Biblical names?

[Trees]

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 
Trees

[cathayb]

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

[Trees]

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

[meles]

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

[Trees]

Right Meles So I think my theory about evangelicals would fit that scenario  many thanks
Trees

[DudleyWinchurch]

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.

[Siamese Girl]

I'm afraid my first (flippant) thought was that Sundays may not have been a great day of fun  for the children .......

Carole

[jinks]

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

[avm228]

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