- published: 08 Nov 2013
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Sharon (Hebrew: שָׁרוֹן, Tiberian Hebrew: Šārôn) can be a female name which can be spelled with one "r" or two (Sharron).[citation needed] It also refers to several places in the world.
It derives from a Israelite place name meaning "forest" in Hebrew, referring to a fertile plain near the coast of Israel. This gives its name to a type of flowering shrub, the rose of Sharon. Various nicknames of Sharon include Sha, Sharai, Sharona, Sharonald, Sharry, Sherri, Sherrie, Sherye, Share Bear, Sharonstein Bear, Sharoo, Shazz, Shazzy, Sharoon and Shazam.
Sharon is one of many names that could formerly be applied to males (as in the 19th-century historian Sharon Turner), but is now nearly always used of females (cf. Vivian, Ashley, Beverly, etc.).
In the United Kingdom its popularity peaked during the 1960s. It was the 10th most popular female name by 1964 and was still as high as 17th in 1974, but a sharp decline in popularity followed and since the 1980s it has not even featured in the top 100.
William "Billy" Connolly, Jr., CBE (born 24 November 1942) is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname 'The Big Yin' ('The Big One'). His first trade, in the early 1960s, was as a welder (specifically a boilermaker) in the Glasgow shipyards, but he gave it up towards the end of the decade to pursue a career as a folk singer in the Humblebums and subsequently as a soloist. In the early 1970s, he made the transition from folk-singer with a comedic persona to full-fledged comedian.
Connolly is also an actor, and has appeared in such films as Indecent Proposal (1993); Muppet Treasure Island (1996); Mrs. Brown (1997), for which he was nominated for a BAFTA; The Boondock Saints (1999); The Man Who Sued God (2001); Water (1985); The Last Samurai (2003); Timeline (2003); Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004); Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006); Open Season (2006); The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008); and Open Season 2 (2008). Connolly reprised his role as Noah "Il Duce" MacManus in The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. Connolly appears as the King of Lilliput in the 2010 remake of Gulliver′s Travels.