Jonathan and Patience Sprague of Douglas, Massachusetts, welcomed a baby boy on October 16, 1790.
They named him Federal Constitution Sprague.
Why?
Well, he was born a year after the U.S. Constitution went into effect. (It had been was created in 1787 and ratified in 1788.)
As one source put it, “Federal Constitution Sprague evidently had a father to whom the new nation meant something. He was interested evidently in the document for which he named his son.”
Yes, evidently. :)
None of Federal Constitution’s 13 siblings, nine full siblings and four half-siblings, got a name as notable (or as patriotic) as his:
- Sarah
- Nehemiah
- Mercy
- Federal Constitution
- Amy
- Daniel
- Preserved
- Lee
- Patience
- Jonathan, Jr.
- Almira
- Philinda
- Elias
- Emeline
F.C. ended up having a dozen children, ten from his first marriage and two from his second, but didn’t pass his unique name down to any of them:
- Amy
- Edward
- Nathan
- William
- Lafayette
- Betsey
- James
- Philander (twin)
- Philinda (twin)
- Elias
- Newton
- Della
I’ve also found a handful of other people named Constitution (or some variation thereof). Most were born in France in the 1790s, around the time France adopted several new constitutions during the French Revolution. Several other Constitutions were from countries in South America. One was born in New South Wales in 1855, the year of the New South Wales Constitution Act.
Sources:
- Crane, Ellery Bicknell. Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester County Massachusetts. New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1907.
- Sprague, Augustus B. R. Genealogy in part of the Sprague Families in America. Worcester, MA: Augustus B. R. Sprague, 1902.
Image: Archives.gov