The Victorian Duggars

[singsingsing]

9 hours ago, Vivi_music said:

I think you are right, as to what is considered old or strange name is essentially based on the culture you grew up in. My personal gold mine for weird names are 19th century French-Canadian names (especially the second half of the 19th century to be more precise). At least, I should say these names sound weird to me in my own reality. When I do abstraction of the time-period they are associated with, I can sort of see some beauty in them. But considering they feel so outdated and eccentric for French-speaking Quebecers and Canadians alike, my mind will not really consider them as names I could ever give a child.

A quick look at a free online genealogy website and in 5 minutes (okay maybe 10 because I fall down the rabbit whole easily) I was able to find these gems: Alcide, Severe, Ovide, Télésphore, Donat (this one if so bad. From what I Googled, it is the French version of the Latin Donatus, but still... not pretty. The feminine form is worst: Donatienne), Onésime, Eusèbe, Isidore, Magloire (litteraly meaning ''my glory''), Elzéar, Herménégilde, and of course... a bunch of little Napoléon.

For the ladies: Alphrosine, Delima, Auxilia and Exilda (lots of X), Delvica, Domithilde, Scholastique, Tharsile, Pétronille, Leocadie.

And of course the strange names that were sort of invented and only in feminine names. Archange is a good example, which literally means ''Archangel''. Their were also baby girls names Desneiges (means "of the snows" in French, taken from the title of the Virgin Mary ''Notre Dame des Neiges'' meaning "Our Lady of the Snows") and Desanges (Meaning ''of the angels'' and I wonder if it also comes from the devotionnal title ''Mary Queen of Angels''). I know Rose-de-Lima was also used as a given name in honor of Saint Rose of Lima. They could just have named her Rose, but nope! Got to be over-the-top French Canadian Catholics after all. And of course, my own favourite: Jeanne-d'Arc as a given name. Not Jeanne, but the full on ''Jeanne-d'Arc'' followed by a family name. I kind of understand why these will never do a come-back.

PS: I have wondered if they had too much time to think of baby names in the dead of canadian winter.

 

I’m cracking up because all of those names sound super normal to me (just because I’ve done so much genealogy). The only one I don’t think I’ve ever seen before is Delvica. They also really liked Malvina/Melvina for some reason.

Jeanne-d’Arc was surprisingly common in the first half of the 20th century.

I think I have ancestors (definitely relatives of ancestors) with all the names you listed. Another interesting one for your collection: Emerentienne.

Now you’ve inspired me to go dig up some more when I’m not on mobile...

Edited March 28, 2019 by singsingsing

[VelociRapture]

I looked up what my own name would have been 100 years earlier. My first name would have been my daughter’s nickname and that makes me weirdly happy. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

18 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

I have kids in their  late 20’sand Emma and Emily were really popular. We’re in California. 

Emily was the #1 baby name in the US from 1996 to 2007. Most people will know some young ladies named Emily. 

[Seahorse Wrangler]

11 hours ago, Vivi_music said:

 Donat (this one if so bad. From what I Googled, it is the French version of the Latin Donatus, but still... not pretty.

snippaged.

There's a town called  St Donat not too far from me.

[singsingsing]

I never thought of Donat being bad. Is it because it looks like donut, or... ?

[metheglyn]

I did mine and got Leota Helen. It doesn't sound terrible with my last name, but all I can think of Madame Leota from the Haunted Mansion! ?

[NakedKnees]

21 hours ago, SorenaJ said:

Now that we are talking about names, can I ask a question about Hispanic American naming practices in the US? Sometimes I'll hear about Hispanic Americans with a Spanish-sounding first name, Jorge, Carlos, Camila etc and other time someone with a Spanish sounding surname will have more English-sounding names like John, Kelly, Christine etc. 

Is there a trend? Does it depend on how long/how many generations the person has been in the US? Does it depend on what Central or Southern American country the person is from? Social class? Sex of the baby? Basically how come you see some Hispanic American with English sounding names and some with Spanish sounding? What is most common? 

Also do Hispanic Americans keep the two-surname practice of Central and Southern American countries or they adopt the one-surname practice of the US? 

I am a hispanic American! First and foremost, I'll try to answer your questions in list form. Under spoiler due to formatting and lots of text:

Spoiler

• Is there a trend? Naming trends often show up in all communities. I know as many Spanish-speaking American "Noah"s and "Caleb"s and "Layla"s and "Sofia"s as English-speaking ones.
• Does it depend on how long/how many generations the person has been in the US? Yes and no. If the hispanic family actually immigrated to the US, then yes, things often evolve over generations for many reasons. If the hispanic family has always been in the US, which is common throughout the Southwest, then (at least in my opinion) the emotional experience of assimilation is very different. History is more like colonization than emigration. Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa is a book that digs into this excellently.
• Does it depend on what Central or Southern American country the person is from? Yes, extremely. 
• Social class? Sometimes. This is more apparent within Latino countries rather than in the United States, in my experience, but social class also has a huge bearing on the decision to emigrate, so there's that.
• Sex of the baby? For me I think this is true (see below)
• Basically how come you see some Hispanic American with English sounding names and some with Spanish sounding? What is most common? Also see below, but a lot of English names "work" well in Spanish anyway, and pressure to assimilate is very real. I'm not sure what's technically "most common," but I think these are some reasons you see the mix of English-sounding and Spanish-sounding names.
• Also do Hispanic Americans keep the two-surname practice of Central and Southern American countries or they adopt the one-surname practice of the US? The majority of Central/South American people I know my age born in the US have two last names, but I think the increase in two last names among unmarried or perhaps more liberal parents helped paved the way for this in my generation.

It probably goes without saying, but there is a huge variety of names throughout latin America and there is no one right answer to any of your questions- I'm just sharing my experience. No group of people is a monolith.

My mom is white and from Missouri, and my father is latino and from Chile. I have a very common "white"/English first name and Spanish middle name, and my brother has a Spanish first name and a Spanish (but very close to the English version) middle name. I think part of that may have been some subconscious projection on my parents' parts, but I'm not sure. We have the traditional two last names, but my parents stylized them with a hyphen, which isn't traditional in latin America (they say that the birth center insisted, but I've never heard of any other families having this issue, so who knows). In my experience, hispanic families in the US are all over the spectrum. Some really dedicate to the tradition, others (sadly, IMO) really reject tradition and try to assimilate, and a lot are combinations like mine.

Here's a resource on Chilean naming that looks accurate to me, if anyone is curious: https://clickbabynames.com/35948/most-popular-baby-names-in-chile (my stepson was born in 2005 and his name is on the 2010 list, as are many of our friends' kids)

A lot of people have names very similar to their English versions like Nicol, Megan, Karen, Emily, and Emma. Same goes for some French, Italian, and German names. Basically, if something is easy to pronounce in Spanish, it'll show up here.

Out of all of the hispanic people I know, Venezuelans consistently have the most unique, creative, and generally pretty names. To be fair, I also know a lot more people from Venezuela than from other countries, but still. Here's a NY Times article on it, but there are also tons of lists of names out there: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/weekinreview/07romero.html

[Mama Mia]

2 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Emily was the #1 baby name in the US from 1996 to 2007. Most people will know some young ladies named Emily. 

I was more commenting on 30 year old Emma. There were a couple among my kids school  friends , who would be 30ish now ( how the hell did that happen !) 

It’s interesting how names explode - a couple of my kids have names I picked because I liked them and they were ones I didn’t hear all the time - not rare, but I didn’t think there would be multiples in their classes - Wrong! Somehow, there were a ton of kids with those names. And neither were from a popular movie, book, celebrity.... I have a family member who picked one of the lovely old fashioned names for her baby- thinking she wouldn’t hear it- became that number one name just a few years later! 

My own name is fairly unusual, and a couple of people I went to school with named their kids my name. Not “after” me, but because they liked the name. That always felt...weird. 

 

 

 

 

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

3 hours ago, singsingsing said:

I never thought of Donat being bad. Is it because it looks like donut, or... ? 

I agree! The T is silent and the French soft O sounds pretty good in this one, I think. I have no hate for Donatienne either.

I kind of love those old Quebecois names. I like all the small towns named after obscure Saints too. (I may be biased because I spent some time in St-Arsene once upon a time.) A lot of Francophone Quebeckers seem to name their kids stuff like Patrick these days. Boring! (No offense, any Patricks out there.)

 

[catlady]

Because I’m a geography nerd, I looked up both St-Donation and St-Arsene, and I wandered around via google street view. Both are lovely little towns. 

[singsingsing]

The best Quebec place name is St-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!

[Eponine]

On 3/27/2019 at 2:28 PM, SorenaJ said:

Now that we are talking about names, can I ask a question about Hispanic American naming practices in the US? Sometimes I'll hear about Hispanic Americans with a Spanish-sounding first name, Jorge, Carlos, Camila etc and other time someone with a Spanish sounding surname will have more English-sounding names like John, Kelly, Christine etc. 

Is there a trend? Does it depend on how long/how many generations the person has been in the US? Does it depend on what Central or Southern American country the person is from? Social class? Sex of the baby? Basically how come you see some Hispanic American with English sounding names and some with Spanish sounding? What is most common? 

Also do Hispanic Americans keep the two-surname practice of Central and Southern American countries or they adopt the one-surname practice of the US? 

I'm not Latina but every year I see hundreds of students at my university from pretty much every Latin American country, and many born in the US to Latin American parents. There are some definite trends in terms of Anglo naming vs Spanish naming, but the clearest one is definitely that if the child is born here they're much more likely to have a clearly Anglo name. If they are born in a Spanish-speaking country it's kind of hit or miss and there's obviously a wide variety. I can sort of see some trends among countries in terms of areas more likely to use traditional vs trendier Anglo names but it's not super clear. Central American and Ecuadoran students, if they don't have generic Spanish names, often have names that are popular in the US at the same time. (No clue why Ecuador trends more that way, but that's what I'm seeing as I look at my data set.) A full 1/3 of Emilys I've had this year were either from Central America or their parents are.

Some other countries clearly had pockets of other Anglo names becoming popular when they were a bit dated here - I've had a lot of Cindys from South America recently, for example. There are also some cross-Latin American popular names that are familiar but not as popular in English-speaking areas, like Genesis. And there are some interesting things that I can't quite figure out, like that every Katherine (spelled this way) I've had for this year is from, or has parents from, a Spanish-speaking country, and I haven't had anyone with that name from Spanish-speaking countries who spells it differently.

Like anywhere, it depends on the trends in that particular place and time. For example, here in the US you see a lot of people with familiar traditional names and many with new trendy names, all in the same place. It just depends on the parents.

The one Latin American country that really stands out to me in terms of naming is the Dominican Republic - they run the gamut of super traditional to really typically American trendy to completely made up, it's all over the place.

All the examples of students I've given here would have been born around 2000-2001, for reference.

[Vivi_music]

7 hours ago, singsingsing said:

I’m cracking up because all of those names sound super normal to me (just because I’ve done so much genealogy). The only one I don’t think I’ve ever seen before is Delvica. They also really liked Malvina/Melvina for some reason.

Jeanne-d’Arc was surprisingly common in the first half of the 20th century.

I think I have ancestors (definitely relatives of ancestors) with all the names you listed. Another interesting one for your collection: Emerentienne.

Now you’ve inspired me to go dig up some more when I’m not on mobile...

Same, I know those names because of genealogy basically (and my own historical research about 19th century Lower-Canada).

They were super common back then so it is not like they are a ''surprise''. I just named the ones I find the most ''out there''. Personnaly, if someone named their kid ''Ovila'' I would still think ''Woah, weird for a baby. Not horrible, but that is a very old name for a kid''.  Just like I find Donat is old, dated and bizarre in my ears.  Like @SweetJuly said, it is a question of perception, which is influenced by culture, age, personal experience as well. (My own perks is because the ''AH'' sound at the end of given names is often dropped lower by a lot of people in Québec and makes it sounds just awful in my ears).

 

[singsingsing]

26 minutes ago, Vivi_music said:

Same, I know those names because of genealogy basically (and my own historical research about 19th century Lower-Canada).

They were super common back then so it is not like they are a ''surprise''. I just named the ones I find the most ''out there''. Personnaly, if someone named their kid ''Ovila'' I would still think ''Woah, weird for a baby. Not horrible, but that is a very old name for a kid''.  Just like I find Donat is old, dated and bizarre in my ears.  Like @SweetJuly said, it is a question of perception, which is influenced by culture, age, personal experience as well. (My own perks is because the ''AH'' sound at the end of given names is often dropped lower by a lot of people in Québec and makes it sounds just awful in my ears).

 

Oh, I would find it super weird if someone I knew named their kid Onesime or Telesphore or whatever, it's just that my brain doesn't have that 'that's weird' reaction because I've seen them so many times over and over again at this point, haha.

Quebec accents are interesting. My dad is French Canadian from a rural area and always prided himself on speaking 'correct' French, not colloquial French, or with a heavy accent. And then he went to Paris and they were like, "Where the hell are you from?" 

2 hours ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

I kind of love those old Quebecois names. I like all the small towns named after obscure Saints too. (I may be biased because I spent some time in St-Arsene once upon a time.) A lot of Francophone Quebeckers seem to name their kids stuff like Patrick these days. Boring! (No offense, any Patricks out there.)

I think the super Catholic names fell out of style just because, well, they are old-fashioned now, but also because Quebec has become a much more secular place. Before it was a huge thing to name your kids after particular saints. Now, no way.

[farmerannie]

So I have a funny name story. My ex husband family had this huge story about how they came over from Ireland and how Irish they were. In their defense their last name is very Irish. So my ex wanted all of out kids to have Irish names so that's what they have. Well years later his dad did the ancestry spit thing to see your genetics turns out his family is English lol. 

[Iamtheway]

I really love this and have been trying to find a Swedish database that has lists from further back but I can only find ones from the 1990:s and forward. 

I did look on the American one though and my name was on the list for my birthyear, ranked in the 800:s. Born 100 years earlier I’d be Sada. My middlename and Miniways name has never been top 1000 in the US, Mr Way has a common name and would be Fred. The lowest rank name starting with the same letter as Miniway’s name in 1914 was Hosea, ranked 5 spots above Spurgeon! 

I also looked to see what I would be called if I was male (by checking the male name ranked the same as my female one for the year) and weirdly they were both names that my husband really wanted us to use for Miniway.  

[Smee]

So I’m 30, and my name is Emma. My best friend at preschool was also Emma. When I started school, there were 14 girls in my grade - including me, another Emma (not the preschool friend), and a Gemma. I now know Emma’s ranging from age 0 to mid-80s. It’s a name that really isn’t clearly tied to a particular generation for me. I am in Australia though.

I gave my son a fairly uncommon (at the time) Old Testament biblical name, which several family and friends had a “what the?” reaction to because they hadn’t heard of it. It’s never been in the top 100 where I live. He’s now at school and there was another kid in his class last year with the same name ?

Names are so interesting. I find it amusing that even the “Victorian Duggars” have Luna, Lena, Lennie and Lee. Without any letter restrictions, they still ran out of original ideas.

[Screamapillar]

My Victorian name is Sally Florence. I dig it, it sounds like the name of a super sassy farm girl who runs off to make her way in the big city.

[nausicaa]

Strangely enough, I had a 30 year old American hairdresser named Emma cut my hair on Wednesday, and I was wondering about it. It did make more sense when she mentioned that her mom is British.

And does anyone else with a sort of weird, unique name live in fear of their name becoming a trend? Or some terrorist or pedophile with the same name becoming infamous? Office Space instilled this fear into me. 

Edited March 29, 2019 by nausicaa

[Screamapillar]

I live in fear of my kids' names becoming trendy. I wanted them to have names that are "normal" but not popular. I didn't want them to have to be like one of the Jessica A., Jessica D., Jessica K's I had in every class growing up.

My son's name is at about 300 in popularity and my daughter's isn't ranked. But hers is a very classic name in the style of names like Charlotte and Amelia and Evelyn that are so popular right now. If it becomes a thing in a couple of years and she's in the same generation of it being a trendy name, I'll be slightly annoyed.

The phenomenon of a name become a trend fascinates me.

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

33 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

Strangely enough, I had a 30 year old American hairdresser named Emma cut my hair on Wednesday, and I was wondering about it. It did make more sense when she mentioned that her mom is British.

And does anyone else with a sort of weird, unique name live in fear of their name becoming a trend? Or some terrorist or pedophile with the same name becoming infamous? Office Space instilled this fear into me. 

I picked my kids names based on them NOT being in the top 100 of names in the years before they were born. Neither of them were, at the times of their birth.  My son's name is now in the top 10, and there are little boys all over with his name, in 1996 it wasn't even in the top 100, in 1997 (the year he was born) it cracked the top 80 and in 2017 it was in the top 5.  I'm sure it has something to do with one of the main characters on The Vampire Diaries having the same name. 

My daughters name has 2 spelling variants of her name and neither of them are in the top 500, when ever people hear it they comment on what a pretty name it is. When she was in school, she was the only one with her name in the district (of over 3000 students), until her senior year and a little girl in Kindergarten had the same name with the different spelling. 

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

18 hours ago, singsingsing said:

I think the super Catholic names fell out of style just because, well, they are old-fashioned now, but also because Quebec has become a much more secular place. Before it was a huge thing to name your kids after particular saints. Now, no way.

For sure! I think some of the old names were just creative (sometimes even just creative spellings) and not necessarily Catholic though. Perhaps as a result of having big families - more room to explore!

Here are some gems of girls' names:

https://thedivingbells.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/old-feminine-names-from-quebec/

[Alisamer]

55 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

And does anyone else with a sort of weird, unique name live in fear of their name becoming a trend? Or some terrorist or pedophile with the same name becoming infamous? Office Space instilled this fear into me. 

I have a super common name (#1 for many years around when I was born), plus an incredibly common last name and a middle name that was the default for many girls my age - think Jennifer Anne Jones, born in the mid 70s, only even more common. 

And apparently SOMEONE with my name (there are around 140,000 of us in the US, I think) has done something bad enough that last time I re-entered the country I had to go to the side room and answer a couple questions from the very serious and dour uniformed agents there. Not fun.

There's always the risk of a name becoming infamous, no matter how common it is. Although there are tradeoffs - I imagine people with unusual names get tired of spelling them or explaining them, and not being able to find pre-personalized items. And those of us with common names often end up with terrible songs including our names being sung at us. I've also been to a funeral of someone with my exact same name, which was a little odd. And my dad s gotten mail for some other dude with his same name practically his whole life.

I liike my name now, but I always wished I had something fancier growing up. I ended up actually using the name I wished I had for one of my dolls. 

[TZmom]

21 hours ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

A lot of Francophone Quebeckers seem to name their kids stuff like Patrick these days. 

 

This reminds me of those Canadian Heritage moments. The one with all the Irish kids specifically. Literally excuse my French here because it's not going to be good:

"Ma mere me la dit juste avant de sa mort"....and then they go through the list of Irish names until they get to "Patrick....Patrick O'Neil". 

I don't know how to do accent marks or proper French grammar. This is just from memory and it's probably all wrong.

[nausicaa]

22 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

And those of us with common names often end up with terrible songs including our names being sung at us.

My sister's given name is Eileen, so I hear you on that one...

It's funny, my real name (which I actually don't go by) is one of those "known but not common" names that peaked in popularity in the 1950s by cracking the top 200, and then faded off after that. I was born in '84.

Baby Boomers never give my name a second thought, always spell it correctly, and treat it like a perfectly normal name for a woman. Millenials know of the name, but think it's old-fashioned and sometimes drop a letter when spelling it. And anyone born after 1995 has never heard the name and immediately asks me to spell it for them. I'm waiting for Slate to write some article about how my name is the perfect generational indicator.