Absalom, Soloman, Samuel Forenames

[Arranroots]

Again, I'm no expert but I think there are relatively few non-conformist records on the IGI.

Then again - there wasn't as much to non-conform against that far back!!

 

[Darwin]

Thanks arranroots and Darwin. A bit more googling yielded the following:-

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldtestament/section9.rhtml

The names Samuel, Absalom, Soloman, David, Joab, Nathaniel, Jonathon all are central characters in 2 Samuel and are used by the families I am interested in. Anyone would think they took a shine to that particular part of the bible, or perhaps their vicar was obsessed by it and recited it week after week?

Is it possible for you to compare the prevalence of those names in that parish with other neighbouring parishes at the time?

[supermoussi]

Then again - there wasn't as much to non-conform against that far back!!

Puritans still used, and preached in, the main C of E churches as far as I know. It could be a dangerous game though and if a preacher's flock didn't like what they said they could be chased out of their parish or even killed...

Is it possible for you to compare the prevalence of those names in that parish with other neighbouring parishes at the time?

I don't know. That would be interesting though. I can say that that set of names is not used in my other ancestral lines in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Bucks, Berks, Oxon, Herts, etc.

Perhaps a way to do it would be to choose some typical Gloucs names and do quick searches on the IGI to see how much these families used the names? I know very little about Gloucs; can anyone suggest some "old" and plentiful Gloucs surnames??

[Darwin]

I just did a quickie comparison of birth names on Ancestry for the years 1837 - 1857 (couldn't check any earlier)

I chose a relatively popular name like Thomas and then compared it to Solomon and Absalom.

Gloucestershire
The ratio of Solomon to Thomas = 1:128
The ratio of Absalom to Thomas = 1:398

Kent
The ratio of Solomon to Thomas = 1:210
The ratio of Absalom to Thomas = 1:1051

So it looks like those old names are more popular in Gloucester than Kent for 1837 - 1857.

[Celt666]

Odd/unusual names were also very common amongst Romanies,such as Sampson,cinderella etc