02 October 2008

Unfortunate Names

I'm not sure how the conversation came up, (Yes, I am. But it's too long to bother writing about.) but last night we were discussing unfortunate names of people. Or maybe just old names that are most likely NOT going to be revived.

For instance, we are now seeing revivals of the names Emma, Abigail, Isabel(la), Hanna, and Olivia. But I'm pretty sure we're not going to see a revival of names like Maude, Hester, Ichabod or Ebeneezer.

It got me thinking about some of my ancestors' names that are, well, just a bit unfortunate. They are names that when I scroll through my list, I think, "Really? Why?" In the list I've compiled, there are no last names, just first and middle names, so keep that in mind.

And here we go:
  • Rocky Elmira, a female! A lady named Rocky! And to top it off, she gave a few sad names to her kids, like
  • Winnie Pouns,
  • Clyde (A GIRL!), and
  • Rocky Ann. (To be fair, these last three bullets were all my mom's great aunts, and I'm sure they were wonderful people. Wonderful women with very, very unfortunate names!)
  • Young Fair, my third-great grandpa,
  • Maude Viola,
  • Willie Heard, my great grandMA,
  • Phoneta, (No wonder she went by Nettie.)
  • Obedience, (Maybe the parents wished they had given this virtue name to their first few?)
  • Berryman, (a man)
  • Ada Bebdette, (focus on the middle name)
  • Theodocia,
  • Callistus, who named his son none other than,
  • Callistus S.,
  • James Ignatius, (focus on the middle name)
  • Lullus Joseph, whose sister (my great-great grandma) named her DAUGHTER
  • Lullus,
  • Juventius, and
  • Louis Napoleon (still haven't figured this one out, though I've definitely tried).
What wacky names have you got in your family tree?

As a bit of a side-note, I have been working with Eric to get him to be able to name all of his eight great-grandparents. He's slowly getting there. (And don't you find it interesting that I can name them, and he cannot?) Anyway, can you name your eight greats?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I was doing some of our research and saw these names, I was initially appalled. I've since decided that names like these make for really cool nicknames:
Lullus=Louey
Theodocia=Teddie
Callistus=Cal
Juventius=Vinnie (sounds italian?)
Ignatius=Iggy
John

Alicia K said...

i had a friend in Christchurch who called her son Rightous. She wasn't exactly being "rightous" when he was consived, so she somehow thought it appropriate to name him rightous???

Jillian said...

Let's see... how about Missouri Tennessee Mitchell, Jefferson Davis Mitchell, Sterling Price Mitchell, Robert Lee Mitchell.... yes and they are all children from the same family. A little political family there in the 1850s wouldn't you say?

Jana said...

I can name four of my great-grandparents and none of my husband's (coincidentally, the same number of his great-grandparents that he would be able to name).

I'm glad you specified that the reason 'Clyde' was weird was because it was for a girl.

Oh, and I used you (a lot!) in my paper, so there's no need to hate me forever :)