Interesting Historical Names

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

Caught my roommate going over a binderful of information related to her dad's family's genealogy to work on her family tree. I couldn't resist asking to pour over it for interesting names. Managed to uncover some sort of weird incestuous plotline between her great-great grand uncles families and to gather quite the list of names.

I've tried to include genders and birth dates where they were available as well as some of the family connections. The family immigrated from Germany if I am correctly informed but have been living in New York, US and the southern portion of Ontario, Canada since around 1800(New York) and 1820 (Ontario). We've looked up some of the names and found several different spellings for some of them. I've listed the most common spelling here.

Interesting names:

Names in "" are nicknames.
Double names are first name and middle name. No last names are listed.

Annatje - (f) 1776
Petrus "Peter" - (m) 1770
Sopronia - 1849
Franklyn - (m) 1840
Mahattabelle "Hattie" - (f)  1880
Othela - (unknown) 1918
Oaklen - (m) unknown
Alzina Alcina - (f) 1858
Christeyan - (m) 1754
Marquis LaFayere - (unknown) 1842
Arrdillo - (m) 1849
Ephau - (f) unknown
Romain - (m) 1874
Lodisky - (f) 1881
Lodema - (f) 1860
Alexander Nasmyth - (m) unknown
Harmon - (m) 1883
Lucinda "Leandy" - (f) 1873 [I added this one because I really liked the nickname]
Mary Idelia - (f) 1885
Parline - (f) unknown [sister in law had a birth date of 1913]
Huron - (m) 1892
Arvilla - (f) 1906
Mabel Lovellia - (f) 1896
Emery - (m) 1891
Miney Mathelia - (f) 1897
Burton - (m) 1912
Lula - (f) 1881
Luetta - (f) 1882 (niece with same name in 1908)
Ina Arlephia - (f) 1885
Acey - (m) 1901
Elppa - (m) 1909
Arlette - (f) 1886
Beryl - (f) unknown
Dufferin - (m) unknown
Clayton LaVerne - (m) 1887
Mabel Evilena - (f) 1888
Almeda - (f) 1889
James Avether - (m) 1890

Several women are named Mable instead of Mabel and I thought that was an interesting variation especially since Mabel was used as well.

Currently my favourite name "story" is about "Adam" who married a "Margaretha". They named their first son "Adam" and their first daughter "Margaretha". Adam's nephew was (I'm guessing) named after him. This "Adam" married a "Margaretha". All three women have the name spelled like that and since there is no marriage record for the daughter, I'm assuming she kept her last name. This means their would have been three people called Adam ---- and three people called Margaretha ----.

Another interesting "story" is about triplet girls born on May 15, 1916 to mother "Ina Arlephia" who were called "Edith", "Ida" and "Ada". All three babies died on May 18, 1916. We're guessing that the mother was shocked to have three babies. She probably had a name picked out for one baby but needed quick names for the other two so she could get the sick children christened before they passed.

One of the best couples for name combinations is Romain (m) and Lodisky (f). They also happen to be first cousins once removed. There were several other "close" couples but those two had the most creative names. 

I don't really know what else I can add. Some of these names I really like and some others are definitely not my style. It was interesting to see changes in not only naming traditions but also spellings over time. Even the spelling of their last name changed completely on several occasions. 

I'll probably post more names when I have more time to go through the other several dozen pages.

Comments

[cremepuff.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for posting this; what an interesting read! I love looking at old names on family trees, especially my own on Ancestry.com.

It's funny you mention the family with 3 Adam's and 3 Margaretha's. When I was going through my family tree, I learned about my great-grandmother, Margaret, and her siblings, including Thomas. Her mother (my great-great-grandmother) was also Margaret. In one of the censuses, Margaret (the older) is listed with her daughter Margaret, her other children including Thomas, and then a nephew and niece that she'd adopted after her sister died. The nephew and niece were named...Thomas and Margaret. There were also multiple Owen's, Arthur's, and Frank's in the same family group. I can't imagine living in a household where I share my name with 2 or more people! My Irish ancestors clearly weren't very creative when naming their children. :)

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine it either. I have enough trouble with people that have similar names to me in peer groups. My given name is Laurel and I'm forever being called Laura, Laurie, Lauren or being asked to spell my name out because people can't realize it's spell like the plant. I'm currently working with a girl called Laura and it's driving both of us crazy from the confusion. We're both good sports about it but I can see there being a lot of problems up coming.

[silvermidnight.livejournal.com]

That was super interesting!

I like most of those names, particularly all of the unusual -ia ones.

Evilena's pretty funny, though.

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

Mahattabelle is my favourite so far. It makes me think of Manhattan and the family was living in New York state at the time so who knows! I really like the nickname Hattie as well. It'll probably be a sim name for a while, not sure if I could name anyone other than a character that because it's sort of mean... As it is I want to "saddle", as my mother says, my future children with a plethora of unique names.

[landslideoflove.livejournal.com]

I live in the Southern Part of Ontario and its cool to see these names, clearly the family intended to keep with their German heritage as in those times southern Ontario was mostly occupied by English and French settlers and Iroquois Indians, Which is how my family came to be. We're Iroquois, English & French Canadian and those names are pretty unique.

I do love the name Huron, mostly because it's the name of a Indian tribe (Huron "wyandot" that also occupied parts of southern Ontario, which might be where the family got this name from. Pretty cool of them to honour a child with this name.

Emery caught my eye as well, I named my cat emery. In German it means "Leader of the house" I believe. Awesome name.

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

I'm from Eastern and Northern Ontario. :) Apparently quite a bit of the family still lives in the area where these people were born. We were trying to figure out from maps of old counties etc of where exactly they might have been born given that some of the people had a place of birth listed but it was difficult. I'm really curious about how births were registered at the time because a lot of the paperwork was filed well after the child was born and then you also had cases like the triplets where the children lived such a short time and still were registered.

[raze--the-rose.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this! It is really interesting. Othela caught my eye; a feminine Othelo maybe?

[boobeedoo.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of Ophelia

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

It reminds me a little of both names but mostly Othello. There was an Orpha as well which was neat to see because of the "Oprah" typo that's much more well known now.

[boobeedoo.livejournal.com]

Hahaha 'Oprah typo'. That's hilarious!

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

That's how the story of how she got her name goes. Something about her aunt and illiteracy so when they registered her birth it was spelled wrong and instead of correct it, they just went with it.

[boobeedoo.livejournal.com]

Omg, I had never heard that before now! That's actually so funny!

[wolf-shadow.livejournal.com]

Marquis LaFayere - wonder if that was LaFayette spelt differently? The birth isn't long after his death. Just thinking aloud :)

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

We were trying to figure out how to pronounce it exactly. I've got only the birth years listed (where known) not the death dates and I've just checked the paperwork. His death was actually unknown. :)

[wolf-shadow.livejournal.com]

Sorry I meant your Marquis' DoB is close to the date that the historical LaFayette died, well within 10 years. Thinking palaeographically, R and T often look similar in 19thC handwriting too...

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

This might be because I'm not American but I wasn't aware that there was a historical LaFayette. I know about the place and the character on True Blood/from the books but I had no idea there was a person. Guess I'll have to go do some research.

[wolf-shadow.livejournal.com]

Me neither - English - but an historian so... :) Think he was popular because of the American Revolution, but it's not my strong area so not sure (give me pre 1500 and I'm ok!)

Wiki Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier,_marquis_de_Lafayette

[hermione-vader.livejournal.com]

Mahattabelle made me LOL. If it weren't for the dates, I'd think someone was trying to combine "Manhattan" and "Isabelle". Hattie is a great nickname, though.

I like:

Petrus "Peter"
Romain
Alexander Nasmyth
Harmon
Lucinda
Mary Idelia
Mathelia
Lula
Clayton
Mabel
James

I love the story about the triplets. It's so sad, but so sweet!

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking about Mahattabelle! She's the reason I started writing down the more unusual names to begin with. I'm actually really fond of it after staring at it for like three hours and I adore Hattie as a nickname. Would never have the balls to use it on a real child though but I'll end up with Hattie sims for a while :)

[laminy.livejournal.com]

I like:

Alexander
Mary

So basically, the least interesting names on the list, lol.

[being-lola-star.livejournal.com]

Haha, you missed Mabel :P There were a lot of typically thought of names (the document I was looking over was 12 pages) but I wanted to post the more unusual ones because of the commonly held belief that naming choices today are shoddy. Looks to me like people have always been naming their children "unique" things. :)

[laminy.livejournal.com]

I did consider adding Mabel to my comment, lol, then eventually decided that I didn't care for it.