1900 New Jersey Report of Death. Request for Help Deciphering Forename of Mother

[Treetotal]

Possibly Wise.
Carol

[ajm314159]

James could be a family name, of course.

But it's true that if the father's given name appears as “Name of Father” then there's every reason to expect a given name for Mother too, especially where it doesn't say Maiden Name.

What is the practice on other instances of the same form, perhaps in the same clerk's hand?

If it is an Irish forename, how about Ulna?

[Lisa in California]

James could be a family name, of course.

But it's true that if the father's given name appears as “Name of Father” then there's every reason to expect a given name for Mother too, especially where it doesn't say Maiden Name.

What is the practice on other instances of the same form, perhaps in the same clerk's hand?

If it is an Irish forename, how about Ulna?

By checking one of the “pay sites”, and searching for “report of death”, “New Jersey” and “1900”, I only found two other (unrelated to Higgins) reports of death in family trees. (I could not find reports of death unless I checked family trees.) They had father’s full name and mother’s full (married) name.

Would it be possible to reverse the image (sorry I don’t know the correct term), please, to show white paper with black ink?  It might be easier to read. 

[Lisa in California]

I found several more under documents and screenshots:
Only father’s surname was written down when a surname was included (example: John Smith, Jane Smith).  Otherwise, they just had first name and in one case, first name and middle initial.

So, it is possible that maryalex’s image could be a first name.

[ShaunJ]

Inverted image

[Gadget]

An outside possible  ~

There is such a name as Wera, a form of Vera. However, I think it's originally Polish 

[arthurk]

Or how about Wine? I've never seen it before, but could it be a variant of Winnie, with the spelling more or less aligned to the first part of the full name Winifred?

[Lisa in California]

ShaunJ, thank you for inverting the image.

This is a stretch, but keeping in mind Irish naming patterns…

I found an online tree for Dominic.  He had two daughters, the second one was named Winifred.  Is it possible that the word in question could be Wini or Wine (not how I would spell it, but…) - putting down her nickname instead of Winifred.

Just a thought. 

You beat me to it, arthurk!

[ShaunJ]

Is it possible that the word in question could be Wini or Wine (not how I would spell it, but…) - putting down her nickname instead of Winifred.

It must be something like that. It looks like Wine or Wire. Possibly Ware.