Question of the Week: What's the most unusual name you've found in your family tree?

Question

This question about unusual names was one of our most-visited and answered questions of the past year with 190 answers and 3,266 views!

Patricia Roche said it best:

“This thread tops the list of WikiTree must reads, but due to overload of laughter outbursts, groans, and gasps of horror, I must bookmark and consume in small daily doses.”

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who's celebrating with their families this weekend!

Comments

I always wondered if my g-g-grandmother was our Cherokee. Jenny Machine was her maiden name, born in Arkansas. I can't help wondering if she was named after the cotton gin which was a machine that separated the seeds from the cotton commonly called a cotton ginny. I've seen her name spelled Ginny as well.

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"Big Thumb" McCranie.
Louisianna Missouri Barber Yates named her daughter Flarzell.   
Flarzell named her daughters Flonnie, Lonnie, and Flossie.

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Wow, like that one, Jim!

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My mothers, fathers, mothers, father was Anglo Puritan Dubose. So he was my GG Grandfather. he had schizophrenia, and he stabbed a pig in the eye with a fork. he was also drafted in WW1 when he was 19.

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Loveday Henwood Grace Fidock, is my direct ancestor (6 generations) 

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Loveday who married William Duffy? Which child are you decended from? I'm a descendant of Samuel Silas Dufty

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Yep, that’s the one. I’m a descendent of her daughter Eva Ann Dufty.

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Eva Annie Dufty who married William John Compton.

Im familiar with your ancestor having added her to WikiTree.

WikiTree has 2 profiles for her so initiated a merge just now.

Duftie-1 (no sources) and Dufty-78 (mine with sources but still need to add in her spouse.

My Uncle has a few Dufty matches to William Dufty on Ancestry. I think i may have one or two but thier matches are private.

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I know you wont believe it, but I have a line called (Head).

They named one of their sons. Bigger... ( Bigger Head.)

It's sourced in the Bledsoe Journal

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I believe it, David!! There are some really wild ones out there. 

Answer 1

I have a great grandmother who's name was Exony Emaline. I don't believe I've ever seen the name Exony anywhere else. Always thought it was strange.

 

Also I have an aunt who's name was Zula.

Answer 2

The other day, I saw two very unusual names:    Rudolph Blizzard and his mother Lama Blizzard from Duplin, North Carolina.

Last night I saw another one with a strange name:   Fear Converse Jr., and his father was Fear Converse Sr.!!!

Answer 3

My granddaughter was extremely tickled when we found that a relative's second wife was actually named Cinderella.

Answer 4

Fanny Butts - She was the County Superintendent of Schools of my home county of Wilson County, Kansas.  She had one of the schools named after her.

Answer 5

I have a cousin whose birth name was Princess Diana.

Answer 6

In one family of 11 there was a Drusilla, an Adeline and an Adelina. That's caused some errors in other family trees! With the last two.

Answer 7

The last name Hansickie which is a "made-up" surname ... WHO would change their name TO that?? We are stumped trying to find the real surname of Charles Henry Hansickie who enlisted in Army at Lafayette, Indiana in 1870. Maybe his name was something like "Hansucker" and he got the idea that "sickie" was preferable to "sucker??"

Answer 8

Although there are more than a few strange names I could list, I'll leave it at this one: John FIELDS PLACE Williams. Only thing I can figure is he maybe was born in a field??

Answer 9

Not on my tree but as a child I knew a girl named Penny Cashdollar.I always felt bad for her.

Answer 10

Remercy Chidester is the maiden name of one of my 3rd great-grandmothers.  In my wife's family, it's got to be Balthazar Grimm.

Answer 11

I have several , Armeter Kittrell, Philadelphia McClain, Emiline Hamilton, Easter Cassidy, Charlotte Alafore Hull, and Mary Obedience Clay, not to mention the older ancestors Hawise, and Saher. While Philadelphia, Easter and Obedience arent strange, its strange to name your child these things.

Answer 12

My best chuckle was when I found Minnie Sands who married David Nipper and named some of their children Millie, Meta, Minta and Arthur. Millie married Harold Tidmus. Arthur married Eathyl. Minta married Doit Hearn.

Answer 13

Pagan de Prideaux

Answer 14

Two different names come to mind: 1. Green Berry Coleman born 1836 ?                        2. Frelinghinson Sirman born 1846 Mississippi. Also spelled Freeling Hynson Sirman. Oh, and how could I ever forget poor old Peter Jeter? (What was his parents thinking?)

Answer 15

These are not names in my family but were discovered while browsing thru military service records of US Colored Troops who joined the army in the Civil War. I was looking at records of a regiment organized in Memphis, TN and surrounding area.  The black troops were ex-slaves---many took the surname of their old master.   Im sure some had no real nanme so tge company officer gave them a name right there on the spot.

The name on one record was SHELBY COUNTY.

Another had the surname ANONYMOUS (if I spelled it right).

Answer 16

My Mother's Family Tree has some unusual names:

LAMBERTUS VAN BREE           21 SEP 1816

and . GODEFRIDUS VAN BREE       13 AUG 1822

of course they are Dutch;)

Answer 17

William Bacon married Margaret Pepper makes her Margaret Pepper Bacon

she was my 12 great grand mother . I had a great Aunt MablleBerglette Wormland

Answer 18

I have a Sykes family where the four sons were called Livewell, Dowell,

Fairwell and Diewell !  Their father was called Shakespeare Garrick Sykes

Answer 19

Federal Constitution Sprague. As you can imagine he went by F.C. Sprague

Comments

You must be related to the other person in this thread who mentioned Federal Constitution Sprague!

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Must be.  There was only one.  Lol

Answer 20

In 1885 a distant relative, Henry Colbran married Hope Still Russell in

Herstmonceux East Sussex U.K. I believe Hope Still is a Quaker name.

A Friends Meeting House still exists in Herstmonceux and meetings are held every second Sunday.