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

Septimus Weasley was Arthur Wesley's father.

There is also a historical Septimus Malloy.

I googled this as I thought there was a Septimus but it's not the name I thought it was.

Last summer I visited the graveyard where my great great-grandmother is buried. I insisted on sending the church warden (who told me where her grave was) the story of her life that I'd researched. I assumed that like me, they must wonder about the people in their graveyard and now at least he has the story of one

In fairness she did have an interesting life - orphaned, adopted, married, four children, emigrated, returned, separated from husband, ran her own businesses. Contemporaneous with Queen Victoria's reign.

Loving this thread, I love a good walk round a graveyard.

This morning we found:

Bertram Precious
Minnie Matkin
Polly Pollard
Willoughby Ibbotson
Sunshine Cornthwaite
Pearl White
John Tankard

Great thread, OP!

We've a memorial in a church near us to Willoughby Baskerville Mynors.

What a brilliant name!

Sunshine Cornthwaite!

What a beautiful name! Makes me think of golden fields in summer!

Oh, and Ivy Tye and Vera Starr, who sound like they should be in 1940s Hollywood.

Wow @TwatCat

Does that say Sandhurst?

The grave in question is in West London.

I've always loved looking at the names on old graves. Glad I'm not the only one!

I lived next to a graveyard growing up. My favourite headstone was for James and Hephzibah Rodden.
I always used to say hello to them when I walked past.
Glad others do this too (thought it was my own personal weirdness!)

In the graveyard in the village where I grew up, there's a gravestone for Feargod and Hosannah Thatcher. They were twins who died aged twelve. There's a whole clump of children's graves all from that same year so we assume measles or scarlet fever must have hit the village

redwoodmaz brilliant, one of the funniest things ever

Someone said upthread about researching untold histories - there’s a historian local to me who does this for women’s history. She has some fascinating stories:

thewomenwhomademe.wordpress.com/about/

I might have to leave my sofa and have a wander round the local graveyard today.

I love visiting our local graveyard. It's alway so peaceful

Septimus has always been my favourite boys name. I was never prepared to have seven in order to use it though!

I've just read The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan. The backdrop to the book is a graveyard and the main character imagines the lives and characters of the names on the gravestones.

It's such a lovely book.

Aah I do this too OP. Read the names and spend a moment just acknowledging them as a person. I agree graveyards are more calming than spooky to me. There are some truly beautiful old trees surrounding my local one.

That blog is v interesting, @SueGeneris

I shall have a proper browse later

I've always loved cemeteries

In my own Family Tree were women named True Rose, Philadelphia, and Silence.

There's a Bessie Bussom buried in my local cemetery
I have some buxom maid in mind when I read that name

Good detective work soup

Oh I love it that so many more have joined this thread.

Reading all these names makes me think. We think we are so unusual and original and modern when we use names that aren't classic, but that has been happening for ever!

Lettuce used to be a common name for women.

My own Granny lost 4 out of her 6 children. I don't even know the names of all of them