Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Hallowe'en Name Whacking Revisited

There are a number of families in the Rootsweb WorldConnect database at  http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/  that have surnames connected to Hallowe'en. For instance:

1) The GHOST surname - there are 636 entries, including the descendants of Philip Ghost of Westmoreland County PA - see 6 generations here. It looks like at least one GHOST from this family is still living.




2) The GOBLIN surname - there are 65 entries. It looks like there are no real GOBLIN family trees - only isolated GOBLIN women who married men with other surnames.

3) The SKELETON surname - there are 535 entries but few trees with many generations. Methinks these are mostly misspelled SKELTON people (77,203).

4) The FRANKENSTEIN surname - There are 1,554 entries, and most of them are of German origin. One family that settled in Rochester NY is here. There is one Frank N. Stein here.

5) The WITCH surname - there are 158 entries, but no long family lines in the database. Some of those listed were accused of witchcraft.

6) The PUMPKIN surname - there are 89 entries, but no long family lines.  There are 495 entries for a given name of PUMPKIN.

7) The HAUNT surname - there are only 6 entries, none with a family line.  There are 5 persons with the first name of HAUNT.

8) The SPOOK surname - there are 35 entries, and only one with a three generation family. There are 52 entries for people with a given name of Spook and 33 for the first name of Spooky (at least one dog!)

9) The GHOUL surname - there are 48 entries.

10) The JACKO surname has 391 entries, and there are 121 entries with a given name of Jacko..

11) The LANTERN surname has 335 entries. But there are no people named Jack O. Lantern, but 4 entries with Jack Lantern.

12) There are 273 CAT surname entries and 13,916 CATT entries. There is one Rin Black Cat name, which died in 2006 in Uncle Brick's barn.

13) There are 26 SCARY surname entries - many of them still living. There are 91 entries for a given name of Scary.

14) There are 82 DRACULA surname entries, many of them are related to The Count. There are 61 entries for a given name of DRACULA.

15) There are 976 CEMETERY entries, some of them the name of actual cemetery databases.

16)  There are 5,224 GRAVE surname entries, and 376,621 GRAVES surname entries.  There are 7 entries for the name Robin Graves.

17)  There are 172,169 entries for the surname COFFIN.

18) There are 2,450 MONSTER entries. No Monster Mash, though (there are 3,339 surname entries for MASH). There are no "Boris Pickett" persons, but there are 15 entries for BOBBY PICKETT.

19) There are 1,140 SKULL surname entries.

20) There are 191 SPIRIT entries. There are 4 entries for a Holy Spirit with a spouse named Mary, with a child.

21) There are 642,081 surname entries for WEBB, but only 9 entries for "Spider WEBB" (all nicknames)

22) There are 262 entries for SCREECH surname. And 54 entries for a given name or nickname of Screech.

23) There are 11 entries for HALLOWEEN surname - even a Mary Halloween.  There are 139 given name entries for HALLOWEEN (including maiden names).

24) There are no VAMPIRE surname entries, and 3 given name entries.

25) There are 23,154 BROOM surname entries.

26) There are 142 BAT surname entries, 19,725 BATT surname entries and 12,467 BATTY surname entries.  There are 891 entries for BATTY as a given name.

27) There are no ZOMBIE surname entries or given name entries. Whew!

28)  There are 62,422 entries for the surname BLOOD.

29)  The surname DEATH has 12,996 entries.

30)  The 
TRICK surname has 4,214 surname entries and TREAT surname has 69,876 entries!  There are 55 given name entries for Tricky, but no Tricky Treat.

31)  The surname WARLOCK has 80 entries, but there are 46 given name entries 

32)  There are 4 surname entries for WEREWOLF, both married to the same Lucky guy!

33)  There are 414 surname entries for BOO, and 855 given name entries for BOO, and 68 entries named Booboo.


34)  There are 11 surname entries for GREMLIN (thanks for the suggestion, Linda S.!).

Enough!! What other Hallowe'en oriented surnames can you think of? Are they in WorldConnect?


The Ancestry.com blog published some entries from death records in Who would name their daughter Halloween? Just check the records.

John D. Reid posted some Hallowe'en names and occupations  in Halloween fun from Ancestry.ca in 2009.

Chris Dunham did some Census Whacking on Hallowe'en names in Censuswhacking for Halloween in 2005.

John Newmark had some Hallowe'en names in Friday Five in 2007.


Did I miss a post on Hallowe'en names?  If so, please tell me and I'll add it to my list.



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