How popular is the baby name Edmund in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Find out using the graph below! Plus, check out all the blog posts that mention the name Edmund.
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“Dresser in Tristram Coffin House, Newburyport, Massachusetts.”
Earlier this week we talked about the original Tristram Coffyn of Nantucket, who is known to have a massive number of descendants.
He and his wife Dionis* had five children in England, then four more after relocating to the New World. Here are the names of not only all nine of their children, but also their 76 grandchildren:
Daniel, Dionis, Peter, Stephen, Judith, Susanna, Anna, Mehitable, Hepzibah, Paul
Which of the above names do you like best? Are there any you don’t like at all?
*Dionis’s name is evidently a truncated form of Dionysia, which derives from Dionysius, which originally referred to a devotee of the Greek god Dionysos. The names Dennis and Denise are also derivatives of Dionysius.
**Nantucket’s Oldest House, also called the Jethro Coffin House, was built in 1686 as a wedding gift for Jethro Coffin.
Looking for a surname-inspired baby name with a connection to Catholicism?
Here are more than 200 options, most of which come from Catholic Englishmen martyred during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Because the goal was to include as many realistic baby names as possible, I interpreted “surname” and “saint” liberally in some cases. Xavier is not technically a surname, for instance, and many of the folks below are not yet full-fledged saints.
The hyperlinked names will take you to popularity graphs.
The registrar of Providence, Rhode Island, published a series of documents listing all “of the names of persons deceased, born and married in the city of Providence” during years 1866, 1867 and 1868. The series may have been longer, but these are the only documents I could find online.
I’ve finally finished creating a set of rankings using one of the documents — 1867. But before we get to the rankings, here are some stats:
1,547 babies were born in Providence in 1867, going by the number of babies listed in the document itself. According to the document’s introduction, though, the number is 1,625. Not sure what to make of this discrepancy.
1,431 of these babies (713 girls and 718 boys) had names that were registered with the government at the time of publication. The other 116 babies got blank spaces. Either their names hadn’t been registered yet, or they hadn’t been named yet, or perhaps they died young and never received a name.
254 unique names (141 girl names and 113 boy names) were shared among these 1,431 babies.
And now, on to the names…
Top 5
A quick look at the top 5 girl names and boy names in Providence in 1867:
Top Baby Girl Names
Top Baby Boy Names
1. Mary
2. Catherine
3. Ellen
4. Margaret
5. Sarah
1. John
2. William
3. James
4. Charles
5. George
Girl Names
Notice how the #1 name, Mary, was bestowed three times as often as the #2 name, Catherine.
Twenty-one sets of twins and two sets of triplets were born in Providence in 1867. (All of these names were accounted for above — I just thought it’d be fun to check out the sibsets.)
Twins (b/b)
Twins (b/g)
Twins (g/g)
Triplets
Abraham & George
Charles & George
Charles & John
Daniel & David
Dunlap & Frank
Eugene & Timothy
George & John
George & William
James & John
John & Martin
Albert & Harriet
Ashel & Ida
George & Grace
James & Mary
Maurice & Ann
Annie & Fannie
Annie & Mary
Ann & Ellen
Jennie & Minnie
Margaret & Martha
(blank) & (blank)
Carl, (blank) & (blank)
James, Alexander & Sarah
I’ll post Providence’s 1866 and 1868 rankings as soon I get them done. Until then, here are two older posts featuring uniquely named Rhode Islanders: Aldaberontophoscophornia (b. 1812) and Idawalley (b. 1842).
Tuesday’s post about the Victorian-style Tylney Hall Hotel reminded me of a list of Victorian-era names that I’ve had bookmarked forever.
The list was created by amateur genealogist G. M. Atwater as a resource for writers. It contains names and name combinations that were commonly seen in the U.S. from the 1840s to the 1890s. Below is the full list (with a few minor changes).
Victorian Era Female Names
Victorian Era Male Names
Abigale / Abby
Ada
Adella
Agnes
Allie
Almira / Almyra
Alva
America
Amelia
Ann / Annie
Arrah
Beatrice
Bernice
Charity
Charlotte
Chastity
Claire
Constance
Cynthia
Dorothy / Dot
Edith
Edna
Edwina
Ella
Eleanor
Ellie
Elizabeth / Eliza / Liza / Lizzy / Bess / Bessie / Beth / Betsy
Elea of British Baby Names recently published a great list of names popular during the Elizabethan era (late 16th century) in the Norfolk region. Here are the top 10 names for each gender:
Male Names
Female Names
1. John
2. Thomas
3. William
4. Robert
5. Richard
6. Edward
7. Henry
8. Edmund
9. Nicholas
10. James
1. Elizabeth
2. Margaret
3. Mary
4. Ann
5. Agnes
6. Alice
7. Dorothy
8. Joan
9. Katherine
10. Bridget
I thought it would be fun to compare this list to a couple of earlier historical name lists from England, so here are the most common names from King Henry III’s fine rolls (13th century):
Male Names
Female Names
1. William
2. John
3. Richard
4. Robert
5. Henry
6. Ralph
7. Thomas
8. Walter
9. Roger
10. Hugh
1. Alice
2. Matilda
3. Agnes
4. Margaret
5. Joan
6. Isabella
7. Emma
8. Beatrice
9. Mabel
10. Cecilia
And, even further back, here are the most-mentioned male names and female names in the Domesday book (11th century):
Male Names
Female Names
1. William
2. Robert
3. Ralph
4. Aelfric
5. Alwin
5. Hugh
7. Roger
8. Godwin
9. Walter
10. Godric
1. Aldgyth
2. Aelfeva
2. Leofeva
2. Wulfeva
5. Bricteva
5. Edeva
7. Emma
7. Godiva
9. Goda
10. Edith
The last two lists may not represent the top given names of their time periods very accurately, but they do give you a sense of how given names in England have changed over time.