Victorian Names site - bonkers girls names

[ThePsychicSatsuma]

ooooh
just been looking at victorian names

look at the down low numbers -

Lala
Paralee
Zelia

Gosh, I love these names! Fantastic.

Kermit and Grover were normal names before Mr. Henson came along...

Garnet is one of my favourites.

Someone I know was named after the family doctor who delivered him. Obviously the doctor was born in the 19th c, not the person I know.

Le Gay. Always known as Gay.

Nigella Lawson has/had sisters called Horatia and Thomasina...and her brother Dominic called his daughter Domenica. Seems like it became a family tradition.

whispers I quite like Thomasina, though. And Roberta. DP would never allow it, though...

PMSL at Auntie Gary and Auntie Steve

Thomasina is really sweet!

ina used to be something of a Scottish tradition, I think partly because of the other tradition of naming children after other relatives in a fixed pattern. If you'd had a string of girls and used up all the prescribed female namesakes, the next baby to be born was jolly well going to be named after James (or Donald, or Thomas, etc.) whether it was a boy or a girl.

Obviously being a US site, this is very different from a genuinely "Victorian" names collection. The foreign names and influences brought by immigrants from many other countries which the UK saw much later.

Is there anywhere with a list of popular UK names for the Victorian period?

I was looking for an elusive ancestor in the censuses the other day, and came across two little girls named Paradise. :)

Oh my. "Tena" for a girl. At 445.

ina used to be something of a Scottish tradition

Wow. The possibilities ....

Gordonina
Hamishina
Malcolmina
Duncanina :o

I've got an ancestor called Waters. His surname was 2 syllables starting with 'W' as well, so it sounds kinda like a Victorian porno name.

You may laugh, but there are fifteen Malcolminas and thirteen Duncaninas on the 1891 Scotland census. Fortunately, though, I can only find one Gordonina (born 1901, and is only Gordonina as a middle name) and no Hamishinas at all. So there's still scope for a nice unique baby girl's name there...

Good grief. What about Alasdairina, lots of scope for variation there!

I had a relative in North-west UK in 1920s, called Comfort, and she was a lovely woman by all accounts, very caring and generous.

Thomasina is lovely, Tommy for short.

I like Tamsin for Thomasina better.

From a sideways branch of my family tree I present to you Miss Douglas Maria Theresa McKain born 1817! I also have various Hephzibah's, Mahala's, Adeline's, an Innocent (born illegitimately - mum trying to make up for the fact perhaps?!), some Etta's, Jemima's, Judith's and Lettice, Leticia, Selina and Myra - all in the 1800's.

Douglas was originally a girls' name, though -- it's about the only example of a name that's migrated female -> male rather than the more usual male -> female (but I did think that it had completed its migration long before 1817).

Oscar used to be a girls only name.

I've got a female Graham in my family tree. 19thC.

Julian and Christian were both originally female names. As was Denis/Dennis. I have a female 17thC Denis in my tree.

Actually, come to think of it, I have a female Roberts (Roberts as first name) who tends to appear as Robert on most official documents.

Has anyone else noticed - Shirley, Florence, Tracy, Pink, Shelby, Kelly, Ethel, Vivian, Margaret, Ruby, Hazel, Ivy, Helen, Clare, June, Emma, Dana, Jodie, Ruth, Lillian and probably loads more - all on the boys side!

wow i wonder why the gender swap