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Baby names

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Original poster

Awesome, unusual or just plain weird ancestor names...

68 replies

umpteennamechanges · 26/08/2018 22:47

I've just been researching family history for me and DH and have come across these awesome / weird names...anyone else have any to share?

  • Cave
  • Radalphus
  • Oldcot
  • Septimus
  • Ephraim / Levi / Job / Reuben (not that unusual but unexpectedly religious)
  • Zebulon (!)

All men's names. Seems that women's names were not as out there but we do have a number of 'Penninahs' which I haven't heard before.

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WhyDidIEatThat · 30/08/2018 20:25

I’ve discovered that some of the weird first names in my family tree are the surnames of local confederate generals 😧 yucky

DuggeeHugs · 30/08/2018 14:29

So many awesome names on here!

In our tree I've found nothing seriously weird, but quite a few that are unusual today:

Girls: Florida, Hephzibah, Honora, Marnie, Pretoria, Sybilla, Vida, Zelila

Boys: Augustus, Barnabas, Cuthbert, Lancelot, Percival, Sampson, Snowball, Tait

BirdintheWings · 30/08/2018 10:09

Almost our whole family tree is called William or Margaret, apart from Ludovic. Poor old Ludovic.

Tinkerhel · 30/08/2018 10:05

I have a Josephus (m) and a zibbiah (f)

AlliKaneErikson · 30/08/2018 01:01

Funny how so many have mentioned Tryphena, it’s a ‘family name’ in DH’s family.

Beeziekn33ze · 29/08/2018 02:03

Older - Etta: I guess you don't like Harriet or Henrietta. A friend has an Ettie short for Etienne (French female name from Etien (Stephen))

crazycatguy · 29/08/2018 01:48

My greatx2 grandmother was called Strawberry!

SukiPutTheEarlGreyOn · 29/08/2018 01:15

Weathered not wearhered!

SukiPutTheEarlGreyOn · 29/08/2018 01:13

My MiL’s name is Maximiliana. In a local graveyard there is a wearhered grave stone for a Virtue Blake who lost three brothers and a fiance in WW1.

PippilottaLongstocking · 29/08/2018 00:55

I think Lucius is the only really good ancestor name in my family tree, there’s a few good ones in more recent generations but that would be v outing

DeadDoorpost · 29/08/2018 00:37

AnnDerry that's the only way I remember too ahaa

AornisHades · 29/08/2018 00:22

Biscuits we may be distantly related if your Keren-H is Wiltshire based!

Lots of biblical Israels, Jobs etc for the men. Zillah, Talitha, Asenath and Thirza are unusual girl's names in my family.

Ceara · 29/08/2018 00:11

Mine went the opposite way and were spectacularly unimaginative, top prize going to the C18th family where the women of 3 generations were: Elizabeth (grandmother), Eliza (grandmother), Elizabeth (mother), and 3 daughters Eliza, Beth and Elizabeth-Anne (youngest daughter). NB the 3 daughters all lived to adulthood so this wasn't a case of re-using a dead child's name, as often happened - they just seemingly liked the name Elizabeth. A lot.

RandomChitchat · 28/08/2018 23:47

I've got a Tryphena but also a King Charles, which always makes me chuckle, delusions of grandeur.

CathyandHeathcliff · 28/08/2018 23:44

When I did my family history I found that I have two ancestors called Israel.

OVienna · 28/08/2018 22:25

Zelma was on my shortlist for DD2- DHs nan.

Ines,a great grandma name of his, for middle.

Vetoed by his family as "too unusual."

MoreHairyThanScary · 28/08/2018 22:12

Shrove ( guess when he was born!)

MrsJoker · 28/08/2018 22:09

Not an ancestor name, but there is a lady with the first name Lesbia buried in Saul graveyard in Northern Ireland.

AnnDerry · 28/08/2018 21:58

AnDerry your names sound like Harry Potter characters!!

Sybilla Clatworthy is surely a Slytherin. Smile

andantecantabile · 28/08/2018 21:47

Once when I was trawling the census records from the 1800s at work I came across a boy whose parents had unfortunately given him the name 'Wardrobe'. As I remember the siblings were all much more conventional names!

AndNoneForGretchenWieners · 28/08/2018 21:47

biscuits i think Keren-Happuch means 'horn of beauty'. How would it be pronounced?

In my family tree, we have Tryphena, Prinar, Albinia, Rosetta, Vilinda (all female) and Solar (male).

kenandbarbie · 28/08/2018 21:40

AnDerry your names sound like Harry Potter characters!!

BumbleNova · 28/08/2018 21:25

@NicoAndTheNiners we must be very distantly related! Tedbar is on our boys list for that very reason!

LaPufalina · 28/08/2018 21:23

Annderry me too after doing it at junior school 30 years ago!
I have a Brightey (female) in my family tree, and a great-great grandfather called Octavius (think he was the eighth child).

Echobelly · 28/08/2018 21:19

My dad found a couple of women in the family tree called Alima and one called something like Gimpitgraenem!

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