General Chat

Has anyone noticed unusual names on this site.I know sometimes its to do with where people live or occupation but some are so strange. Anyone any thoughts on this. I met a Whitekiller.As you can guess she was from American Indian descent so that was occupation related. Margaret

Hello Margaret, Have found a Nightingale (first name) in the tree, knew an Olive atkinson, came from Clavering, Essex!..

Yes, fancy calling your child 'Unknown'. There are loads of those on this site!! I haven't had anything really odd but my best one is Euphemia. My son misheard and thought she was called Euthanasia. Mandy :))

morning i have euphrates, beulah, adelaide, and yesterday i added poor hester hooker fancy living with a name like that[no offense to hooker surnames] lol sandra

I've read that after the Normans conquered Britain people began to select from a much more limited range of first names - apparently in the 13th century about 30% of men were called WILLIAM, and a large number JOHN. Thomas is also a favourite, and girls are often Eliza/Elizabeth, Susan/Susanna. I have a very limited number of names in my tree and nearly all my gt gt grandads are William, and my gt gt grandmothers Susanna! Because of the limited number, surnames began to be used. But I have found whole villages with only a handful of first and surnames. I suppose when everyone knew everyone else it was easier to know which John Smith you meant. So it is good to have some unusual ones. I have two grandfathers with very distinctive 1st names - one is EMMETS, which I think must be a mother's maiden name, and the other is JEUEL, which occurs once in the Bible. Since the surnames of these chaps were Matthews and Gray it is v. helpful in identifying them. In Jane Austen's family, the names are all traditional - James, George, Edwards, Jane, Henry - the exception was her sister CASSANDRA, which was a family name. On my husband's side, he has a step-great-great grandmother (so no blood relative at all) with the delightful name of LETITIA LEDGER! nell

My maternal grandfather's father was called Charles Raffel TIVERS. Most of the male Tivers in the line had relatively unusual middle names (Gustavus, Gideon) but G Grandfather is the only Raffel. I can't find any other reference to it in my line - no maiden name etc. My grandmother used to say his parents won him in a raffle! Sue

my gedcom shows,Presley,annikka,vikionkorpi,breed ,hooker,huckle,ketchca ,snowdon,fountain,dear,scruby,cesari,lamoine,pate,and albone,no wonder i have nightmares.lol. Fred.ptfg.

Hi all I have a Stenhous Stark as the mother of one of my gggg grandfathers. I think it might be wrong though as I have put Stenhous in as a given name in all the name searches I can think of and there aren't any others. Lynne

I've got Pilgrim as a first name. Wonder if his father was a preacher? Magsx

I love the first names of Mahetable and Faithful. Joy

A lot of first names in my tree are repeated across the generations, Alice, Hannah, Sarah, John, Edward, Henry and so on. Whats interesting is that there are some Nicholas's quite far back, and my cousin is called Nicholas, and I had an Auntie Minnie - Minnie, Minerva being the Roman goddess of wisdom, and my daughter has the name of her Greek equivalent. Strange or what? Lisa

I have Philidelphia and Jasne names in my tree. Unfortunately no one on the Scottish side of my tree has unusual names and with common surnames they're really hard to find.

my foster family dad's gran was called fanny titinsaw yep i thought that was funny to when i first heard it