What's the oddest name you've found?

[Lionrhod]

I am half expecting to find ancestors for Hyacinth. 

Do let me in on the joke? Maybe it's a UK thing? Here Hyacinth is a lovely flower and also a Greek lover of the god Apollo.

[..claire..]

Hi

Welcome to RootsChat

Here in the UK there was a TV series called Keeping up Appearances, the lead was a character called Hyacinth Bucket.

She would always tell everyone her surname was pronounced Bouquet.

[Lionrhod]

Hi

Welcome to RootsChat

Here in the UK there was a TV series called Keeping up Appearances, the lead was a character called Hyacinth Bucket.

She would always tell everyone her surname was pronounced Bouquet.

Ah a TV show. That makes sense.

Thanks for the welcome!

In my family there aren't a lot of weird names that we've found yet. At least not so far as general western European names. One was Gillette (which does make me wonder if the razor folks owe me a bit of dough on their biz!

Another interesting one is Cathers. We know we are related to Willa Cather and that the family had a big fight (it seems to be a thing our family does every couple generations and has a huge battle) where half the family dropped the s on the end of the surname. I've wondered if they come originally from Cathar (Pyrenees) heretics.

But then we have the Eastern Europeans. Spelling nightmare. I am grateful my grandma never actually married my dad's father because we're looking at Drzewuszewski. Alphabet with a D.

My buddies and I have a joke about some British names/words that seemed appropriate here:

Welsh Wheel of Fortune:

"Give me an L" "Ding ding ding ding!"
"Give me a D" "Ding ding ding!"
"Give me a W" "Ding ding ding!"
"I'd like to buy a vowel." *Failure BEEP noise.*

It's rumored that the Welsh sold all their vowels to the Scotts. 

[dobfarm]

Hi

Welcome to RootsChat

Here in the UK there was a TV series called Keeping up Appearances, the lead was a character called Hyacinth Bucket.

She would always tell everyone her surname was pronounced Bouquet.

It funny you mention 'Keeping up Appearances', just of late, I found an ancestor who married a hubby with a surname of Yates, first thing that sprung to mind was Eddie Yeats of Coronation Street soap played by actor Geoffrey Hughes, and who went on to play Hyacinth Bucket-woman's brother in law Onslow -with an occupation of bone idle, lacey & work shy  . ~~  was hilarious  - UK TV comedy programme"

[Finley 1]

Well my first unusual name was Hepzibah, but I now love it and realise there are lots, then I find Grizel who is my lovely lovely 2nd cousin.

But nowadays, some of the names the transcribers come up with are hilarious. 

xin

My daughters used to tease one of their sisters about being 'Hyacinth'  and she is to this day...

[Maiden Stone]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/09/13/puritan_names_lists_of_bizarre_religious_nomenclature_used_by_puritans.html

"If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned. Praise-God's son, he made a name for himself as an economist. But, for some inexplicable reason, he decided to go by the name Nicolas Barbon."
I choked laughing.

Some of the ones on that list... Oh dear. It does make you wonder what they were referred to in everyday life though.

"Brother" I expect.

[Maiden Stone]

One thing that always bemused me was the use of "Bastard" as a surname... Surely that's not something that one would want to advertise?

And of course Fitz hyphenated onto a name means "bastard son." I agree - why would you want to make that public?

Fitz was Norman-French for son, fils, in a time before surnames. An example of an equivalent surname is Johnson. Neither necessarily indicates illegitimacy.

[Maiden Stone]

Hi

Welcome to RootsChat

Here in the UK there was a TV series called Keeping up Appearances, the lead was a character called Hyacinth Bucket.

She would always tell everyone her surname was pronounced Bouquet.

Ah a TV show. That makes sense.

Thanks for the welcome!

In my family there aren't a lot of weird names that we've found yet. At least not so far as general western European names. One was Gillette (which does make me wonder if the razor folks owe me a bit of dough on their biz!

Another interesting one is Cathers. We know we are related to Willa Cather and that the family had a big fight (it seems to be a thing our family does every couple generations and has a huge battle) where half the family dropped the s on the end of the surname. I've wondered if they come originally from Cathar (Pyrenees) heretics.

But then we have the Eastern Europeans. Spelling nightmare. I am grateful my grandma never actually married my dad's father because we're looking at Drzewuszewski. Alphabet with a D.

My buddies and I have a joke about some British names/words that seemed appropriate here:

Welsh Wheel of Fortune:

"Give me an L" "Ding ding ding ding!"
"Give me a D" "Ding ding ding!"
"Give me a W" "Ding ding ding!"
"I'd like to buy a vowel." *Failure BEEP noise.*

It's rumored that the Welsh sold all their vowels to the Scotts. 

Hyacinth Bucket "pronounced Bouquet" was a massive snob. She went to great lengths to hide her less than respectable family background, with hilarious results. Hyacinth's sisters had floral names too. The actress who played Hyacinth starred in a later TV series as Hetty Wainthrop, a Lancashire housewife turned private detective.

Gillette may have been Gilet or Gillet or Gillot. Possibly French? It's also found in England. A census search of 1841 & 51 shows that 1/4-1/3 were in or from Lancashire, many in the Fylde region of that county. The only other place with a large number was London, but some of those may have originated elsewhere. There were a few in some south-western counties of England. Common spelling of surname in Lancashire was Gillet. Some of the Fylde ones were neighbours and possibly relatives of one of my Fylde families. Many were Catholic. The Fylde remained a strongly Catholic area after the English Reformation.
Have a look at Lancashire Online Parish Clerks and Lancashire BMD sites and you'll find plenty of Gillets/Gillots.  Members of  Catholic Gillet families appear in 18th & early 19th century parish marriage and burial registers. Sometimes their children's births were recorded in baptismal registers. The Catholic Record Society published transcripts of some early Catholic registers 100 years ago. CRS devoted a whole volume of their journal to Fylde registers. 

The Welsh may lack vowels but the Welsh version of Scrabble needs an extra supply of the letter y. 
 

[Erato]

The best in my own family [though only a distant connection] was Martha Washington Centennial Liberty Price, born in July 1876.  I don't have the documentation of her birth or baptism, however, just the word of another family descendant so I can't be sure if she really had those patriotic second, third and fourth names.