52 Ancestors Week 3: Unusual Name

Question

Ready for Week 3 of the 52 Ancestors challenge?

You're encouraged to share a profile of an ancestor or relative who matches the week's theme. This week's sharing prompt:

UNUSUAL NAME

From Amy Johnson Crow:

Having the maiden name of "Johnson," I'm thankful for family members with unusual names. Fortunately for me, my third-great-grandfather John Johnson (yes, really) chose unusual names for most of his sons: Eber, Enoch, Ezra, and Jeremiah. (There's also John, Jr. because why not?! I'm glad I descend from Eber, which is so much easier to look for.) What unusual names do you have in your family tree? 

Share below!

Participants who share every week can earn badges. Click here for more about the challenge and how to participate.

Comments

I didn't get a participation thingy for this .. and I've posted each of the first 3 weeks.    (I was going to try to do all 52, but no guarantees.)

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Melanie, I would think that telling those in charge of 52 Ancestors that you did not receive one might be helpful. It has happened to me in other areas before. they get really busy sometimes and they may not have seen it.

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I think if you click on the underlined 52 ancestors challenge at the top of this page it may take you back to the main page...I kept having to scroll through a bit though

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My mother's side in particular has some unusual names.  Her maiden name is Paynton.  I think at one point Ancestry told me that there are only nine households with that name in the U.S., and Google likes to change it to "Payton." Other names on her side of the family include Neebling or Nielbling, Underlehner or Underlohmar (no matter which spelling I use, it's still -1 on Wikitree), and Latapie.  My father's side doesn't seem so unusual.  The more I add to my tree, the more I see how small the community was with people marrying second cousins on a regular basis, which you might have to do if your town is that small and you're not venturing out.

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that is pretty cool...seems unusual names might be helpful in locating ancestors, or even modern relatives...

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I have always been fascinated by names in my lineage.  One in particular that I like is Snowden Griffin Meriwether, my 2nd Great-Grandfather from Edgefield County, South Carolina.  He was a physician and served in the Confederate army.  He and his wife used more ordinary names for their children, though.  There were no more Snowdens.

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I have: America Lane, Dutton Lane, Lambert Lane, Bythrall Day, Horatio R. Ashby, Dempsey Odum, Wiley Odum, Josiah Cyrus Shelton, Joseph Zealot Shelton, and quite a few more but I'll stop there.

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My grandmothers name was Horta Scroggins I thought my dad was kidding when I first learned her name . She passed in 1945 I was born in 1946 so it took awhile for me to find out her name.

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I met a man named Kale (first name) recently.  I said I had never met anyone named after a vegetable before.  He said his parent didn't know it was a vegetable when they named him.

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Kale is a hawaiian name for a boy or  girl and means something like "free person"

Answer 1

My family is full of John, Mary, James and other such common names, including my great-great-grandfather, the impossible to pinpoint James Smith and then I happened upon Hall-3717, Desire Hall. Not only is Desire a rather unusual name for the 1600s but she is sister to Theophilos Hall and has children named Experience and Zebulon. Zebulon has to be my most unusual finding so far.

Answer 2

I don't have any what I would consider really wild names in my research. The one that stands out, though is William Barjonah Braswell. He is my 5th great grandfather, and is the namesake of Jonas Ridge, in the mountains of North Carolina.

This is my third prompt in this series. Fun stuff! I've enjoyed reading everyone's responses.

Answer 3

My grandfather's name was Vinis William Brosius. I have never heard of another person ever named Vinis. Blog post here.

Answer 4

Unusual names: Zeno Johnson and Deljean Delvin.  :)  One name from the ancient Greeks, the other made up by a father for his newborn daughter.

Answer 5

I have a Comfort Starr on my tree, but I don't think he's connected to me on Wikitree because it's through an adoption line.

Answer 6

Hi,

This is my relative with the Unusual Name. Abel Huckel. He was accidentally killed when his horse bolted.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Huckel-43

Answer 7

My husband's side of the family had some interesting names, although I don't know how "unusual" they are.

His mother's parents last names were Bible and Girdlestone. One of her uncles was Forest Bible.

I will say that when you are searching genealogy and you're looking for people with the last name Bible, you get a lot of hits for things that are biblical or for a "family bible."

Going farther back, he apparently had a relative named Watching Atherton.

Answer 8

I'd have to pick my name! My mother saw it on an episode of Kojak in the 70's.

Azure (/ˈæʒər, ˈeɪʒər/ AZH-ər, AY-zhər)^[2][3] is a bright cyan-blue color that is often described as the color of the sky on a clear day.^[4]

On the RGB color wheel, "azure" (hexadecimal #007FFF) is defined as the color at 210 degrees, i.e., the hue halfway between blue and cyan. In the RGB color model, used to create all the colors on a television or computer screen, azure is created by adding a little green light to blue light. The complementary color of azure is orange.

Azurite is a soft, deep blue copper mineral produced by weathering of copper ore deposits. In the early 19th century, it was also known as chessylite after the type locality at Chessy-les-Mines near Lyon, France.^[2] The mineral, a carbonate with the chemical formula Cu₃(CO₃)₂(OH)₂, has been known since ancient times, and was mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Natural History under the Greek name kuanos (κυανός: "deep blue," root of English cyan) and the Latin name caeruleum.^[4] The blue of azurite is exceptionally deep and clear, and for that reason the mineral has tended to be associated since antiquity with the deep blue color of low-humidity desert and winter skies. The modern English name of the mineral reflects this association, since both azurite and azure are derived via Arabic from the Persian lazhward (لاژورد), an area known for its deposits of another deep blue stone, lapis lazuli ("stone of azure").

Answer 9

West White Fynn (1845) is one of the most unusual names I've come across in my research. Also, he was married to a woman by the name of Elizabeth Fanny Dick.

Answer 10

Elnathan Munger, who served in the French and Indian War, and in the American Revolutionary War. Sadly, he died from "Camp Fever" on his walk home from his service during the Revolutionary War.

My Grandma's name was Florence Severine Rude-Johnson Olmstead. I figured out that her middle name was one of her uncle's names.

Her husband, my Grandpa Harry's, full name was Harald Rheinhard Olmstead.

My Grandma Florence's adopted sister's name was Esther Zoella Johnson.

There are too many more interesting names in my family tree to even mention on here!

Answer 11

Here is my favorite Ancestors name! Green Berry Gum He isn’t really mine, he was my ex husbands but I still claim him because we had kids together, and what is theirs is mine! : ) 

Answer 12

I guess I have several ancestors with somewhat unusual names:

• Ransom Cockeril Meredith
• Dumas Lane (and grandson named Nimrod)
• Welcome Ashley
• William Froggett
• Zerelda Jane Bourbon Willian
• Basheba Decker
• Shadrack DItto Saling

Answer 13

My biological mother was named Artha DuRell, which we have watched to find others sharing that name. We have found locations, but the actual name is rather uncommon.

Answer 14

I would have to say my 10th GGF Hatevil (hate-evil) Nutter. In 1662 three Quaker women-- Mary Tomkins, Alice Ambrose and Ann Coleman-- were sentenced to be stripped to the waist and whipped 10 times and then to be dragged, with hands bound to a cart, through eleven towns for a total of 80 miles, where the same punishment would be repeated. Hatevil Nutter, who did not condone any opposition was all for this. 

William Furbish, another GGF considered it his duty to oppose what was essentially a capital sentence for three women, whose theology allegedly disagreed with that of the Congregational Church. Perhaps he recalled his own forced march after the Battle of Dunbar. When he loudly protested their punishment, he was sentenced to the stocks. Apparently some of the protestors were heard, because the constable of Salisbury refused to continue the punishment. 

A century later John Greenleaf Whittier also protested this incident in his famous poem “How the Women Went from Dover.” 

Postscriptum: A granddaughter of  William Furbish married a grandson of Hatevil Nutter!

Comments

This is the 2019 thread.  To continue with the 2020 thread, you need to go to

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/969490/52-ancestors-week-3-long-line

Answer 15

Two two most unusual names I've found so far are:

GG Grandfather, Israel Purdy

and America Truslow.  Alas,  I have been unable to turn up any primary source data on America to know whether they were my upty Great Aunt or Uncle.

Comments

This is the 2019 thread.  To continue with the 2020 thread, you need to go to

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/969490/52-ancestors-week-3-long-line

Answer 16

I have numerous Waitstill, Experience and Ezra’s. What’s tricky is the Experience, I’ve had both male and female.  If your not sure then you can guarantee your going to have to dig lol

Answer 17

How about Experience Paine for a name. Yes, poor mom. 

Answer 18

In the Netherlands you do not find that many unusual first names due to naming laws  . You could only name your child after Saints and later on also  Greek or Roman gods and names that had been commonly used in the area you lived..  This has changed in the seventies/eighties of the 20th century. The daily used first names (roepnaam) differed a lot from the official first names before these changes.

ie. My offiicial first names are Eva Dymphe Henriette Dorothe. My daily use name was Eefje. and nowadays Eef

My grandmothers official name was Hendrina Maria, her dayly name was Drika.

Honoria became Erke

Sybilla became Beeltje

Hendricus became Hent or Driek or Henk or Harry

Maria was named Marie or Riet or Ria or Mariet or Marja

etc.

Although I never found out if Tilleman Klabbers had another name for daily use.