Conjecture: Women named Edith & Gerty appear in Nausicaa; a girl named Lily appeared in Telemachus, the Carlisle girl. There is none named Ethel in Ulysses, unless that may be nurse Callan's name (as in Ithaca, it is noted her first name is unknown). I don't mean the boys are whispering about these particular women or girls: Rather I take it that the reader is to puzzle together these names with those recited in Ithaca: "a nurse, Miss Callan (Christian name unknown), a maid, Gertrude (Gerty, family name unknown)." The reader knows Gerty's family name from the Narrator. Note too these four names echo the four names (of the patron saints of the then United Kingdom) in Circe: "Patrick, Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!" Four women's names in a boys school in Stephen's head; four saint's names in a brothel in Bloom's head..
