where it is,
Or a thing that is almost forsook;
So thus he named the child he took.
(my translation)