Ancestors names

[Emmafh3]

I'd like to hear the names of your ancestors, grandparents, great grandparents, great aunts and uncles and so on names, no matter how unusual, old or odd.
I don't know many of mine and would like more inspiration!
I've only got Arthur, beryl, joey, Dorothy, Ada that I'm aware of

Sirus
Nathaniel
Helen
Charles
Robert
Sivus
August
Maud
Shirley

I managed to find 6 generations

It's was really odd!! My eldest didn't appear on either side ... but they both did.

No living relative has their names so it was just a coinsodence. It was only DHs fathers strange middle names that he asked me to research.

I've researched my family and DH's family all the way back to 1500's on some branches and one goes back a lot further. Yes the names are real!

They are from West Country, Wiltshire, East Anglia, Yorkshire, Rutland, Midlands, Ireland and Europe. One particular branch goes back even further (Vikings) as we tie into one well researched family.

Many of the branches moved around a lot especially after the Industrial Revolution.

It was quite common to use a mother's surname as a Christian name hence you get names like Youngman and Silvester.

littlespace my granddad was Enos.

Ones I remember without getting the family tree out are
Claire
Nathaniel
Roderick
Maggie
Sarah
Wilberforce
Robert
Sylvianne

@Verbena87 I have an ancestor christened Dorothy who was always called Dophie. I thought it was weird, but maybe it's a Thing.

@ladycarlotta I quite like Dorphie, (and Dot, actually) but not keen on Dorothy. I’d never heard of another so that’s interesting.

Women:

Natalie
Barbara
Anna
Josephine
Bronwen
Dorothy
May
Sarah
Elizabeth
Susan
Amelia
Ellen
Mary
Hannah
Lydia
Mariah
Fanny
Louisa
Catherine
Anne
Jane
Susanne/Susanna
Martha
Rebecca
Françoise
Margaret

Men:

Reginald
Graeme
Sidney
William
Hugo
Thomas
Henry
Joseph
Charles
John
James
Edward
Peter
Isaac
Benjamin
Jacques
Pierre
François
Simon
Walter
George
Robert
Andrew
Paul
Samuel
David
Warriet

Not very many unusual names there. It's a mix of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, French and German. There are probably some more German names but I don't know those.

@verbena87 agreed, I'm not brave enough to rehabilitate Dorothy, although Dot is very sweet. One of my favourite Regency actresses (don't we all have one?!) was a Dorothy or Dorothea, called Dora. Maybe I could be swayed by that, although it's a bit cute.

Millie
Lilly
Ivy
Rosemary
Nancy
John
Philip
Tom
Elizabeth
Betty
William
Ron
Nina
Stephen
Gay
Justin
Winnifred

Sure.:) I currently can't look them up so you'll get those I remember (either because I like them so much or thought they were horrible...).

Mafalda, Hedwig, Ludovico, Lodovico, Carmine, Matilda, Leona, Heinrich, Ida, Katherina, Claudia, Anne, Anna, Friedrich, Francesco, Bruno, Ciro, Viktor.

We had a Dorothy in the early 1600s spelt Dorryty. I don't know if it is a scribing error or that's just how they wanted it.

GreenTulips six generations is amazing coincidence! Are they traditional or biblical names? Or perhaps cultural or area specific?

These are some of my great grandparents and aunts/uncles: William, Arthur, Julia, Emily, Cecilia, Dorothy, Wilfred, Thomas.

You could try looking up old census records - I did that and found extra names I didn't know about!

This is thoroughly entertaining. There are some curious names out there that once was! and some on my list that the dh hates :(
Census! That's the word I couldn't remember when trying to Google for names.... Baby brain

@DuggeeHugs if 1600s, probably just the writer's fair go at it. Spelling wasn't standardised and literacy was low anyway so the parents might not have even known it wasn't 'right', or cared. I think Aphra Behn's name on her baptism is spelt something like Efry?

(I bloody love the name Aphra and I wish I could persuade DP to use it)

There was a 'hymen' (female) on one branch of my family....

@ladycarlotta yes, you're most probably right. I quite like it though - especially when you consider the amount of consternation some unique spellings create today!

I didn't know that. Although I seem to remember reading that Oprah Winfrey was supposed to be Orpah but it was misspelt on the certificate.

@DuggeeHugs I quite like getting some glimpse of local pronunciation from the mis-spellings too. They're sweet. And yeah, I heard that about Oprah/Orpah - love that she just owned it.

@OhHolyFuck I know the past is another country etc etc, but Hymen is indefensible. Yeech.

Relief and Hymen are really funny!

Fascinating thread!

Sadly my ancestors are all Scottish and were typically unimaginative with names. I have identified more than 170 direct male ancestors but they only share 23 different names between them, mostly James and Alexander. Foremothers do slightly better with 32 names among 150+ of them, mostly Jean, Agnes, Janet, Elisabeth and Christian.

The less common girl names are:

Grisel
Jonat
Cecill
Mawse
Murron
Julan
Lilias

One very odd sibling name in my tree is Filebox (girl). I'm guessing it's a phonetic spelling of something but no idea what!

I like Grisel - in my head it sounds like a variant of Giselle.

Unfortunately I'm rubbish at accents so my attempts at Filebox in a Scottish accent are unlikely to yield many clues

One very odd sibling name in my tree is Filebox (girl). I'm guessing it's a phonetic spelling of something but no idea what!

*You've really never heard of the name Filebox? It's one of my all time faves - elegant and classic and just so timeless... It's really famous too - loads of well known Fileboxes out there.

it's the Anglicization of the french name Fleur Beau (beautiful flower) and is part of Arthurian legend. Filebox lived in the Wyre forest and was amazing with a bow and arrow. She was kidnapped by a giant and held captive. He wanted to marry her - but she said he had to let him shoot for her freedom. He could pick a target and if she couldn't shoot it down she would marry him - if she could she would be allowed to leave. He agreed and told her to shoot down the moon. She insisted on being giving a month to prepare and then - on the last night of the old moon - she shot an arrow, just as the sun was rising. The moon disappeared from the sky, and when it did not rise the next night - she claimed to have succeed. They travelled across the forest for three days, looking for the moon - one night she saw the new moon reflected in a lake and called the giant over. She showed him the moon at the bottom of the lake and he agreed to let her go.

famous Fileboxes throughout history have included Filebox Macgregor - the first woman to climb Ben Nevis, and Filebox Pinkerton Smythe - who invented the paper clip.

*This entire post may in fact be 100% bullshit. Filebox is a ridiculous non-name. I was just feeling trollish.

To answer the actual question.. I only know grandparents and one set of great grandparents. Irene, Doris and Jessie and Harry, Walter and Daniel.
Nothing exciting or unusual there.

Jessie, Maud, Katherine, Mabel, Marjorie,Leah ,Henrietta, Lily.
And for men, Bernard,Ralph, Maurice, Leonard, Lionel,Harry ( lots of Harrys), Frederick. In DH' s family, Frederick and William recur.