The Weird and the Wonderful Part 2

Here are some more from the list from Norfolk baptisms (1500-1800). The with a * are ones that occur on several different people.


Boys:
Alraka
Appleby
Baker*
Baptist
Bayes
Bicker
Bloome
Brereton*
Britton
Brookes
Buckenham
Butcher
Chambers
Clare* -- lots of male Clare/Clere's (no girls though)
Claxton
Cory
Eastgate
Eastyn
Firman*
Flowerdy
Forby
Fordby
French
Fulham
Halsum
Hammond*
Hanover
Harland
Harrison
Hilton
Hynford
Ireland*
Israel
Jackson
Kettwood
Lammas
Littlewood
Major
Mayes
Meadows
Neve
Osborne
Park
Pearl* -- surprising number of male Pearls!
Procter
Quartus
Riches
Riseborough
Rix
Rixen
Sayer
Shearman
Shreeve
Taylor
Thredisting
Walsingham
Wroth*
Zaphnathpaaneah
Zurishaddaj


Girls:
Allen*
Amariah -- I know this is traditionally boy, but in this instance it was on a girl.
Attwood
Azoah
Bassey
Benedict
Benney
Bethsabe / Bethsaby* (+ various other spellings)
Britannia*
Boyden
Burrows
Chrysanna
Elosin
Good
Grissell
Horner
Jarvis
Knevett
Marthanna
Pagra
Pagarane
Robert
Ro-Herring
Scholastica
Sebeliah
Selverton
Sustillian
Trim
Trinity
Vecula
Wyborough

Used on both:

Emery*
Palgran*
Parkins*
Simonds/Symonds*

It's funny how we think of Trinity, Cory, Harrison as 'modern' when they were used hundreds of years ago :)


Another interesting practice I have noticed is that if a boy was born illegitimately (common in rural Norfolk) to a Margaret he is usually given the middle name Margetson. This occurs in several different parishes over the years. I've also seen Roseson, Marison, and Janson given as mns to boys born to single mothers.

What a great list! Please keep these coming! It's fascinating to see what names were commonly in use centuries ago.

-- Nephele

Baker, Hammond and Israel are actually high on my list! ^^

Loving the weird and the wonderful, thank you for posting them!

I feel like re-naming two of mine Wrath and Grissell right this minute.

Thanks Elea I love your lists.

My great grandfather's mn was Simpson but I've seen it as Simson makes me wonder if maybe it was Simonds. :/ He went by the nn Sims all though his first name was Willet/Willit. Sometimes I wonder how adulterated some names are do to being misspelled ect.

disa_lan wrote:My great grandfather's mn was Simpson but I've seen it as Simson makes me wonder if maybe it was Simonds. :/ He went by the nn Sims all though his first name was Willet/Willit. Sometimes I wonder how adulterated some names are doing to being mispelled ect.

I imagine it was Simpson and the 'p' got missed out. Either way the sound is the most important (as they usually spelt it like it sounds) and Simson sounds a lot like Simpson.

There are so many different spellings of names (even for the same person) in these records, making some of them unrecognisable as that name (Adre = Audrey, Orsele =Ursula, Sislae = Cecily). My gt x4 grandmother Willoughby is also Williby, Willlowby, Wilobie and Welabye in certain records. It appears that even the same vicar/priest would sometimes be undecided how a name should be spelt and keep changing.

Sometimes it's down to bad handwriting as well and the transcribers guess what they think it is.
Some of these 'mispellings' stick, especially with surnames. My surname is a Norfolk spelling/misspelling of Nicholson. The spelling seem to stuck.

One of the surnames in my family tree actually changed through the generations due to mispelling. Tildesley > Tilesley > Tinsley