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Vintage Surname Names: Gems from a secret source

Posted March 13th, 2012

Post Categories:

Family Names

Historic Names

Middle, Last and Nicknames

Unisex Baby Names

If you’ve spent any time on Nameberry recently or if you get our newsletter, you’ve seen the ads for my new novel, The Possibility of You. The story of three women at three key moments of the past century dealing with unplanned pregnancies and questions of motherhood, the book required me to spend a lot of time researching the fashion and music, home decoration and child-rearing practices of 1916. And of course, while I was at it, I couldn’t resist digging up information about names.

One of the most fascinating sources I found was the 1916 Social Register, which listed everybody who was anybody in New York. It took both money and social standing to get your name in the Social Register, and so it was a window into upper class naming practices at the time.

One notable trend in evidence, mostly with male names but occasionally with female ones too, was last names used in first place. Long a practice in moneyed families looking to cement ties between fortunes, these surnames are not the faux Coopers and Parkers that rose up over the past few decades but the genuine article: wealthy Great Aunt Fanny‘s maiden name, for instance, or maternal grandfather’s surname.

Of course, if you’re interested in using a surname as a first for your child, it’s best to use one from your own family, honoring someone you love even if you don’t expect them to leave you a million bucks. But failing that, there’s no reason you can’t steal one of these choices. If you like the whole last names as first style, these sound fresher and more interesting than Taylor or Logan.

Choices from the 1916 Social Register:

Abbot

Averell (an appealing April update)

Breevort

Bridgeham

Bronson

Caswell

Churchill

Clermont

Courtlandt (excellent Courtney alternative)

Crawford

Delavan

Drexel

Everston

Fairfax

Fellowes

Field

Fisher

Fordyce

French

Fulton

Gifford

Grenville

Grovene

Guernsey

Heyward

Holbrook

Holloway (mightn’t this be great for a girl?)

Howland

Kingsbury

Knight

Lenox

Loring (to honor a Lori)

Lowell

Macklin

Minton

Moreau

Morland

Ogden

Ransom

Riggin

Shepherd (Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld’s third child)

Smith

Starling

Sturgis

Tilden (this was a female name)

Thatcher (been hearing this one on Nameberry recently)

Thornton (this one too!)

Townsend

Walton

Warrington

Wellesley (also a female name)

Wilmot

Winthrop and Winchester (both get you the great nickname Win)

Wright

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Tags: 1916 baby names, 1916 names, classy baby names, classy names, Downton Abbey names, last names, old baby names, Pamela Redmond Satran, Social Register baby names, Social Register names, surname names, upper-class names, vintage baby names, vintage names for boys, vintage names for girls

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21 Responses to “Vintage Surname Names: Gems from a secret source”

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Poppy528 Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 1:39 am

Starling is just darling!

minorbeatrice Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 4:14 am

I really love Win as a nickname. Winthrop is certainly a fresh alternative to Winston or Edwin, and in my opinion a lot better than Winslow.

melissa2 Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 7:41 am

This is still a very common practice in the South. I know folks in their 20s-30s (male and female) named Churchill, Courtlandt, Fisher, Heywood (though not Heyward), Shepherd, Ransom and Wright. And a host of others that didn’t make this list.

Lola Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 8:47 am

I love surnames butt prefer them in the middle. I could use Averell, French, Lenox, Minton, Shepherd & Tilden happily. I know a 5 year old Fisher. Still strikes me as ridiculous on a person, that one. (rather like Christian, I think: “Brother?) I also dig Howland, Ransom & Kingsbury. Awesome!

Alexia Mae Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 9:00 am

I don’t know how usable Guernsey is because it’s a breed of cow.

alexandramae Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 9:03 am

One of the chilldren I nanny for has the name Abbott. I absolutely adore Iran’s him. He calls himself Abby, which I find adorable. I also know a Thayer, taken from an old English surname. I prefer that to Thatcher.

flashy09 Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 9:15 am

I know a girl named Tilden. I actually like it a lot and you can use the nn Tilly

niteowl13 Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 9:37 am

I can totally see Drexel being used since names with X’s are trendy right now. I don’t know if Holloway for a girl is a good choice. It reminds me of Natalee Holloway. However, as a Charmed fan, I have thought that Halliwell would be cute as a first name.

tikicatt Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 11:01 am

I am missing the connection of Averell to April, I guess they sound alike? I would have thought Averell from the social register in 1916 would be in reference to the Averell family or Harriman family. Mary Averell married EH Harriman and had Averell Harriman – although his first name was William. But the Averell family was equally prominent and likely the name was used as the family branched out.

mindybird Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 11:28 am

I agree with melissa2 that this is still common in the south, though most people I know carry a name from their mother’s family as a middle name. My two older sisters have already used our maiden name as a middle for their firstborn sons and I plan to do the same. No brothers or uncles on that side, so the name would end with my father if we didn’t use it. I wonder if there are other regions where this is common practice?

jame1881 Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 5:06 pm

Winthrop seems useable, but for me Crawford will forever be the villian of Mansfield Park, or the Crawford-Vogul Wenzel oil service. I wish it wasn’t, though. Seems like a nice name.

auroradawn Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 5:14 pm

Nice! Some of these are great. Ransom is one of my favorite boys’ names right now. I also like Holbrook, Knight, Ogden, Shepherd, Smith and Wright, and some of the others could certainly grow on me. Posts like this make me want to research my genealogy just to dig up gems such as these…
I know a 6-year-old Kaswel whose parents named him after a lake, Caswell Lake. The name is fine, but I cannot get used to the “tryndi” spelling they chose. I so wish they’d spelled it conventionally.

miloowen Says:

March 13th, 2012 at 8:33 pm

The Knight family name is ever-present in my family tree, the latest being my great-grandfather George Cushman Owen having married Eleanor Dow Knight. Esther Averill, of Pickles the Fire Cat fame, was my grandmother Helen Hammett Owen’s best friend from childhood, and so Averill/Averell is a name that I really like. Averil is a medieval Norman spelling of the French Avril/April. I am surprised that there weren’t more of the old Dutch family names listed, but perhaps they had faded. My grandfather Thomas Brewster’s mother was a Totten from the Tottens of Staten Island, another old New York family. Interesting post.

Maarten Says:

March 14th, 2012 at 6:26 am

@miloowen: Some Dutch surnames from the New York area used as given names:

DeWitt (DeWitt Clinton, 6th Governor of New York)

Cortlandt (Cortlandt Skinner, Attorney General of New Jersey)

Van Rensselaer (Van Rensselaer Richmond, NY politician, known as Van R. Richmond)

Rensselaer (Rensselaer Westerlo, NY Representative)

Roosevelt

Schuyler (Schuyler Colfax, 16th US Vice President)

Amenspanglish Says:

March 15th, 2012 at 9:36 pm

Great post! I thought a lot of these names were really unique without being too yooneek. I love how you delve into the past to find hidden name treasures. I have recently been doing some geneology and it’s been fascinating to find out what people were named throughout history! Good luck with your book!