Rather weird question, but anyone good on family history, 19th century etc?

[GrendelsMum]

I've just come across two men, one early nineteenth century, one later nineteenth century, whose first name was 'King'. With the first one (the excellently named King Sparks), I assumed his mother's surname was 'King'. Now I've come across the second one (King Huggeston), I'm starting to wonder if this was actually a name? Or perhaps just a coincidence, and he too had a relative whose surname was King.

Can't really help I'm afraid, but I am interested in the answer. I've always loved the name Isambard Kingdom Brunel...

The normal naming convention was to give the first born son his mother's maiden name as a middle name rather than a first name. That has certainly been borne out by my research anyway.

It could just be a favoured family name. Sometimes children were named after a wealthy relative in the hope that they would leave them a wodge of cash look kindly on them.

Some families just have names they like to hand down from generation to generation. I worked with a woman whose DH's family insisted that all the first born boys were called George. She called her first born DS Oliver

Oi Mumsnet. Yer strikeout thingy aint working!

you have to strike out word individually, not a whole sentence

see, tis fine

But King is such a daft name to give a child, that you really have to hope that the wealthy relatives did indeed cough up lots of dosh.

Aha Mrs Badger, now I understand, thanks.

I would hope they did cough up lots of dosh too GrendelsMum. But I have come across some weird and wonderful names whilst researching my family tree.

My favourite family - who are not related to me but were neighbours of one of my ancestors in a census return - are the Bastard family. And no, they didn't have a son called Robin!

I'm absolutely serious. They were REALLY called that!

My dh's grandfather was called Baron, so perhaps not that strange.

Thanks everyone - I shall continue to dig around and see what I find.

It is a name. King, Baron, Earl and Prince are all listed in my baby names book but I'm not sure how common it was in the 19th century.

There is a person in my family tree with the first name Sparks.