Some time ago, I wrote a blog about some slightly more eccentrically named individuals including Poo Out, One Too Many Gouldstone and Not Wanted James Colvill. Today, I thought – whilst sat in Changi Airport, Singapore – that names might be an appropriate topic to return to.
So first, let me introduce Minty Badger. Badger, as a surname, is found in Warwickshire, amongst other counties. Minty was recorded as marrying in Southam in 1866 whilst Smiley Badger was born in Napton in about 1888.
And then there were several generations of individuals named Grimwood Death, from one born circa 1810 and dying in Hartismere, Suffolk to the most recent (spelling his surname De’Ath) dying in 2002.
Aylesbury baptism register has record of Neglected Heaks on 3 February 1627. She was alleged to have been named so because she had ‘no God father or God mother prepared at the time of Baptising.’
Offspring sometimes appears in the records when a newborn baby has yet to be named. However, in the nineteenth century, it was used as a first name by several families in Arlesey, Buckinghamshire, including one Offspring Jeeves.
Sometimes, brief local trends begin with the odd naming of a child and this is most certainly true of Benjamin Teapot born in Neath in 1858, with another born in Neath in 1867 and another in 1878!
And to bid you au revoir, the Yorkshire-born Fare-well Sykes, who drowned in 1865, the brother of Live-well, Do-well and Die-well Sykes.
Does this happen in non-English speaking countries as well? Do share any examples you have come across in your research!
