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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Fearless Females - March 3: Unusual Names

The Fearless Female blog prompt for today is:

March 3 — Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern. If not, then list the most unique or unusual female first name you’ve come across in your family tree.

No, I don't share a first name with any of my female ancestors. My first 15 female first names in ahnentafel order are:

3. Betty Virginia Carringer - my mother
5. Alma Bessie Richmond
7. Emily Kemp Auble
9. Hattie Louisa Hildreth
11. Julia White
13. Abbie Ardell Smith
15. Georgianna Kemp
17. Lucretia Townsend Smith
19. Sophia Newton
21. Hannah Rich
23. Amy Frances Oatley
25. Rebecca Spangler
27. Abigail A. Vaux
29. Sarah G. Knapp
31. Mary Jane Sovereen

The only "fairly different" name in that group is Lucretia (1827-1884), the second wife of Isaac Seaver.

There are some "fairly different" names back about seven generations from me - Content Tucker (1695-1738) who married Benjamin Wing (1698-1776) in Bristol County, Massachusetts; and Renewed Smith (1717-????) who married Daniel Carpenter (1712-????) in Washington County, RI.

I guess my ancestors were not very adventurous or original in naming their daughters! Frankly, I would love to have any ancestor named in my collection of Census Whacking names just so I could say that I'm descended from one of them!

2 comments:

  1. My favorite is my paternal grandmother-Celendee. It got "Americanized" to Selendy which took all the beauty away from it. So far I've never come across any other woman with that name.

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  2. I couldn't find any really unusual first names but I do have a female first name story. My name is Eileen Ann. My mother told me I was named after my grandmother. My paternal grandmother was named Anna so I assumed it was her. My maternal grandmother was named Lorraine--or so I thought. When I started my family research, one of the earliest discoveries I made in the census was finding my maternal grandmother listed as Ileen. The story is that the family wanted to name her Lorraine but there was some kind of error made and her birth record and baptismal record show Ileen but they always called her Lorraine. After her marriage, she used Lorraine exclusively even in the census. So my mother was correct, I was named after both my grandmothers; but I never knew it.

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