How popular is the baby name Philander 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 Philander.

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Popularity of the baby name Philander


Posts that mention the name Philander

A baby named “Encyclopedia Britannica”?

Encyclopedia Britannica

Yup. A baby girl born in New York in 1814 was named Encyclopedia Britannica Dewey.

Her father was a minister named Timothy Dewey. With his first wife, Anne, he had a baby boy who got a traditional name (George Robert Dewey). But with his second wife, Beulah, he had at least 10 kids, all of whom got more distinctive names:

  1. Anna Diadama Dewey, b. 1802
  2. Philander Seabury Dewey, b. 1803
  3. Franklin Jefferson Dewey, b. 1804
  4. Armenius Philadelphus Dewey, b. 1805
  5. Almira Melphomenia Dewey, b. 1807
  6. Marcus Bonaparte Dewey, b. 1808
  7. Pleiades Arastarcus Dewey, b. 1810
  8. Victor Millenius Dewey, b. 1811
  9. Octavia Ammonia Dewey, b. 1812
  10. Encyclopedia Britannica Dewey, b. 1814

The most notable name of the bunch is certainly Encyclopedia Britannica. Like Prockie, she didn’t use her full name in everyday life but went by a modified form of her middle name: Britannia.

Would you consider giving any of these names to a child nowadays? If so, which one(s)?

Source: Rev Timothy Dewey (1771-1850) – Find A Grave Memorial
Image: Adapted from Old school knowledge by Joi Ito under CC BY 2.0.

Baby name story: Federal Constitution

The U.S. Constitution
The U.S. Constitution

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:

  1. Sarah
  2. Nehemiah
  3. Mercy
  4. Federal Constitution
  5. Amy
  6. Daniel
  7. Preserved
  8. Lee
  9. Patience
  10. Jonathan, Jr.
  11. Almira
  12. Philinda
  13. Elias
  14. 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:

  1. Amy
  2. Edward
  3. Nathan
  4. William
  5. Lafayette
  6. Betsey
  7. James
  8. Philander (twin)
  9. Philinda (twin)
  10. Elias
  11. Newton
  12. 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