What better time than Thanksgiving to look back at the first names to arrive on our shores?
As you may remember from your third-grade history book, the first English-speaking settlement, called the Raleigh Colony, was established on the Atlantic coast in 1587, and although it didn’t survive for very long, some of its name records did. Not surprisingly, of the 99 men who settled there, 23 were named John, fifteen were Thomas, and ten were William, with a small sprinkling of Old Testament names in the mix as well.
The passenger list of the Mayflower, which set off on its transatlantic journey in 1620, had a different element, in that about half of its passengers were members of the fundamentalist Protestant sect known as Pilgrims. And although many Pilgrims were content to use Bible-sanctioned names, the more extreme of them considered such names blasphemous and so invented their own ‘virtue’ or ’slogan’ names consisting of ordinary vocabulary words, ranging from Abstinence and Ashes to Zeal-for-the-Lord.
So while most of the 102 men, women, and children aboard the Mayflower–the future settlers of the Plymouth Colony–were named John, Mary, James, Edward, Thomas, William, Elizabeth, Susannah or Sarah, there were also among them those with such distinctive, attention-worthy names as:
GIRLS
DESIRE
HUMILITY
BOYS
DEGORY
MYLES (yes, Standish)
OCEANUS (born during the voyage)
RESOLVED
WRESTLING
Tags: John, Mary, Mayflower, Old Testament names, Pilgrim baby names, Pilgrims, Puritans, Raleigh Colony, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving baby names, Thomas, William
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 1:28 am and is filed under Uncategorized, biblical names, classic baby names, girls' names, historic names, name history . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I emphasize the middle syllable. I also saw another meaning for it: “a wise woman” named after a Damaris in the bible. That is the meaning I tell her! It is popular among urban Latino culture, which is where I originally heard it. I taught in North Philadelphia. Damaris is a wonderful choice!
November 26th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Bartholomew’s my kitten’s name! I know you’ve said the “mew” sound at the end is unfortunate on a little boy, but I’ll argue that makes it fabulous on a kitten. Myles/Miles (in spite of its apparent “hipster” status) is one that’s under consideration for a future son.
I’ve always been intrigued by Damaris. It’s beautiful when pronounced with the stress on the middle syllable (də-MAR-is), but Behind the Name says it should be pronounced DAM-ə-ris, which is less intuitive for me and significantly less attractive (being that it contains a swear word and all). How do you pronounce it?