"1594, Nov. 1. Married Gawyn Browne and Sibbell Halfhed." So they run. How quaint and pretty they sound to modern ears! Amongst the above I have mentioned some girl-names. The change is strongly marked here. It was Elizabeth's reign saw the end of Joan. Jane Grey set the fashionable Jane going; Joan was relegated to the milkmaid, and very soon even the kitchen wench would none of it. Joan is obsolete; Jane is showing signs of dissolution.[27] It was Elizabeth's reign saw the end of Jill, or Gill, which had been the pet name of Juliana for three centuries: "1586, Feb. 5. Christening of Gillian Jones, daughter of Thomas Jones, grocer."--St. Peter, Cornhill. "1573, Sep. 25. Married John Carrington, Cheape, and Gillian Lovelake."--St. Dionis Backchurch. In one of our earlier mysteries Noah's wife had refused to enter the ark. To Noah she had said-- "Sir, for Jak nor for Gille Wille I turne my face, Tille I have on this hille Spun a space." It lingered on till the close of James's reign. In 1619 we find in "Satyricall Epigrams"-- "Wille squabbled in a tavern very sore, Because one brought a _gill_ of wine--no more: 'Fill me a quart,' quoth he, 'I'm called Will; The proverb is, each _Jacke_ shall have his _Gill_.'" But Jill had become a term for a common street jade, like Parnel and Nan. All these disappeared at this period, and must have sunk into disuse, Bible or no Bible. A nanny-house, or simple "nanny," was well known to the loose and dissolute of either sex at the close of the sixteenth century. Hence, in the ballad "The Two Angrie Women of Abington," Nan Lawson is a wanton; while, in "Slippery Will," the hero's inclination for Nan is anything but complimentary: "Long have I lived a bachelor's life, And had no mind to marry; But now I faine would have a wife, Either Doll, Kate, Sis, or Mary. These four did love me very well, I had my choice of Mary; But one did all the rest excell, And that was pretty Nanny. "Sweet Nan did love me deare indeed," etc. Respectable people, still liking the name, changed it to Nancy, and in that form it still lives. Parnel, the once favourite Petronilla, fell under the same blight as Peter, and shared his fate; but her character also ruined her. In the registers of St. Peter, Cornhill, we find the following entries:-- "1539, May 20. Christened Petronilla, ignoti cognominis." "1594, Sep. 15. Christening of Parnell Griphin, d. of John Griphin, felt-maker." "1586, April 17. Christening of Parnell Averell, d. of William Averell, merchant tailor." Two other examples may be furnished:-- "1553, Nov. 15. Peternoll, daughter of William Agar, baptized."--St. Columb Major. "1590, April. Pernell, d. of Antony Barton, of Poplar."--Stepney, London. The Restoration did not restore Parnel, and the name is gone.