How popular is the baby name Dorcas in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Dorcas.

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Popularity of the baby name Dorcas


Posts that mention the name Dorcas

Popular baby names in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1866

19th-century Providence, Rhode Island
19th-century Providence

Last month we looked at the top Providence names of 1867, so today let’s check out the rankings from the year before — 1866.

First, some stats:

  • 1,633 babies were babies were born in Providence in 1866, by my count. (The number given by the author of the document is 1,632.)
  • 1,457 of these babies (707 girls and 750 boys) had names that were registered with the government at the time of publication. The other 176 babies got blank spaces.
  • 234 unique names (123 girl names and 108 boy names) were shared among these 1,457 babies.

And here’s some extra information I forgot to mention in the last post: In 1860, the city of Providence was home to 29.0% of Rhode Island’s population. In 1870, it was home to 31.7% of the population. So each of these 3 sets of rankings (1866, 1867, 1868) ought to account for roughly 30% of the residents of the state.

Now, on to the names…

Top 5

The top 5 girl names and boy names of 1866 were, unsurprisingly, very similar to the top names of 1867.

Top baby girl namesTop baby boy names
1. Mary
2. Catherine
3. Ellen
4. Margaret
5. Sarah		1. John
2. William
3. James
4. George
5. Thomas

The girls’ top 5 is identical, while the boys’ top 5 includes Thomas instead of George.

All Girl Names

As expected, Mary was the front-runner by a huge margin. And, while there were dozens of Catherines, and a single Catharine, there weren’t any Katherines.

  1. Mary, 149 baby girls
  2. Catherine, 43
  3. Ellen, 40
  4. Margaret, 37
  5. Sarah, 36
  6. Elizabeth, 32
  7. Alice, 18
  8. Annie, 15
  9. Anna & Eliza, 14 each (2-way tie)
  10. Clara, 13
  11. Ann, 11
  12. Carrie, Emma, Jane & Susan, 10 each (4-way tie)
  13. Grace & Ida, 9 each (2-way tie)
  14. Esther, Martha & Minnie, 7 each (3-way tie)
  15. Anne & Julia, 6 each (2-way tie)
  16. Agnes, Charlotte, Cora, Harriet, Jennie, Joanna, Maria & Rosanna, 5 each (8-way tie)
  17. Amelia, Bridget, Ella, Frances, Hattie, Lydia, Nellie & Theresa, 4 each (8-way tie)
  18. Abby, Emily, Florence, Josephine, Laura, Lillian, Lizzie, Louise & Marion, 3 each (9-way tie)
  19. Ada, Amy, Augusta, Deborah, Edith, Etta, Eva, Fannie, Georgianna, Hannah, Henrietta, Honora, Isabel, Isabella, Lottie, Lucy, Mabel, Marietta, Maud & Teresa, 2 each (20-way tie)
  20. Almira, Annette, Bertha, Catharine, Cedelia, Celia, Christina, Delia, Diana, Dora, Dorcas, Eldora, Eleanor, Elsie, Emeline, Etherine, Eugenie, Evangeline, Fanny, Flora, Geneva, Georgia, Gracie, Helen, Helena, Imogene, Janette, Jessie, Kate, Lena, Louisa, Lucia, Lucinda, Madelina, Marian, Marsalin, May, Millie, Mina, Mini, Minna, Neatah, Nettie, Phebe, Rebecca, Rosa, Roselia, Rosetta, Ruth, Sophia, Stella, Susanna, Susannah, Tillie & Winnifred, 1 each (55-way tie)

All Boy Names

John had an even more commanding lead in 1866 than in 1867.

  1. John, 109 baby boys
  2. William, 78
  3. James, 62
  4. George, 44
  5. Thomas, 41
  6. Charles, 36
  7. Edward, 28
  8. Joseph, 27
  9. Frederick, 20
  10. Henry, 18
  11. Frank, 17
  12. Michael, 15
  13. Francis, 14
  14. Daniel, 13
  15. Albert, Patrick & Robert, 12 each (3-way tie)
  16. Walter, 11
  17. Arthur, Peter & Samuel, 8 each (3-way tie)
  18. Alfred, Harry, Louis & Stephen, 7 each (4-way tie)
  19. Martin, 6
  20. Matthew, 5
  21. Christopher, Clarence, Herbert, Howard & Hugh, 4 each (5-way tie)
  22. Benjamin, Eugene, Ira & Jeremiah, 3 each (4-way tie)
  23. Aaron, Alvin, Arnold, Earl, Edgar, Elisha, Freddie, Harrison, Lewis, Marcus, Nicholas, Philip, Richard & Timothy, 2 each (14-way tie)
  24. Abner, Adam, Adolph, Alanson, Alden, Ambrose, Antonio, August, Augustavus*, Augustus, Bartholomew, Bernard, Bradford, Byron, Chauncey, Clinton, David, Duncan, Eben, Ebenezer, Edwin, Elias, Elliott, Ethan, Everett, Ezra, Ferdinand, Frederic, Fullerton, Gilbert, Gwynn, Harold, Herman, Isaac, Jesse, Josiah, Lauriston, Luther, Manuel, Marks, Maurice, Miles, Mortimer, Oliver, Olney, Oscar, Otto, Rana, Rectol, Salisbury, Shamball, Simon, Terence, Theodore, Victor, Willard, Willie & Wilton, 1 each (58-way tie)

(I didn’t combine any variant spellings, but I did lump the abbreviated names Chas., Benj., and Fred’k in with Charles, Benjamin and Frederick.)

*Does Augustavus = Augustus + Gustav?

Twins

I counted 19 pairs of twins born in Providence in 1866. I didn’t notice any triplets this year. (All of these names have already been accounted for above.)

Girl-girl twinsGirl-boy twinsBoy-boy twins
Agnes & Anna
Eldora & Ellen
Eliza & Mary
Elizabeth & Julia
Frances & Mary
Josephine & Mary
Mary & Sarah
Theresa & (blank)		Alice & Frederick
Alice & John
Annie & Stephen
Catherine & (blank)
Sarah & Samuel		Edgar & Oscar
Edward & James
Francis & James
James & John
John & Thomas
(blank) & (blank)

I’ll try to finish/post the final set of rankings before the end of the year.

Source: Snow, Edwin M. Alphabetical Lists of Persons Deceased, Born and Married in the City of Providence During the Year 1866. Providence: Hammond, Angell & Co., 1867.

Which “Seven Brothers” name do you like best?

Part of the movie poster for "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954)

The seven brothers in the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) are named alphabetically from the Old Testament:

  • Adam
  • Benjamin
  • Caleb
  • Daniel
  • Ephraim
  • Frank (short for Frankincense)
  • Gideon

Which name do you like best? Why?

P.S. Their seven brides were named Milly, Dorcas, Ruth, Martha, Liza, Sarah, and Alice.

Namespotting in Arlington: Ammi, Loammi, Ruhamah

Names of American revolutionary soldiers at the Old Burying Ground, Arlington, MA
Patriots’ Grave, Old Burying Ground, Arlington, MA

My husband and I visited the town of Arlington last weekend. Of course, I made sure one of our stops was a graveyard. :)

The one we chose was the Old Burying Ground, a small cemetery used from the 1730s to the 1840s. (During those years, Arlington wasn’t even called “Arlington” yet. The original name was Menotomy, which came from an Algonquin word.)

Most of the names in the graveyard are biblical names, some still common today (e.g., Benjamin, Elizabeth, Lydia, William), others not so stylish anymore (e.g., Dorcas, Ebenezer, Jeduthan, Mehitable — one of my all-time faves!).

One name that made me curious was Ammi, which belonged to both Ammi Cutter (1733-1795) — one of the “old men of Menotomy” — and to his son.

At first I thought Ammi was a nickname for Loammi, as it reminded me of Loammi Baldwin, another Revolutionary soldier from the region. Turns out this wasn’t the case, but the two names are related.

In the Book of Hosea, God tells Hosea to name his daughter Lo-Ruhamah, meaning “not loved,” and to name his son Lo-Ammi, meaning “not my people.” Later on, God renames the two Ruhamah, meaning “loved,” and Ammi, meaning “my people.”

And, wouldn’t you know, Ammi Cutter had a twin sister named Ruhamah. (She’s buried there as well.)

How do you like Ammi and Ruhamah as boy-girl twin names?

Source: Paige, Lucius Robinson. History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877. Cambridge, MA: H. O. Houghton and Co., 1877.

Babies named for the book “Dorcasina”

"Miss Stanley's surprise at the disaster of John Brown and Dorcasina." Illustration from 1825 printing of "Female Quixotism."
Illustration from “Female Quixotism“

Not long after I discovered the name Malaeksa, I went off in search of other long-forgotten best-sellers with unique names in their titles, to see if any of those names had been picked up in real life as well.

The best one I found? Dorcasina.

It comes from the book Female Quixotism, Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon (original title) by Tabitha Gilman Tenney.

dorcasina sheldon book

At least one literary historian has said that Female Quixotism (1801) was the most popular novel written in America prior to the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852).

The book is “a comic, boisterous anti-romance” set in Philadelphia around the time of the revolution. The protagonist, Dorcas Sheldon, is a young romantic who decides to rename herself:

At this time Miss Dorcas became extremely dissatisfied with her unfashionable and unromantic name; but as she could not easily change it, she was determined to alter and give it a romantic termination. She, therefore, one day, after expressing great dislike to it, begged her father, in future, to call her Dorcasina.

Dorcasina was not character you’d want your child to emulate (“Dorcasina is courted, hurt, and tricked by almost everyone who crosses her path, both friends who wish to protect her and villains who wish to take advantage of her”) and yet a handful of baby girls were named Dorcasina after the book was published, mainly during the first half of the 19th century. Some examples:

  • Dorcasina Bowker, b. 1811 in Massachusetts
  • Dorcasina Hotchkiss, b. 1812 in New York
  • Dorcasina Totman, b. 1820 in Massachusetts
  • Dorcasina Wilkinson, b. 1825 in Kentucky
  • Dorcasina Harlow, b. 1826 in Massachusetts
  • Dorcasina Rolfe, b. 1840 in Michigan
  • Dorcasina Willard, b. 1855 in Massachusetts
  • Ruth Dorcasina Gill, b. 1880 in Louisiana

Other baby girls were given slightly different versions of the name, including Dorcassina and Dorcasine.

What do you think about the name Dorcasina? (Do you like it better than Dorcas?)

Sources: