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Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Original poster

Amazing 19th century boys' names

82 replies

tinymeteor · 04/09/2017 10:14

I'm pregnant and can't sleep, so am idly trawling through all the baby names I can think of, by way of counting sheep.

Last night's musings were on fabulously OTT Victorian names for boys.

Isambard. Algernon. Melville.

I probably, almost certainly, maybe won't go there Grin

Any other suggestions?

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DiegoMadonna · 14/09/2017 13:11

I'm working in the 1840s and 50s at the moment

Are you a time traveller??

ImoAsta · 14/09/2017 09:10

We have the following in our family tree:

Lancelot
Valentine
Barnaby

Love them! Grin

SerendipityFelix · 14/09/2017 08:22

I'm liking the idea of Josiah at the moment. Been watching a lot of West Wing.

SerfTerf · 13/09/2017 20:16

Septimus.

There was a detective series in which the protagonist was a sleuth vicar called Septimus something. Traditionally for a seventh child but if slebs now call their children "seven" why not?

PuppyMonkey · 13/09/2017 20:08

I also like Jedediah

PuppyMonkey · 13/09/2017 20:05

Some great names here.

I remember my bus used to stop outside a building where the stone had been laid by Absolom Mellows. That is the best name ever.

Bubble04 · 13/09/2017 20:01

That link to ancestral names is fab! Got some amazing ones in ours. Best ones are:
Fitzhardinge
Troylus
Sylvestre
Edric
Augustus
Algernon
Edric

MammieBear · 13/09/2017 11:03

Algernon

TillyTheTiger · 13/09/2017 08:08

I love this thread. Obediah is awesome, nn Obie. Sadly DH has vetoed biblical names so I don't think I'd get away with it

Thewolfsjustapuppy · 12/09/2017 23:08

Vernon
Lionel
Ruskin
Erskin
Any Old Testament name like Jedidia, Seth, Josia.

Petalflowers · 12/09/2017 22:24

Anyone else wishing they saw this thread when naming their babies?

Clarence
Emmett
Morris/Maurice

SnickersWasAHorse · 12/09/2017 21:54

You can have Wyndham if you like.
It's what our baby would have been called.

SerfTerf · 12/09/2017 21:48

Leonard.
Mortimer.
Lancelot.

HolyShmoly · 05/09/2017 22:30

I know a Cornelious. He was always known as Corny though. I think he's around 40 so not Victorian.

WillowySnicket · 05/09/2017 18:13

See, now, I almost managed to get Ebenezer through, but wondering if Scrooge ruined it?

Original poster
tinymeteor · 05/09/2017 18:08

So many gooduns on here! Not the most wearable names in the average playground, but I just love the sense that boys' names back then could be ornate, or poetical, or whimsical, or ostentatious or even beautiful. Things we still look for in girls' names. Most current boys names seem aggressively plain to me.

OP posts:
Librarybooksandacoconut · 05/09/2017 18:04

In my extended family tree there is a sibling group that includes Bachelor, Septimus, Octavius and Decimus.

Bizarrely the other siblings are all things like William, Charles and Jane so I'm quite sure of the parents naming thought process.

CbeebiesAddict · 05/09/2017 17:40

I absolutely love Caractacus

midsomermurderess · 05/09/2017 16:39

Ebeneezer. Not many of those around these days.

HollyBuckets · 05/09/2017 16:14

Barnaby
Shirley
Hilary

Rubyslippers7780 · 05/09/2017 15:49

Our school janitor is Melville

igivein · 05/09/2017 15:48

I've got an Abednigo on my family tree and also, oddly, a Nice

GoingRogue · 05/09/2017 15:43

I knew of a 40's something Alaric, he was an IT guy where I worked.

I know of a boy around the age of 5 called Isambard (lives near Bristol/Swindon).

Not my cup of tea at all.

Circumlocutor · 05/09/2017 15:37

My grandad was a Victorian and he was called Tom.

I don't feel he missed out though. Lucky escape more like.

spiderlight · 05/09/2017 15:35

My dad's called Melville, and his dad before him. No Scottish connections though - Welsh through and through.

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