How did Devereaux name enter the NC Bell family naming tradition?

Question

I’ve been trying for years to find how the name Devereaux entered into the Bell family of (ultimately) Sampson Co, NC. Spelled ‘eaux’ — I’m the 4th Thomas Devereaux Bell in a row and no one seems to know where our middle name came from. I know there was a prominent devereaux family in NC who married into the Pollock family and that the Bells and Pollocks had adjacent property along the Cashie River in early 18th century. That’s as close as I’ve gotten. Any info would be much appreciated. Thx. TDB

Comments

I don't know the answer either, but John Bell  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bell-16832 (one of the South Carolina Bell's who married a Cherokee woman, Charlotte Adair)  named a son "Deveraux Jarrett Bell."  Clearly the name was important!

---

I did come across that a while back. And I think the Jarrett’s do go back to early colonial Virginia with the Bells, Kings, Byrds, Pollocks and other NC families that seem to have lived near one another and married into each other’s families for centuries. Jarrett was spelled Jarrot and a few other ways; but so was Devereaux of course (which I’ve seen as Deverix, Devericks, -aux, -eux, etc). The Devereaux Jarrett combination makes me almost certain that it is some sort of homage to the famous Devereaux Jarrett, who was the most famous and influential evangelical Christian minister of the 18th century. And that is my best guess — and has been for some time now — that, even if there’s no family relation between the Bells and the (Devereaux) Jarretts despite both families being in early colonial VA at the same time, the name was given as an honorific for Bells (and perhaps other families) who had been deeply impacted by Minister Devereaux Jarrett. That’s as good a theory as I’m gonna get, it seems. Thx for your reply. TDB

---

Hi Thomas!  Yes, probably the name was originally given in honour of the minister, but subsequently it has apparently now become a family name.  

This practice of naming a child after a famous person was very widespread - take a look at all the George Washington Jones and Andrew Jackson Smiths on WikiTree.  Obviously it is not going to be that productive to look for the Washington or Jackson ancestors...

Cheers

Shirlea

---

Funny thing is, the minister himself wasn’t even a Devereux himself. The name entered his family apparently the same way it entered mine — as an honorific. According to his memoir, his Jarrett ancestor named his son Devereux in honor of the Earl of Essex, under whom he had fought for the English in the Low Countries. So you are quite right about it not being productive ... at least to look for such names as a means of understanding kinship. But it does often tell you (as in both the minister’s and my great great grandfather’s cases) important things about an ancestor — that Jarrett’s was an elizabethan soldier and that mine was an evangelical.