Are we due a revival of obscure Victorian names?

[Delphigirl]

Just reading something where the protagonist is Alfrida. Her brother is Kenelm. I am really feeling both of them. I tried to persuade a niece to call her new son Sylvester a few months ago and I’m still feeling cross she didn’t leap on it. Is the zeitgeist moving towards these long-ignored names? Or maybe it is just me.
Let me know what names you would revive and please please if anyone has used a name like this recently would you share? I would LOVE to know.

I know a Sylvester, he’s about 5.

IMO it’s granny names that are always in. So for this generation that’s Wendy, Dorothy (know babies with these names, multiple Dorothys actually), Barbara (looking at you David Mitchell) etc. Or great-grandma names like Daphne and Effie and Elsie (know all of these).

Just checked - it was her first name!

I live a few yards away from an ancient churchyard which has quite a number of Victorian graves.

One of the gravestones has the name ‘Clarinda’ on it. She lived to a ripe old age and I really like her name!

From my family, names of that era...

Mercy
Lettice
Eugenie
Mary

The boys were pretty much all called William, Jason, John, or occasionally, Jason William, John Willy, William Jason and notably... one was called Cockshott

There's a Jemima in my extended family but I've just realised she'll be about 25 by now. I feel old!

My Victorian ancestors all have names like Helen, Ann, Margaret , Ernest, William, Thomas, Jack. My grandma had an "Aunt Bunny" but I can't remember what her real name was.

Carmina from a Victorian novel.
They aren't all fusty.

I love Lettice too!!!

We have several Keziah's in our family tree, as well as a Leopold and a Cornelius.

Fabulous names, we picked an "old fashioned" name for DD, because they are (IMHO) beautiful.

I know a toddler Phineas and loads of Ezras.

A Winnifred. Have seen Cornelius and Barnaby on people's "list's" recently. Too outing to say but my closest friends' children all have names that were top 10 over 100 years ago, but not obscure.

I quite fancy Isambard and Perpetua myself!

I had a great Uncle Cornelius.
I love it.
We had Florence, Winifred and Alma too.

There are still plenty of Corneliuses in Ireland - it's the way Conor was Anglicised/Latinised and it stuck - many of them are Con or Connie for short.

My favourite resource for looking at the frequency of old names is the Irish Census records from the National Archives - there's no charge, and you can search 1901 and 1911, get up to 100 returns at a time, and widen the returns to show you birthplaces, jobs, religious affiliation. Endless hours of fun.

www.census.nationalarchives.ie/

I wanted Esther for any DD I may have had. (Spoiler- I did not).

But DH did chemistry at university so he only associated it with ESTAs.

Eezer good.. sorry couldn't resist.

Re 'Mercy'.

i really love the virtue names. Particularly the very old ones like Temperance ; Deliverance; Honor; Chastity etc.

I did like Mercy, but I was a huge fan of the Jill pony books and there was an unfortunate character called Mercy Dulbottle in it which ruined it for me.

There was a 17th century bloke associated with Christchurch cathedral in Dublin who went by the splendid name Faithful Tadpole. A generation or two before library founder Narcissus Marsh, who in turn pre-dated museum director Valentine Ball by more than a century. VB was Victorian, so that could be ready for revival.

Kesiah is an old testament name not Victorian and it is used more in the Jewish community. Same with the name Keren from
the biblical Kerenhappuch. Keren is also more popular in some
other countries but has never been completely out of use.

Yes, on the census we've found, Mercy is a wee baby.. and the household seemed to be involved in some sort of religious, temperance movement activity!

Ah good old Mercy Dulbottle, I'll never forget her, wasn't she the one stuffing ducks into a shed... which were then flying back out the open window?

I love Eulalie/ Eulalia

From my family I like Florence, Gilbert and William.

Not so keen on Winifred.

My grandmother was Elgiva Annie. Always called Giva.

Yes I think so!

Oh, Elgiva has reminded me that I love Elvira!

Kenelm, his brother Dunelm and their younger sister, Home Bargains

Victorian flouncy names are well on the way out. It’s more the simpler names of the ‘20s and ‘30s now.

I know a little Joyce. Only a matter of time before we start hearing of little Margarets and Majorie's....

How do you pronounce Gobnait?