What’s in a name? For most of us it is our identity and some
people have more than one.
I’ve been looking at a list of girls in my primary school class
in 1960. They are all simple English names like Susan Smith; perhaps the most
exciting name was Elizabeth Bonney. I hated my boring English surname and it
only improved slightly when I married because I now had a Welsh spelling. Elizabeth
is a useful name because it has so many alternatives. Some I wouldn’t choose.
Bess reminds me of Bessie Bunter and Beth of her tragic death in “Little Women”. Betty was a popular wartime name, but it is
having a small revival now. My Scottish cousins used to call me Lizzie-Anne which
I liked while I was on holiday, but it didn’t suit down south. In my teaching
years I encountered more interesting names such as Zara, Maya, Ilona, Amàlia
and Maryam.
Actors have to choose a name which projects their character or catches a director’s eye while authors must decide whether their name should be soft and fluffy for romances, or stern and serious for murder stories. Personally I wouldn’t choose a surname beginning with W as in a library, the books with W authors are always at the end of the bookcase, down at floor level.
When researching my family tree I am always excited by old
fashioned names. Bartholomew Glasscock who had written his name in his prayer
book in 1785, was parish clerk in the tiny Essex village of Matching and he opened
up many more in the Glascocke (alternative spelling) family, to me.
Bathsheba Gent married into my Norfolk family. Like her
namesake in “Far From the Madding Crowd” she was a farmer’s daughter but I have
yet to research her Flemish sounding surname.
While investigating local history, I came across Caleb
Lovejoy, a wealthy merchant who supplied Oliver Cromwell’s army. Not forgetting
his early roots in Guildford, he became a benefactor to the town. In his will
in 1676 he left money for the education of poor boys and more for the building
of four alms-houses.
Among the men transported from Surrey to Australia for poaching was Nathaniel Longhurst. After completing his 14 year sentence he remained in Tasmania while back in England his wife had already remarried.
Each era has its favourites. Muriel, Mabel, Constance and
Marjorie occur in late Victorian, early Edwardian times as do Percy, Vivian and
Wilfred. In Scotland there is less variety as most families followed a strict
naming pattern. The first son was named after his father’s father, the first
daughter after her mother’s mother, the second son after his mother’s father
and so on. The result in my family are generations of Alexanders, Roberts and
James.
Do you have some interesting names in your family? Or perhaps you have spotted an unusual name on a tombstone.
My blog about Bartholomew Glasscock
I was once quite taken with the name Chlorinda on a gravestone in a churchyard on the edge of Dartmoor. I made a note of it and used it in a novel (unpublished, so it never got to see the light of day). My husband’s great grandfather was called Shadrack - very biblical - but once when doing research in those days when local records offices were the order of the day, we found one of his ancestors recorded on the census as Sparrow Percival. Annoyingly, I’ve not been able to find him in the online databases but we both definitely saw it so we’re rather baffled!
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