Family trees are fun!

[ricardienne]

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.)

Comments

[existentialgoat.livejournal.com]

I thought it was only my mom's Midwestern/Southern (Missouri is weird) family that had Pamelias! My great-great-grandma was Lura Pamelia and my great-grandma was Lura Kathrina.

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)

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

Apparently Western Massachusetts also had them (but maybe they hung on longer in the south? While researching this on that all-reliable source, the internet, I discovered that Margaret Mitchell was originally going to call Melanie in Gone with the Wind Parmelia. I think Permelia, Parmelia, and Pamela are all in the same family.)

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.

[existentialgoat.livejournal.com]

I apparently can't read and missed the "r" in Parmelia, though I suspect you are right and that Permelia, Parmelia, Pamelia, and Pamela are all part of the same name family.

I love those bizarre virtue names--and John Adams LastName is pretty awesome, too!

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

WAITY KATEY AMIRITE

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.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

She was not! She married, had 7 children, and lived to be 95.

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.

[camlina.livejournal.com]

I know a woman who goes by the name of Persis... she's in her 50s, and I've no idea if it was her birth name or not.

[achyvi.livejournal.com]

Wow! She totally bucked the name connotation train.