You know how authors often choose character names from cemeteries?

[CormoranStrike]

JK Rowling is just one famous example, there’s a cemetery at Greyfriars in Edinburgh where you can ‘meet’ many of her Harry Potter characters.

Anyway, on my walk today I went to a cemetery near me with parts dating back 200 years.

Many if the names are similar to ones you would see today, but I picked out a few I loved, most almost or well over a century on from their deaths. I do like to read these names and in some way know these people are not forgotten.

My favourites today include:

Myrtle Gwendoline
Betsy Brown
Christian Lewison
Hume Easton
John Kindred
Nancy Pagan
Dotsy Wyness

Interestingly, Christian - not Christina - was a popular name for women a century or so back

When we visited one of the Hollywood cemeteries, I was delighted that Mel Blanc's headstone reads "That's all folks".

Ds and I used to walk round an old graveyard when we lived in Glos. All those weathered old stones..ahh.. the one for what I'm sure said Dead Dad was a favourite of mine

I like Spike Milligan's 'I told you I was ill'

There was an Atticus in a cemetery where I used to live in London, I'd love to have used that name.

Great thread. My grandmother is buried in Elmers End (Crustal Palace) cemetery near a chap named Arthur Tooth which had my niece aged 8 at the time in fits of laughter.

I did google his name after and look what I found...a bit of a maverick and lying just feet from my grandmother

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Tooth

There's a family grave with a lot of women called Mable and another with a lot of Aletheas, but the first one is spelt Aleather.

One of the headstones today was for a family who lost all of their children as toddlers That's sad. There were 3 sons from the same family lost in WW1 in our local churchyard

I know a Septimus in real life. It is a name reserved for the 7th son of a 7th son, so quite rare!

@SoupDragon Better not tell Bradley Walsh!!!

I’m finding this thread oddly comforting. I love the idea of people noticing those that lived before. I wonder if anyone walks past DD’s grave and thinks about her. I hope so

@IHateCoronavirus me too. I say a lot of the names out loud as I read them and imagine the people. I'm so sorry about your DD. I say hello to the children's graves when we go past.

@PenguinsOnParade adding '-ina' to feminize a male name is a Scottish thing I think, also using the mothers maiden name as a middle name. I have female Scottish ancestor with the middle name Henry.

We have got some great ones at the cemetery near my house.

My favourites are:

Enoch Shapcott
Sidney Snodgrass
Septimus Roach

Oh and Thirza Topliss and Fanny Fowler

i had a Tryphena and Tryphosa in my family only 3 generations back it seemed to be handed down
i love a good mooch round a church yard sometimes take pics of the best gravestones and churches

My favourite from our churchyard is Lancelotta

In the cemetery where my Nan is there’s a
Bing Ho. .
I love cemeteries and looking at old grave stones. In fact I’m dying to get in one.
.

This one from today had a mention of Portugal but I cannot make it out.

Can anyone read it?

@poppadopolis I just searched for Tryphena Giblett in ancestry, and on the 1871 census there was a Tryphena Giblett age 42, living with her husband, Robert Giblett also 42, who was a farmer of 115 acres at Sandhurst Farm, living with their 5 sons and 2 daughters, one of which was also called Tryphena.

Now we've also managed to give a story to that name.

@CormoranStrike is it possible Portugal is his middle name?

Thanks for the thread, OP! I feel exactly the same about reading their names and in a way, honouring them. I thought I was weird, so glad to see others feel the same.

There's an old cemetery closeby, it's a small town but so many people lost their lives in WW1 and WW2.
Also, lots of cosmopolitans, people died all around the Commonwealth but buried in their hometown.

Or is this him. Robert Bent of Portugal Street.

www.histparl.ac.uk/volume/1790-1820/member/bent-robert-1745-1832

I could make out native of London. Then Portugal’s first or trust @Okki

I love cemeteries and wandering round them.

I always stop at children's graves and take a moment to think of them and their families. 💕

There's a Benjamin Goodenough in my local cemetery.
What a name!