Searching the Family Tree for names

[ShellysBelly]

We've been having a bit of fun looking through our family trees of late and have actually got some great names just looking back through our ancestry.

My great grandmother's name was Julia, I've always liked that name and it reminded me. My husband's family has a lot of Edwards in it (although being Irish speakers I'm sure they were all Neds and Neidins). The funniest name we encountered was on his side. A sister of his grandfather's called "Nappy"

It's interesting to look back at the generations either way, but I'm wondering has anyone chosen a name from further back than their grandparents?

 

[hexyewdancer]

My great grandma was called Minnie. I loved it. Hubby didnt but we had a boy anyway.

 

[Ilove]

My mum wants us to have Saville which in an ancient family name from centuries back. Methinks not!
We found Rose on our tree though which we do like, just a shame its so popular as a middle name now. Its the Louise of the future!


Nappy!!?

 

[chuck]

Some of the names in my family can be quite errr interesting being that I have a Romany gypsy family.

Theres fella's by the names of Cyril, Moses, Denny, John, Levi, Edward, Ernest...

and girls..well, Olivia Peaches, Sharmaine, Crystal, Genty, May, Patience...

mind you I quite like Patience (its my Grans name)

 

[chuck]

My great grandma was called Minnie. I loved it. Hubby didnt but we had a boy anyway.

LOL I couldn't use Minne...that was one of the words we used to use for lady bits when I was a kid!

 

[Panda_Ally]

My great great gran was Sarah Jane, so my mum is called Jane, so i called my DD Holly Jane.

 

[Jody R]

My great grandma was called Minnie. I loved it. Hubby didnt but we had a boy anyway.

So was mine! I love it too but I had my heart set on Elisabeth and she was our only girl.

We chose Ally because we liked it and it would have been the shortened version of Alistair that we were thinking of if things had gone well. We gave him the middle name MacRae because it is a family name on my dad's side, goes way back in the generations of our family to when it used to be a surname, and it was my Grandad's middle nam, which is why I wanted it.

And Joseph came from my Grandad too, his first name. We both loved the name Robert and it is a cousins name, but after we chose it we found out my Dh's great-grandad was called Robert.

I think Julia is a beautiful name too.

 

[Jody R]

My mum wants us to have Saville which in an ancient family name from centuries back. Methinks not!
We found Rose on our tree though which we do like, just a shame its so popular as a middle name now. Its the Louise of the future!


Nappy!!?

My middle name is Louise so I know what you mean. I always hated it at school because we were all either something-Louise or something-Jane. In a class of 18 girls there were only two middle names.

I quite like it now though. But Martha Rose was going to be the middle names if Joseph had been a girl (I'm not telling the first name, just in case) so you are right about how popular it is as a middle name. I picked Martha Rose because I am a massive Doctor Who fan.

 

[MUMOF5]

Some of the names in my family can be quite errr interesting being that I have a Romany gypsy family.

Theres fella's by the names of Cyril, Moses, Denny, John, Levi, Edward, Ernest...

and girls..well, Olivia Peaches, Sharmaine, Crystal, Genty, May, Patience...

mind you I quite like Patience (its my Grans name)

Mine too, weve got girls: Dorcas, Leena, Carrie, Daisy, Minnie. Boys- Reuben, Freddie, Nonnie???, Elias.... None of which I think i will be using..... although Daisy and Freddie are quite cute for little ones.

 

[KellyMH]

Im having trouble gettin too far back with my family tree, we have such a small family i can only rely on my Mums memory to help with questions. We know part of our family were from France but until i can get the link to over there im stuck!! Im sure there will be plenty of weird and wonderful French names to choose from.

My Gran was called Rose, I luv that as a first name, not too keen on a middle name though x

 

[ShellysBelly]

Asked my husband's Mum about the name Nappy, and yep, it was a pretty common name for old ladies when she was a kid!

Another common name years ago for old ladies was Baby or Baba. There was actually a woman at our wedding called Baba Phat (Irish naming convention is that you have your first name followed by your father's first name with a h so her dad was called Pat)

 

[amylw1]

i have traced my family tree back to 1780's and i did spend along time going through the names to see if i could find anything "unusual" that we liked but NO.

some of the more unsual 1s were -

male -

cloud
valentine
thaddeus
gardiner
cecil
dancer
abner
ladas
crochrode
uriah


female -

fanny-poppleton (this was her 1st name)
challis
thurza

 

[Jody R]

i have traced my family tree back to 1780's and i did spend along time going through the names to see if i could find anything "unusual" that we liked but NO.

some of the more unsual 1s were -

male -

cloud
valentine
thaddeus
gardiner
cecil
dancer
abner
ladas
crochrode
uriah


female -

fanny-poppleton (this was her 1st name)
challis
thurza

Wow! Some of those could certainly be described as unique. I quite like Thaddeus and Gardiner but I can't even say Crochrode.

 

[joeyjo]

We will be using Lois as either a first or middle name if we have a girl - it was my Great Gran's name - she was alive until I was about 13 and I loved her to bits.

Isabella is also another possibility - it was my Great-great Granmothers name although she was always known as Bella.

 

[Szaffi]

Fanny is a really cute name in Hungarian, which was one of my favorites. Unfortunately doesn't quite work in English.

We traced back the following names (other than the Catherines and Marias):

Giselle
Ethel
Shirley
Genevra
Violet
Ilona

 

[Mary Jo]

The most unusual name we've come across in our family tree is Phannuel (for years I thought it was spelled as it's pronounced, which is Faniel to rhyme with Daniel).

There were actually 2 of them, one died aged one year and then his younger brother, born after his death, was given his name.

It's not on our list

However, Adam, one of our favourites, is a family name, I had a great uncle Adam and one of my great-great grandfathers was also Adam (different branch of the family).

Other family names I like and would like to have used if OH agreed/we were having a girl/they went with our surname/I had a good relationship with the person: -

Margaret
Duncan
Harvey
Jane
Carey
Alistair
Violet
Mary
Maggie

Weirdly, some of my relatives had names that were definitely "old person" names when I was a kid but now are popular -too popular for me to be interested in - Jack, Archie, Ella, Georgina, Isabella (my grandparents and 2 great aunts).

 

[letia659]

only one I know of that is unusual (to me anyway) in my family is my great grandpas name was Garfield!

 

[amylw1]

i did think of using my maiden name as a middle name, but i know how much i got bullied for it at school, so decided it wasnt fair. maiden name was Lackey - you work out the bulling i got!!!

 

[amelia222]

Alice is named after my great grandma and it has become a family name. It's my Granny's middle name, my Aunt changed her last name to Alice, and my cousin is Alicia.

Most of my family have been called normal names, but my great-grandpa was Arthur but he was always called 'boy' even when he was old. And my great-great grandpa came from Wales and told everyone his name was Herb but when his niece came to visit when he was very very old she said his name was Cecil!

 

[Rallybird]

Evan William is named after his paternal and maternal Grandfathers - OH being a large Welsh family has some good Welsh names especially as his Dad was one of nine and Mum one of six!
Would have been Amelia Mair if he was a girl (called Mair though but initials would have been MAD)
Other family choices were Griffith, Glyn, Llewellyn for boys (did draw the line at Enoch)
Girl choices were Elinor or Myfanwy - again didn't fancy Viola (No offence to my MIL!!)