Curiosities of Puritan NomenclatureBardsley, Charles Wareing Endell
History
Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature
Bardsley, Charles Wareing Endell
Names, Personal -- English
"1594, Nov. 28. Henry, son of ditto.
"1596, Nov. 16. Magdalen, daughter of ditto.
"1598, May 8. Christian, daughter of ditto.
"1600, Feb. 2. Faith-my-joy, daughter of ditto.[34]
"1603, April 3. John, son of ditto.
"1604, Feb. 23. Patience, daughter of Myster Anthonie Grey, preacher.
"1606, Oct. 5. Jobe, son of ditto.
"1608, May 1. Theophilus, son of ditto.
"1609, March 14. Priscilla, daughter of ditto (died).
"1613, Sept. 19. Nathaniel, son of ditto.
"1615, May 7. Presela, daughter of ditto."
Why old Antony was persuaded of the devil to christen his second child by
the ungodly agnomen of Henry, we are not informed. It must have given him
many a twinge of conscience afterwards.
Had the Puritan clergy confined these vagaries to their own nurseries, it
would not have mattered much. But there can be no doubt they used their
influence to bias the minds of godparents and witnesses in the same
direction. We have only to pitch upon a minister who came under the
archbishop's or Lord Treasurer's notice as disaffected, seek out the
church over which he presided, scan the register of baptisms during the
years of his incumbency, and a batch of extravagant names will at once be
unearthed. In the villages of Sussex and Kent, where the personal
influence of the recalcitrant clergy seems to have been greatest, the
parochial records teem with them.
Thus was the final stage of fanaticism reached, the year 1580 being as
nearly as possible the exact date of its development. Thus were English
people being prepared for the influx of a large batch of names which had
never been seen before, nor will be again. The purely Biblical names,
those that commemorated Bible worthies, swept over the whole country, and
left ineffaceable impressions. The second stage of Puritan excess, names
that savour of eccentricity and fanaticism combined, scarcely reached
England north of Trent, and, for lack of volume, have left but the
faintest traces. They lasted long enough to cover what may be fairly
called an epoch, and extended just far enough to embrace a province. The
epoch was a hundred years, and the province was from Kent to Hereford,
making a small arc northwards, so as to take in Bedfordshire,
Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire. The practice, so far as
the bolder examples is concerned, was a _deliberate scheme_ on the part of
the Presbyterian clergy. On this point the evidence is in all respects
conclusive.
III. CURIOUS NAMES NOT PURITAN.
Several names found in the registers at this time, though commonly
ascribed to the zealots, must be placed under a different category. For
instance, original sin and the Ninth Article would seem to be commemorated
in such a name as Original. We may reject Camden's theory:
"Originall may seem to be deducted from the Greek _origines_, that is,
borne in good time,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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