Curiosities of Puritan NomenclatureBardsley, Charles Wareing Endell
History
Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature
Bardsley, Charles Wareing Endell
Names, Personal -- English
_Lively_, we may presume, referred to spiritual manifestations. A curious
combination of font name and patronymic is obtained in Lively Moody, D.D.,
of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1682 (Wood's "Fasti Oxonienses").
Exactly one hundred years later the name is met with again:
"1782, July 3. Lively Clarke of this town, sadler, aged
60."--Berkeley, Gloucester.
At Warbleton, where the Puritan Heley ministered, it seems to have been
found wearisome to be continually christening children by the names of
Repent and Repentance, so a variation was made in the form of
"Sorry-for-sin:"
"1589, Jan 25. Baptized Sory-for-sine, the dather of John Coupard."
The following is curious:
"Thomas Luxford, of Windmill Hill, died Feb. 24, 1739, aged 72 years.
He was grandson of Thomas Luxford, of Windmill Hill, by _Changed_
Collins, his wife, daughter of Thomas Collins, of Socknash in this
county, Esq., and eldest son of Richard Luxford, of
Billinghurst."--Wartling Church.
Faithful[47] may close this list:
"1640, Oct. 18. Baptized Benjamin, son of Faithful Bishop."--St.
Columb Major.
Faithful Rouse settled in New England in 1644 (Bowditch). The following
despatch mentions another:
"1666, July 18. Major Beversham and Lieut. Faithful Fortescue are sent
from Ireland to raise men."--C. S. P.
Bunyan evidently liked it, and gave the name to the martyr of Vanity Fair:
"Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive;
For though they killed thee, thou art yet alive."
Speaking from a nomenclatural point of view, the name did not survive, for
the last instance I have met with is that of Faithful Meakin, curate of
Mobberley, Cheshire, in 1729 (Earwaker, "East Cheshire," p. 99, _n._). It
had had a run of more than a century, however.
The reader will have observed that the majority of these names have become
obsolete. The religious apathy of the early eighteenth century was against
them. They seem to have made their way slowly westward. Certainly their
latest representatives are to be found in the more retired villages of
Gloucestershire and Devonshire. A few like Mercy, Faith, Hope, Charity,
Grace, and Prudence, still survive, and will probably for ever command a
certain amount of patronage; but they are much more popular in our
religious story-books than the church registers. The absence of the rest
is no great loss, I imagine.
(_c._) _Exhortatory Names._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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