The Lost Boy Names of 1880

I love going through old names, it’s funny to imagine little boys running around named Pink, Lyman, Minor, or Alva.

While most are pretty horrible, I actually kind of like Rollin, I have a teacher with this last name, so it sounds alright to me. I also like Coleman and Leander.
Also, I must say, Chancy isn’t too bad… It kind of sounds like Chauncey, which is a name that’s grown on me a lot.

I think Royal would be a cool name. It reminds me of Almanzo’s brother (I think?) from “Little House on the Prairie.” I hate to think what someone would say if I wanted to use it, it’s a little foofy, but Roy and Royal sounds nice to me. Also glad you chose to include that set of names, including Commodore. I peeked at the SSA’s list yesterday for girl’s names, and I hoped this name would appear in your article. I love this list and yesterday’s, I think if someone is looking for a unique choice, they might find it in a very old list of names, rather than at the bottom of last year’s list.

Love it! Chas makes me think of The Royal Tenenbaums and Mose of The Office.

Also, I LOVE Beverly for a boy, but don’t know that I could ever get away with using it.

From the nickname names, I think Zeb is cool (short for Zebedee), but it’s too bad that Newt and Lum’s parents couldn’t benefit from Nameberry.

I can see the appeal of Leander, Coleman, and West, but am confused by the trend of using occupations as names (Doctor, Lawyer). Then again, people today use names like Archer, Hunter, and Miller. Hmm….

Surely a boy named Shirley couldn’t have liked his name! (Out of curiosity, were the feminine names in the top 10? Top 100?) I just remembered that in the Anne of Green Gables books, Anne has a son named Shirley. Shirley Blythe.

Karen, Royal makes me think of Royal Wilder, too!

Great blog, Pam (or Linda)!

I love Alma and Alva for girls, but the a ending makes them too feminine to imagine on a boy…
Enoch, Justus, Leander and Oran are also lovely, but I love Justus and Oran the most…
Melville is a favourite as well, along with Sterling, West and Wilmer…
Royal is pretty cool, and I love the sound of Commodore, but I could never use it.. Chauncey is much much better than Chancy, but I kind of like Chancy as well…

Also, Enos… I love it, but get the whole rhyming issue, or do I? Isn’t that an ‘o’? In my world o’s and i’s are pronounced very differently, but the vowels in English are hard, so if someone could explain it to me I’d be very grateful… When I say it, it rhymes with Joss!

I love the names Leander and Hero! Hero is gorgeous on a girl (as in the original Greek myth and Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing).

Justus is great as well and fairly popular in Germany.

I have a great-grandfather named Major, so that will probably make at least my list of middle names.

On the subject of Pink, it actually used to be the colour associated with boys rather than girls during the Victorian era, and so it would not actually have been that outlandish.

I like Leander and Oran, but Minor? Surely that’s quite derogatory for the poor little boy!

Interesting. I actually know quite a few young (under 40) men with these names: Clem, Dell, Odie, Alton, Judson, Larkin, Merritt, Raleigh and– wait for it– two guys named Lynn. (Well, one is Lin, but the other is most definitely Lynn.) Maybe it’s because of my region (Deep South) where “old-fashioned” names have always been popular, but these names don’t strike me as all that obscure.

Twinkle, you’re right about pink (and Pink), though it still sounds odd to the modern ear. I too love Justus, Royal, and Judson. Lissa, true that some names survive in the Deep South that are more marginalized elsewhere. I think family naming traditions and handing down of surnames is something that happens more often there, for girls as well as boys.

I adore Justus, and would love to use it, but it’s too “matchy” with my first son’s name, Julius.

I know a Justus (30ish), Zeb (toddler) and Leander (baby). There’s also the Canadian singer-songwriter Royal Wood. All great names, and definitely flying under the radar. Funny, I never really thought about Justus being a ‘legitimate’, old fashioned name before – I always thought his parents were a bit kre8tive! But seeing the etymology, it makes perfect sense.

Shirley, being a surname first, seems to have gone the usual route for such names: used as a male name by families who have the name in their extended family, often the mother’s maiden name (as was the case of the fictional Anne Shirley of Green Gables and her son Shirley); then used generally as a male name; next becoming a name parents gave their daughters as well; and last, ending up as a predominantly female name.

Looking at Shirley through the decades, the name was fairly equally balanced between boys and girls, with a slight edge to the girls, through the 1880s and 1890s. But in the 1900s Shirley began to pull ahead as a girls’ name and by the 1920s when Shirley Temple, the best known — and best loved — Shirley of them all, was born, Shirley ranked 17 for the decade as a girls’ name, but only 395 as a boys’ names. Interesting that Shirley peaked for boys — #293 in 1937 — and for girls — #2 in 1935 and 1936. I wasn’t surprised that Shirley was a popular name for boys in 1880, but that it continued to remain at about the same level of popularity into the 1930s when child movie star Shirley Temple, a darling little GIRL, was so popular.

One of my old bosses was named Beverly (but he went by Ben, which must have been his middle name.) I was utterly confused the first time someone called looking for “Beverly” and insisted that HE did work there. LOL.

There is a famous photographer named Minor White. It’s funny I never considered his first name odd at all, but seeing it here, it does seem odd.

Some of these aren’t unusual to me at all!
I know somebody who just named her baby boy Chaz.

I have an ancestor named Claiborne, who went by Clabe. He’d have been born in the mid 1800s, though… But my great-great-grandfather (Clabe’s son!) was named Bub. Seriously. He’d have been born in the 1870s most likely.

Coleman is in our top two boy names (family name for us.)

My great great grandfather was named Pleasant. As was his father, and his son. I think it could make a nice middle name for boy- especially with a stronger first name, like James or Jacob.

The only name that really caught my eye was Golden, just because I know a Junior in college with that name. He’s a fabulous football player and his name fits him incredibly well, both on the field and off.