Doing family history research, we often come across names which you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy….. but turning back the clock, the names perhaps would not have had the same meaning. Gaylord – as a first name – is more common than you’d expect and is still in use in England and Wales indexes right up to a birth in 1972 of Gaylord Nelson Burke and in 1982, Gaylord Knott.
Wholesome D T Bayliss was born in March quarter 1920 in Guildford Registration District (mother’s maiden name Rogers). He married Mildred Newbold in June quarter 1946 in Ilkeston (Derbyshire) shortly after World War II. His death record in April 1985 shows his name as Wholesome Durell T. Bayliss – as a parent, why would you?
And then Mary Snogglegrass pops up at 3 Towers Street, St Giles-in-the-Fields in 1881, servant for the Hawkins family. She was apparently born in Fife and in around 1862 (aged 19) but there are no Snogglegrasses at all in Scotland (shame!), according to ScotlandsPeople.
The longest name in the bible is apparently Mahershalalhashbaz and this features as a first name in 1891 (born in Woolpit, Suffolk in circa 1850)…. Mahershalalhashbaz Tobbell. Judging by the other occurrences of the first name, it appears to have been used mainly in East Anglia.
