Family trees are fun!
Jul. 13th, 2014 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The next time anyone complains about People These Days Giving Their Children Terrible Names, I'm going to point out that in the family tree of my mother's father's old New England family, in addition to the Abijahs, the Amariah, and the Shubaels (all m.), Persises (or should that be Persides?), Parmelias (Parmeliae?), Zoella and Angenette (all f.), there's a Comfort, a Welcome (both m.), a Thankful, a Waitstill, and a Waity (all three f.).
(I actually like the name Persis a lot. Waity, not so much.)
(I actually like the name Persis a lot. Waity, not so much.)
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Date: 2014-07-14 01:25 am (UTC)Names are the coolest. (I think the winner for Worst Name on that side of the family is my grandmother's great-uncle, who was born in 1866 and named Robert E. Lee LastName. Nooo, Missouri family, noooooo. My grandma knew him as "Uncle Bob." :P)
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Date: 2014-07-14 01:49 am (UTC)Bizarrely, there was a John Adams LastName in there somewhere in the mid-19th century -- I guess it is cool that some of my ancestors were that into John Adams.
I was most pleased to find those several bizarre virtue names, though.
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Date: 2014-07-15 07:56 am (UTC)I love those bizarre virtue names--and John Adams LastName is pretty awesome, too!
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Date: 2014-07-15 02:37 am (UTC)I think naming your child Persis might be a bit risky. It's waaaay too close to looking like his name is Penis. Was Waitstill an old maid? That would have been deliciously appropriate.
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Date: 2014-07-15 03:06 am (UTC)Oh I hadn't thought of the Persis-Penis connection (to me, a classicist, it looks like a perfectly perfectly reasonable name!). But I guess I can see why that name fell out.
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Date: 2014-07-15 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-16 12:34 am (UTC)