I once worked for a year for the local office of the Department of Work and Pensions, the Records department. It was pretty routine and I spent my day filing large folders of personal information on long racks of shelving.
For someone interested in names, though, it was fascinating. There was the usual character who had changed his name to Elvis Presley – ever town has at least one – as well as problems deciding which part of a Muslim or Sikh name counts as the surname and the frequent mixing up of ‘Macs’ and ‘Mcs’.
I found somebody once whose surname was ‘De La Pole’. I informed my colleagues, who by now were used to my eccentricities, that if Richard III had not killed at Bosworth, murdered as I see it, the throne of England might have passed to the De La Pole who was the son of Richard’s sister.
I used to say that the records were a marvellous resource for students researching surname distribution throughout the country. And the section devoted to Retirement Pensioners would have been useful to anyone interested in the changing fashions in first names. I remember all the seventy year-old women called Rose, Pearl, Doris, Iris, Mavis – flowers, jewels, birds, nymphs, etc. And of course, names from the Bible were once very popular.
I think perhaps the most popular woman’s name seventy years ago was ‘May’, but oddly seldom as a first name. I was usually added to another, Daisy May, Sarah May, Laura May, etc. (Pause for ribald jokes).
I was thinking about this when I was perusing one of the charts Susan sent me.
I was particularly intrigued by Thomas and Ruth (b 1794 and 1795).
Apart from names, I noticed first that Thomas seems to have been a posthumous son, born (or baptised?) in 1795, the year after John died.
Thomas, unlike his father, lived to a ripe old age, as did his wife Ruth, 87 and 79 respectively. Maybe this is because they were country folk, plenty of fresh air and hard work, partly protected from the diseases of the towns. No doubt their food was plain and simple, with plenty of vegetables, if not fruit. Lincolnshire people, however poor, have usually had plenty to eat.
I wonder if they were even then god-fearing people, forswearing drink and tobacco, although I find it difficult to imagine Thomas without a pipe.
And then there are all those children, the last, Samuel being born when Ruth was 46. Another lesson there in longevity, perhaps. Samuel himself lived to be 80. He and his father spanned three centuries, just.
It’s interesting that they had two sons called Joseph. I assume this is because the first died. I hadn’t noticed people doing this before except in mediaeval royal families. I think Edward III lost children and later gave their name to another child. As I recall, he and also King John used to use the same names for their illegitimate children, so that they had two or more families growing up in parallel.
The names Thomas gave to his children are all pretty standard for the times and are not uncommon today. I wonder if Princes William and Henry will lead a revival of those names, which oddly were the names of Thomas’ first two sons. His daughters were Sarah, Susanna and Ann, names still in use, with variants.
Only Cornelius is intriguing. I wonder if anyone knows why it was chosen. Did Thomas like classical history and read about the Punic Wars? Has it been passed down like so many Hundleby Christian names?
For someone interested in names, though, it was fascinating. There was the usual character who had changed his name to Elvis Presley – ever town has at least one – as well as problems deciding which part of a Muslim or Sikh name counts as the surname and the frequent mixing up of ‘Macs’ and ‘Mcs’.
I found somebody once whose surname was ‘De La Pole’. I informed my colleagues, who by now were used to my eccentricities, that if Richard III had not killed at Bosworth, murdered as I see it, the throne of England might have passed to the De La Pole who was the son of Richard’s sister.
I used to say that the records were a marvellous resource for students researching surname distribution throughout the country. And the section devoted to Retirement Pensioners would have been useful to anyone interested in the changing fashions in first names. I remember all the seventy year-old women called Rose, Pearl, Doris, Iris, Mavis – flowers, jewels, birds, nymphs, etc. And of course, names from the Bible were once very popular.
I think perhaps the most popular woman’s name seventy years ago was ‘May’, but oddly seldom as a first name. I was usually added to another, Daisy May, Sarah May, Laura May, etc. (Pause for ribald jokes).
I was thinking about this when I was perusing one of the charts Susan sent me.
I was particularly intrigued by Thomas and Ruth (b 1794 and 1795).
Apart from names, I noticed first that Thomas seems to have been a posthumous son, born (or baptised?) in 1795, the year after John died.
Thomas, unlike his father, lived to a ripe old age, as did his wife Ruth, 87 and 79 respectively. Maybe this is because they were country folk, plenty of fresh air and hard work, partly protected from the diseases of the towns. No doubt their food was plain and simple, with plenty of vegetables, if not fruit. Lincolnshire people, however poor, have usually had plenty to eat.
I wonder if they were even then god-fearing people, forswearing drink and tobacco, although I find it difficult to imagine Thomas without a pipe.
And then there are all those children, the last, Samuel being born when Ruth was 46. Another lesson there in longevity, perhaps. Samuel himself lived to be 80. He and his father spanned three centuries, just.
It’s interesting that they had two sons called Joseph. I assume this is because the first died. I hadn’t noticed people doing this before except in mediaeval royal families. I think Edward III lost children and later gave their name to another child. As I recall, he and also King John used to use the same names for their illegitimate children, so that they had two or more families growing up in parallel.
The names Thomas gave to his children are all pretty standard for the times and are not uncommon today. I wonder if Princes William and Henry will lead a revival of those names, which oddly were the names of Thomas’ first two sons. His daughters were Sarah, Susanna and Ann, names still in use, with variants.
Only Cornelius is intriguing. I wonder if anyone knows why it was chosen. Did Thomas like classical history and read about the Punic Wars? Has it been passed down like so many Hundleby Christian names?
Note: Susan tells me that the name 'Cornelius' seems to have been introduced as a Hundleby name from Ruth's family, the Bradleys, as were Susanna and Nathaniel, both Biblical names. But no-one seems to know why Cornelius was chosen originally.
Away from Thomas I notice a use of mother’s maiden names being used as forenames. Bennett Warren Hundleby, for example, and Stanley Truman Hundleby sound very American. I named my own first son, James, Barrett, after his mother, but that was done in conscious imitation.
Interesting link:
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