Amazing names from your family tree

[OrangeAndYellowAndBlue]

Following a conversation at work today.

I had an (great great ?) Aunty Ceinwen. Much further back on the family tree we found a Rosina, which I thought was rather pretty.

A colleague recently discovered he had a distant cousin with the first name Macdara, which is apparently a local Irish saint, and means Son of Oak!

Any cool or unusual names from way back in your family tree?

Livingstone as middle name and Love as a middle name. Both female and a male Clem.

Last names as middle names is very common in Scottish families - my grandfather's middle name was "Smith" which was his mother's maiden name.

Both of my children have a surname as one of their middle names. DH's grandfather was killed during WWII when his son (DH's dad) was just 2 years old. His mother remarried and DH's dad took his stepfather's surname so we decided to give our children the "real" surname as a middle name to ensure that it was remembered.

Marmaduke and Bathsheba

We have a Fanny Payne! Obviously didn't have the same connotations in those days..

@ElEmEnOhPee not mine I don't think. There are 107 entries in the 1837-1915 birth index, and 65 in the 1916-2007 (including several in the 60s, at least one in the 80s and a couple this century).

Quite a few of my Scottish relatives had Darling as a middle name - after Grace Darling who was very much a popular heroine.

DH has an ancestor called Alonzo Dingle!
I have Shakesby ancestors, which I love.

@SallyOMalley

I have a Keren-Happuch and a Keziah.

You'd think that, with a name like Keren-Happuch and a fairly uncommon surname, this particular relative would be jumping off the ancestry records. But .... nope. She simply disappears.

My Great Great Grandmother was called Kerenhappuch! It appears to have been a relatively popular name in the Victorian era. In the Bible Kerenhappuch was one of the three beautiful daughters of Job.

Keturah, Hepzibah, Mahala, Easter, Willoughby (definitely female), Bethia, Meriel, Rosella, Florrie (full name, not a shortening)

Men: Cuthbert, Shem, Esau, Ishmael, Josiah, Water, Samson, Nelson

I suspect Easter could have been an Esther and Water a Walter, but will never know for sure.

There's also a huge number of spelling variations of common, mostly female, names (Honour, Harriot, Phillis, Catherne, Marriane)

I notice quite a few posters also have a Mahala in their family tree. It's not a name I'd heard before so it's interesting that it seems to not have been that unusual.

Constance is name that goes way back in our family tree. It was my mum, grandmother and great grandmother's middle name, but it goes but several more generations. I gave it to my dd for her middle name as well. I really love it.

Altamont
Cysline
Cobey (female)

Absalom.
Kezia
Loveday
Naomi
Honora

my personal favourite. .. 'Christmas' .. and yes he was born on Xmas day!

And twenty million Mary's and Hannah's of course.

I had a male relative who’s middle name was Kerrice because his mother had heard the name Cerys and didn’t know how it was spelt.

Cuthbert. Ida. Doreen. Connie. Edgar.

Betty Battye.

I have a great great grandma who was 'blessed' with the name Euphemia .. (thank God always known as Mia... )

I am forever grateful to have been born female. Firstborn males have been saddled with the name “Borrodell” either as a first or a middle name. It has been passed down for many generations with an inheritance. My brother’s share was $26 AUD. Not worth it. As my uncle and brother did not procreate, I think that the branch has withered on our side of the tree.

I was told once that it was fashionable to give your children biblical or old testament names because it showed you were literate and had read the Bible.
I know a Ceinwen and a Gwenllian both in their 20s. They're Welsh names.
I have a Hunter (m) and Vida (f)

I had a Great Aunt Keturah known as Kitty. Not sure why she got such a biblical name when the others were more mainstream names!

One ancestor was called German. No connections to Germany whatsoever. Seems a really odd name.

@OneWildNightWithJBJ Jellicoe sounds like a family surname being used as a middle name to me (you see it quite often, sometimes to preserve the mother's maiden name or something like that). If so, it can be a great clue in unearthing other branches of your family!

@Bettybantz yep we have an Alexander Septimus in our tree; it helped me uncover the fact that he was the seventh child, I managed to locate the other 6 siblings during my research. It was quite common (for example the doctor in George Eliot's Middlemarch is called Tertius, pronounced Tershus, which means third in Latin).

@TerrifiedandWorried yes Shafto is known for Bobby Shafto in the folk song of the same name, and Shafto Crags is a hillside in Northumberland.

Not from my family tree but in the 1851 census my ancestors lived on the same street as the Bastard family....

Ancestry has added it as a possible typo of Bustard but its very clear from the original image that it is Bastard. As the surname in the family listing below has a 'u' in it which is written very differently from an 'a'.

I also struggled with an ancestor who was referred to a Saunder or Sander in various documents and I couldn't work out who he was or how he fitted into my tree.

Then after watching a very early episode of Pointless when Richard Osman called Alexander Armstrong Sander/Xander the penny dropped and it all made sense.

And Paige was also a boy's name in the 18th century apparently. I was a bit surprised when 'she' got married to a young lady and had several children.... Lesson learned. Assume nothing!