Your 2012 Baby Name Guide: Puritan Edition
by Sarah Marshall
“There is the most distinct evidence that during the latter portion of Elizabeth’s reign, the whole of James’s reign, and great part of a Charles’s reign … there prevailed, amongst a certain class of English religionists, a practice of baptizing children by scriptural phrases, pious ejaculations, or godly admonitions.”
— Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature, by Charles Wareing Endell Bardsley, pub. 1888
1. Helpless Henley
2. Repent Durant
3. Wrestling Brewster
4. Restore Weeks
5. Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith White
6. Kill-sin Pimple
7. Preserved Fish
8. Hope-for Bending
9. Flye-debate Smart
10. Much-mercie Harmer
11. Thankfull Thorpe
12. Safe-on-Highe Hopkinson (Bardsley’s note: “The child was buried a few days later. From the name given the father seems to have expected the event.”)
13. Sin-Deny Outtered
14. Anger Bull
15. Continent Walker
16. Hate-ill Wood
17. Replenish French
18. Called Lower
19. Hope-still Peedle
20. Humiliation Hinde
21. Abuse-not Collyer
22. Faithful Teate
23. Repentance Water
24. Vyctorye Buttres
25. Buried Sence Muschamp
26. Creature Cheeseman
27. Magnyfye Beard
28. If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned (known familiarly as “Dr. Damned”) Barebone
29. Battalion Shotbolt
30. Die-Well Sykes
31. Weakly Ekins
32. Lament Fox
33. Redivivia Mathews
34. Sorry-for-sin Coupard
35. No-merit Vynall
36. Lively Moody
37. Abstinence Pougher
38. Obey Larkford
39. Humble Ward
40. Faint-not Blatcher
41. Wealthy Whathing
42. Unfeigned Panckhurst
43. Clemency Chawncey
44. Vitalis Engaine
45. Love Appletree
Bardsley notes in the epilogue:
“English Puritanism must stand the guilty cause of much modern humour, not to say extravagance, in American name-giving…. Robert New has his sons christened Nothing and Something. Price becomes Sterling Price; Carrol, Christmas Carrol; Mixer, Pepper Mixer; Hopper, Opportunity Hopper; Ware, China Ware; Peel, Lemon Peel; Codd, Salt Codd; and Gentle, Always Gentle. It used to be said of the English House of Commons that there were in it two Lemons with only one Peel…. We have, too, Cannon Ball, Dunn Brown, Friend Bottle (London Directory), and River Jordan, not to mention two brothers named Jolly Death and Sudden Death, the former of whom figured in a trial lately as a witness.”
Previously: The Civil War General Edition.
Sarah Marshall is a graduate student living in Portland, Oregon.
Image courtesy Reed