
Today is not just the anniversary of the first manned space flight. It’s also the anniversary of the start of the Civil War. (They were exactly 100 years apart, in fact.)
I’ve seen military names catch on as baby names during times of war, so I was curious to know if this had happened during the Civil War. The problem? The war ended in 1865, so all that easy-to-access SSA data, which only dates back to 1880, wouldn’t be of any help.
But census data would work. And economist Douglas Galbi has made things easy for me: he’s used 19th-century census data to come up with lists of popular given names, sorted by decade of birth. Talk about convenient.
Using only data from the 1880 census, I looked up the following Civil War-related names:
- Abraham & Lincoln – Abraham Lincoln was the leader of the Union
- Jefferson & Davis – Jefferson Davis was the leader of the Confederacy
- Ulysses & Grant – Ulysses S Grant commanded the Union Army at the end of the war
- Robert & Lee – Robert E. Lee commanded the Confederate Army at the end of the war
- William & Sherman – William T. Sherman was a Union general
- Elmer & Ellsworth – Elmer E. Ellsworth was an early Union casualty
Here’s what I found. An x indicates “fewer than ten.” Also, keep in mind that the number of births overall increased significantly from decade to decade — 20,862 the first decade, 36,188 the second, 48,000 the third and 64,041 the fourth.
Name | 1841-50 | 1851-60 | 1861-70 | 1871-80 |
Abraham: Lincoln: | 78 x | 89 11 | 105 35 | 83 x |
Jefferson: Davis: | 24 10 | 26 12 | 74 25 | 38 x |
Ulysses: Grant: | x x | x x | 15 94 | 10 43 |
Robert: Lee: | 349 15 | 602 33 | 887 109 | 1,268 104 |
William: Sherman: | 1,732 x | 3,114 x | 4,704 70 | 5,693 30 |
Elmer: Ellsworth: | x x | 24 x | 232 21 | 161 x |
So it seems as though the Civil War did indeed give certain names a boost.
I was most surprised by Elmer. Elmer E. Ellsworth, though not well-known nowadays, captured the nation’s attention in early days of the war. He was killed in mid-1861 while trying to confiscate a Confederate flag. Here’s how the NYT ended Ellsworth’s obituary:
He has been assassinated! His murder was fearfully and speedily revenged. He has lived a brief but an eventful, a public and an honorable life. His memory will be revered, his name respected, and long after the rebellion shall have become a matter of history, his death will be regarded as a martyrdom, and his name will be enrolled upon the list of our country’s patriots.
According to Wikipedia, Ellsworth’s death inspired thousands of men to enlist. His many namesakes include U.S. Commissioner of Education Elmer Ellsworth Brown (1861-1934), artist Elmer Ellsworth Garnsey (1862-1964), Minnesota legislator Elmer Ellsworth Adams (1861-1950), and pro baseball player Elmer Ellsworth “Mike” Smith (1868-1945).
Source: “Obituary; Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth.” New York Times 25 May 1861.
*
UPDATE, 6/15/15: Turns out that the data I used for this post isn’t so reliable after all. (See the comments here for specifics.)
So here are some new numbers — basically, search “hits” for these names on the 1880 Census (via FamilySearch) grouped by birth year. These aren’t perfect either, but I think they’re an improvement.
Let’s go backwards…
Elmer & Ellsworth:
1841-50 | 1851-60 | 1861-70 | 1871-80 | |
Elmer: Ellsworth: | 767 55 | 2,686 128 | 21,464 2,516 | 16,848 878 |
And here are the year-by-year “hits” on Elmer specifically:
- 1856: 236 babies named Elmer
- 1857: 259 babies named Elmer
- 1858: 325 babies named Elmer
- 1859: 388 babies named Elmer
- 1860: 605 babies named Elmer
- 1861: 2,533 babies named Elmer
- 1862: 3,964 babies named Elmer
- 1863: 2,665 babies named Elmer
- 1864: 2,097 babies named Elmer
- 1865: 1,617 babies named Elmer
William & Sherman:
1841-50 | 1851-60 | 1861-70 | 1871-80 | |
William: Sherman: | 203,072 305 | 313,786 523 | 413,820 7,864 | 451,502 3,151 |
Robert & Lee:
1841-50 | 1851-60 | 1861-70 | 1871-80 | |
Robert: Lee: | 38,445 3,423 | 57,213 6,171 | 83,640 17,930 | 109,409 25,661 |
Ulysses & Grant:
1841-50 | 1851-60 | 1861-70 | 1871-80 | |
Ulysses: Grant: | 49 209 | 63 324 | 2,003 11,819 | 811 5,309 |
Jefferson & Davis:
1841-50 | 1851-60 | 1861-70 | 1871-80 | |
Jefferson: Davis: | 2,020 718 | 3,109 1,094 | 7,075 2,356 | 3,270 1,713 |
Abraham & Lincoln:
1841-50 | 1851-60 | 1861-70 | 1871-80 | |
Abraham: Lincoln: | 4,411 74 | 5,071 663 | 7,951 4,292 | 5,482 620 |
If anyone has any tips on using the U.S. census to get relatively accurate data on first names (only), I’m all ears!
I had a great-great-grandfather named Elmer Ellsworth LN. I never knew that was a name of someone famous.
Oh, and he was born in 1886.
@Elizabeth – That’s cool. The fact that he was born 25 years after the incident occurred makes me wonder if his father had the name as well and was passing it down.
No, his father was named David.
I guess his parents were just late-adopters, then. :)
I know three little boys named Lincoln, one named Abraham (nm Abe) and two named Grant. I personally really like Lincoln the best of all those.
I know someone named Abraham, too. He’s my brother actually.
I am planning on naming my baby boy Jefferson Davis Bowden! I am a history author, my dad is a history author and I want all my children to have historical, but practical names. With jefferson Davis Bowden, he can go by Jeff or JB if he wishes. Yet he still has a historic name. When one researches Jeff Davis one really knows he is not the evil man our public schools and mainstream historical works have made him out to be.
From a ’20s Cosmo:
Source: Kelly, Fred C. “Do We Like to Be Fooled?” Cosmopolitan March 1921: 65-67, 149-152.
I named my son Jefferson Davis (JD) and my daughter Alexandra Stephanie, after Alexander Stephans the VP of the confederacy. Never really knew thy had a VP but should have just figured it. You never really hear about him unless you read history books about the civil war. If I ever have any more children, they will have some sort of civil war name.
The father of game show host Allen Ludden was named Elmer Ellsworth. (He died in the flu epidemic of 1918-1919.)
My great-grandfather was Elmer Ellsworth Billings. He was born in 1868. My grandfather Dewey Elmer Billings was named after Admiral Dewey, who was a distant relative. My Grandpa Dewey was born on 30 April 1898, the day Admiral Dewey sailed into Manila Bay and attacked the Spanish fleet. As my uncle was also named Elmer. There are no more Deweys, Elmers, or Ellsworth in our families.
@Cheri – Two history-inspired names in a row in your family tree — how cool! Here’s a post with more info on the name Dewey (and Admiral, and Manila, etc.).
Discovered the other day that there was an artist named Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923). Looks like he was named after his maternal grandfather Curran Ellsworth Githens, who was born circa 1861.