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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Trees on Wednesday 30 January 08 10:35 GMT (UK)
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Is there any particular significance about the family's religious beliefs when they give the children obscure Biblical names? I have a family with the following names
Manoah, Julia, Tabitha, Amila, Johanna, Deliah, Ephraim, Maacah, Timna, and Stacey
The grand children continue in the same vein with repeats of these and Lydia, Hannah, Emma, Sarah , Rachel, Rebecca, Ezekiel , Enoch, Clarke, Juliana, Jemima with a sprinkling of Thomas and James
All are Baptised in various Churches along the Warwick Northampton border the earliest is 1789.
Any ideas?
Bet spell checker has a field day with this lot ;D
Trees
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nearly all romany gypsies gave their children biblical names.i notice you are looking for brays.there are a lot of romany brays in cornwall and in 1851 you ll find a bray in plymouth devon with her child who is down as a hawker.gypsy trade.any help?cathayb
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Cathy B sorry for my delayed answer (I've been away for 5 nights) Interesting that there were Romany Brays in Cornwall All the ones we have found were miners or worked in Stampping grounds My Biblical names are my HAKESLEY family from the midlands They are great names But I wondered if they reflected an evangelical learning they are baptised and married in Cof E I don't remember seeing another Manoah among the ancestors
Trees
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I've got many of those names in my (non-gypsy) family in Norfolk between 1750 and 1850. I think they were more common then. They were non-conformists.
meles
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Right Meles So I think my theory about evangelicals would fit that scenario many thanks
Trees
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Lots of those names and other obscure biblical names turn up in the CofE registers at Dudley. I think they were just more common them. And my Barzillai was a Catholic!
The Bible was probably the only book of names that young parents had to refer to when they had run out of the (obligatory?) family ones. Not like today when you can buy books of names with the meanings, if you are looking for something unusual.
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I'm afraid my first (flippant) thought was that Sundays may not have been a great day of fun for the children .......
Carole
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I have a family of Isaiah, Israel, Rachael etc and I must admit I
thought along the same lines- imigration or jewish extraction.
Interestingly enough they also came from the Midlands - Dudley
so I wonder if these names were just popular in certain areas.
Jinks
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Two lines of my family were particularly keen on the Old Testament names in the 18th and 19th centuries - one lot were Yorkshire Wesleyans (and wealthy industrialists), and the other were from Essex and were Church of England, with a family tradition of being both blacksmiths and parish clerks.
So I think some families simply developed these naming traditions and preferences, and it certainly doesn't mean they were immigrants or were Jewish. In my research generally I have noticed that Old Testament names were popular among non-conformists and, for some reason, in East Anglia.
Anna
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My Hulks and Maynard ancestors from Hertfordshire used a lot of these sorts of names, especially Job and Shadrach. They were mostly Catholic.
My Scowcroft ancestors used names like Isaiah. They were mostly CofE and had some Irish heritage.
Stephen :)
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I'm actually surprised to see Roman Catholics using Biblical names.
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There is a book about the study of forenames in family history ~ have you seen it?
'Christian Names in Local and Family History' by George Redmonds
"... first names can also be highly significant for those tracing genealogies ....
... George Redmonds ... believes that every name has a precise origin and history of expansion, which can be regional or even local; up to c. 1700 it may even have centred on one family. ...."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christian-Names-Local-Family-History/dp/1550025074/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205226982&sr=1-2
I feel sure that I have a copy ~ I'll have a look for it. :)
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Thank you for your ideas everyone I think that book sounds very interesting Tricia will try to get a copy
Trees
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Hiya all
This is an interesting site on the use of names
http://www.rogerdarlington.co.uk/useofnames.html#FIN
Willow x
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Great link many thanks Willow
Trees
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Interestingly enough they also came from the Midlands - Dudley
so I wonder if these names were just popular in certain areas.
Interesting. All of my lot with the more obscure names are also all from the Dudley area.
Zealous, Zilla, Manasseh, Obadiah, Kerenhappuch, Hadnor (though that doesn't sound biblical), Beriah, Dorcas, Gideon, Nimrod, Noah - they are all from the Smith and Steventon families in the Dudley area; mostly all born in the first half of the 19th century.
The other interesting thing that I've noticed with forenames in my tree is a major split between my father's families and my mother's families. My father's families (with the exception of the Dudley ones just mentioned) are all from Lancashire/Yorkshire - and they all have just the one christian name. My mother's families are from further south and the south east, and they very commonly have at least two, often more christian names.
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Hi Aulus I'm desperately trying to find Sarah Steventon who married 1 May 1789 in St Martin's Birmingham should you come across her please give me a shout she is direct line married Joseph Chambers b 1768 Aston
Trees
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The Northants/Warwicks border was a very strong non-conformist area. In those days there was a lot of pressure to have children baptised in the parish church and so even if that happened they could well have been non-conformists who traditionally use old testament names.
For example it was said that there were more chapels than people in Long Buckby. This was obviously not true but it indicates the number of different factions that were around in the area.
David
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David that is exactly where my family lived they are from Willoughby Warwickshire and Braunston Northants but only about 2 miles separates the two villages
I think we have the answer but they marry ...well two of the sisters Tabitha and Maacha two brothers sons of a Church Warden Maacha's husband was also the parish clerk so I think they were evangelical Cof E in keeping with the local mood but not prepared to break from the established order. Many thanks for your local information
Trees
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My Grandfathers siblings all had biblical names..............but you wouldn't expect anything else when the parents were named .......... Mary and Joseph...........!!!
Barbara
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Two of my great grandparents were called Mary and Joseph as well, and they had 13 children, but didn't really use biblical names, instead going for names like Joan, Gerald, Francis and Richard.
Stephen :)
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This is a great thread and has gotten me thinking. I have a Dorcas in my direct line and honestly I had never heard the name before. (And my son is standing over my shoulder having loads of fun with that name.) I haven't done any work on this branch yet as she is my 5x great grandmother and I haven't delved into that branch. Food for thought.
Kath
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As mentioned above, I have a Dorcas and a Zillah in my tree (and fairly close together). I'd never heard the names before I got that far in my family tree, so it was interesting when Lark Rise to Candleford started on BBC1 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/larkrise/) recently, as it has two characters called Dorcas and Zillah! Though my Dorcas and Zillah are early to mid 19th century rather than late 19th century.
Have to say I don't understand children's humour: what's funny about the name Dorcas, Kath? try Kerenhappuch on him!
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My son thought it was rather "dorky" I guess. ::)
Kath
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Hi. Many of my Slingo ancestors from Hampshire had Biblical names: Samuel, Solomon, Isaac, Emmanuel and Jesse and on the female side Sarah and Vashti.
Jenny
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Kath I had to laugh out loud in the library when I found Alice Fanny Minnie bet the children would have too. Has anyone else got a "Salathiel" its a name passed down generation after generation in a N Devon family of otherwise common names Thomas, William, Henry et al
Trees
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Salathiel is a new testament name. See:
http://salathiel.net/origins.html
David
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Thanks David, the author obviously missed my Slathiel Bale in 1881 in Abbotsham Devon ;D He is definitely there He died 1899 and Salathiel John Bale is on 1901
Trees