Central to the Christmas story are the prophecies that foretold the coming of Jesus and by what names He would be known. Joseph was told in a dream to call Him Jesus, very much like Zechariah was told to call his son John, much to the surprise of the rest of his family. Our names are usually the one thing about our identity that we have little control over, not usually being able to speak or give an opinion when our parents register our birth. Oh how important a name is when you are a family or local historian. Oh how fortunate those are who stumble upon a more unusual name. Instead of the long line of Williams and Thomases and Johns, or the even longer line of Marys and Elizabeths and Janes, to have a more obscure name. So this month I am looking at some of the more out of the ordinary names I have come across in my researches. I am not unusual in having a maiden aunt called Gladys. This seems to have been a girl's name that was all the rage around the late 1800s to early 1900s. Here she is in 1911 with her father George Gill and brothers Robert and George. Why did they choose Gladys ? Evidently a name with Welsh origins. When her widowed father married his sister in law Isabella (it was legal after 1907) Gladys had three more brothers, John, Leonard and Richard (Dick). Nothing unusual there, but they had picked what must have been quite an exotic name for the only girl, or so I thought. In 1911 there were seven other Gladys Gills in County Durham. The first registrations for the name Gladys were all in Wales, but by the 1860s it was creeping out of Wales to London and Liverpool and the Midlands, mind you, some had the surname Jones. Between 1870 and 1880 the name was still predominantly Welsh, but had spread to all registration districts across the country, and from the 1880s onwards it just grew in popularity. When did Gladys go out of fashion ? Will it ever come back again ? This name is Evina, although she signed herself Vina Gill. Where did the name Evina come from ? This Evina Gill was born in Cotherstone in Teesdale. Here she is in 1901 a scholar boarding in Barnard Castle. She was born in 1889 to Richard Gill (or butcher Dick) after whom my father was named, so was a cousin of Gladys and all her brothers. Who was the first Evina and where did she live ? This is 1871 in Middleham, Angelo James Croft and his wife Mary (nee Gill) had children James Percy, Evina, Duterau, Thomas Lister and then later Honor Gill Croft. So this Evina christened on the 9th October 1863 by the Methodist Minister in Middleham, was the first in the family that I know of. Now Angelo Croft, having a rather exotic name himself, obviously liked unusual names, but where did it come from ? Sadly this Evina Croft did not live a long life and died in 1883 aged 19 years. But the name became established in the family for a short while. James Percy Croft then named his daughter after his deceased sister, Evina Ruth Croft, keeping the name going for another generation. Curious to know how popular the name Evina was and searching in the indexes of registrations, it appears from the 1840s almost exclusively in the Todmorden registration district, then by the 1860s edging out into the Pennine districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Who was the first Evina ? Of course searching for a name in transcribed sources relies on the accuracy of the indexer, which often leaves much to be desired. In the 1841 census there was a 28 year old Evina Maddock in Staffordshire working in a silk mill, that is the earliest I have found before it took over in Todmorden. Was there a link between Todmorden and Middleham ? Yes there was. Mary Croft nee Gill, Evina's mother, had a sister who had gone to work and then married and lived in Todmorden, married a man called Abraham Holt, but called her daughter Rebecca. Did she visit Middleham with a friend called Evina .... ? Another unusual name, this time on my mother's side of the family, was Lucretia. Here she is getting married to Joseph Elston in Coventry, Warwickshire. Here is Lucretia with her family in 1841, they were ribbon weavers, and , oh horror - Lucretia has an I in the column for place of birth, she was born in Ireland, and sadly I have not chased her line any further back. But going forward she was quite good to follow, leaving Coventry with her husband and children to work in the textile mills in Lancashire before moving to Keighley then Bradford in the West Riding. This picture is by John White [1851 - 1933] and is called The Village Christening and is in The Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield and on the ArtUk website. If you visit the market town of Hawes you will see right in the middle of the town the shop called Elijah Allen & Son. I have always thought this quite unusual. How wrong I was ! Here is Elijah in 1881 in Hawes with his father Thomas Allen, grocer. But, this combination of names was not unusual. Looking in the 1881 census there are dozens, if not scores, of Elijah Allens across the country from East Anglia through the Midlands to Wales. Were they all connected or was it a popular name ? Some names in the Yorkshire dales are linked to particular families for generation after generation and are quite unusual, Ottiwell or Ottivel as a boys name is one, another is Oswald; others are Lancelot, Parcival, Ralph, Tristram. When you find these with different surnames, you can usually find a marriage link. Other families favoured Biblical names, particularly from the Old Testament. But once again, a name combination that I thought unusual proved not to be. Every generation of the Pickards in Coverdale had a Bartholomew. Here is part of the Pickard family (they had a lot of children) at Gammersgill in 1841 with parents Thomas and Elizabeth and son Bartholomew. I had traced the origin of the Coverdale Pickards back to Masham where a Bartholomew Pickard was baptised in 1692 and came to marry a Coverdale lass in 1716. I was very surprised then to discover a whole dynasty of Bartholomew Pickards in Devon ! The North Devon Record Office catalogue abounds with them and they turn up in censuses from Devon to Northumberland. Were they connected or was it conincidence that the name appeared in both Masham in Yorkshire and Devon ? Does anyone know ? Whilst we are in Masham, this is the bust of Abstrupus Danby on the memorial in St Mary's Church, Masham. What a fantastic name for researchers. The Danby family had been Lords of the Manor for centuries, originally coming from Farnley. They had quite a colourful history and were responsible for Swinton Park (now a hotel and place of fine dining). The first Abstrupus Danby lived from 1655 - 1727, followed by another Abstrupus Danby and then a third Abstrupus Danby. Because they were all very litigious their names crop up on endless documents when they had disputes with neighbours. Strangely I also found out about the first Abstrupus from an article on the Twickenham Museum website . In the marriage registers for Middleham in 1866 a Mr Stevenson married a Miss Wellock, they then moved to Richmond. Mr Stevenson was called George, Miss Wellock was called Azubah Kerenhappuch. Mr and Mrs Wellock certainly had imagination when naming their children, they had others. Their son was called John. Did he feel cheated when his sisters had such exotic names ? In 1841 the parents John and Mary Wellock were in Addingham, John a woolstapler. They had three daughters, Zeruiah, Atarah and Azubah. Zeruiah Betty had been born in West Burton and her birth was recorded in the Society of Friends monthly meeting book. A note at the bottom of the page said "not in membership" but certainly there was some Old Testament influence on the names of the Wellock daughters. After Azubah Kerenhappuch they then had another daughter called Keziah Hazzelelponi. The girls have been very hard to follow because no indexer gets their names correct (not having studied the Old Testament I think), but here in 1861 two of the Wellock girls were in domestic service in Aston in Warwickshire, Atarah and Keziah. So how did John Wellock find these strange names ? Go and get your Bible and check these out. The first few chapters of the first book of Chronicles must have been John Wellock's favourite reading, this is where it lists all the names of the ancient tribes of Israel and 1 Chron: 2 v 16 says that Zeruiah was a daughter of Jesse and therefore a sister of King David. She crops up in other parts of the Old Testament too. John Wellock stayed on the same page for his next daughter as Atarah is named in 1 Chronicles 2 v 26. Azubah comes in the first book of Kings chapter 22 verse 42 as mother of Jehosophat. But Azubah had two names - Kerehappuch was the third daughter of Job, named in the last chapter, 42 verse14. John Wellock's fourth daughter was calked Keziah, who was another daughter of Job, with the additional name of Hazzelelponi which takes us back to the first book of Chronicles, chapter 4 verse 3, another chapter with lists of names ! This picture is by Edward Bird [1772 - 1819] and is called The Christening and is at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery. There sems to be a lot of activity and a very naughty child dropping his hat. The last unusual name has classical origins, Hercules. A name I associate with Steptoe and Son's horse! but in mythology a man of great strength, so perhaps appropriate to be given to a miner. When I was doing some demographic work on miners in the dales I came across Hercules Lee when he was in Middleham in 1861 Here is Hercules in 1861 in Middleham, a Lead Miner with a son also Hercules also a Lead Miner. The Hercules senior had married for the second time in 1856 to Isabella, and said that his father was also called Hercules Lee and was a miner. So that is three successive generations of Hercules in the Lee family. Miners were itinerant and moved around, often transfering their skills from lead mining to coal, and Hercules Lee born in 1820 in Middlesmoor in Nidderdale ended up in the County Durham coal fields.
This is by William Redmore Bigg [1755 - 1828] and is called Christening the Heir and is at the Yale Centre for British Art. As the ceremony was in a private house the child would be received later in a service in the church.
So names are all part of the fun of research, but an even more perplexing problem arises when a person is known by a "pet" name or diminutive of their registered name. I remember a riddle from childhood - Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy and Bess, they all went together to find a bird's nest; They found a bird's nest with five eggs in it, they all took one - how many were left ? The answer of course was four. How often a child was christened with one name but the family immediately called it something else ! it adds to the confusion in finding people, but that is part of the thrill of the chase. In the meantime do you know WHY you were given the name that was chosen for you ? Do tell !
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January 2024
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