Unusual first names - were they any help?

[andrewalston]

There have been fashions for first names which are "qualities". I believe that this was popular with Puritans. Some of these, such as Grace, have survived, but many others have fallen by the wayside.

I've just checked one I remember seeing and expecting to be extinct, and FreeBMD mentions a "Silence" as late as 1943.

I think that name smacks of the desperation of parents who have been kept awake by previous children.

[clairec666]

I found a child named Jubilee in my family - born in 1887, Victoria's golden jubilee year. I hoped she would be easy to trace, since she had a common surname. But alas, Jubilee appears to have been a nickname, and though it appears on the 1891 census, her birth is recorded as plain old Elizabeth.

[tetryon]

I found a 'Lide'... every other sibling and parent had a typical English name except hers. I saw a few alternate spellings. I thought it was short for "Lydia" until I saw it on every original document.