Unusual names.

[DeafDoggy488]

Hiya,

I've been looking through my family tree and I've come across some unique names given to my ancestors. An example is 'Embling' which then evolved to Emily over the last century.
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However, I've found a distant relative whose name came up as "Mateland Oswald". I'm stuck as to what Mateland could be as I know that during the 18th Century, majority of working class were illiterate and couldn't spell their names so the scribers would just write down how it sounded. I'm stuck with this one because I want to find out his mother but all I could get is his birth register and his father's name. So I wondered if his mother's name would be available on his death record however, nothing has come up for 'Mateland'. I wonder what the alternative could be apart from Maitland?

TIA

[JAKnighton]

My experience with unusual names, and how I "solved" where they came from.

The most common reason is that the name is a surname from elsewhere in the family, such as a mother, grandmother or even great grandmother's maiden name. I have examples of all of these in my tree.

One relative was recorded as "Malta" in all censuses and on his marriage and death certificates. I couldn't find his birth for the longest time, until I found out he was born as "Maltster" as in a person who makes malt. Still have no idea why he was named this, as the family were all farm labourers, but maybe they had aspirations for him?

My 3x grand uncle was a Healy Thomas Knighton, and then I found out his cousin, a child of Ruth Knighton, was called Healy Thomas as well. I couldn't find a 'Healy' relative in the Knighton family. Then I found Ruth Knighton in the 1851 census as a domestic servant for a Healy Thomas Chapman. He wasn't a relative, but must have made an impression on the Knighton family. I learned that "Healey" was his great-grandmother's maiden name. Healy is still a name passed down in some branches of the Knighton family.

[suzard]

Mateland is not such an uncommon name
I found many records of people with the forename Mateland - from 1700's to 2014 electoral register
On many records it is spelled Mateland but for baby names (many sites give it as a male name and some give it as a unisex name ) and other records on the net it seems to mainly be spellt Maitland -so if you put this into a search engine you should get several hits

Suz

[andrewalston]

I have a couple of "Emblin" girls in my tree, one born 1784, whose name is written as Emily at the baptisms of her children, and appears in 1841 as Amelia The other, born 1795, keeps her spelling until her burial in 1863.

It has been quite common for names to change over time, though this is more common with surnames, which are not spoken out loud as often.

There is about a 90% chance that Mateland is the maiden name of one of M.O.'s female ancetors. I would start by looking for a marriage of an Oswald to a woman with the surname Mateland or Maitland.

[pinefamily]

In my family, three different branches carried on three different names, all originally surnames in the past: Dowdeswell, Youatt, and Hogard/Hogarth.

[Viktoria]

I wish I had known my G.G grand mother`s maiden name, -  Cordley , and the tradition of using it as a forename for boys in the family, when my sons were born.
I only found it out relatively recently,I would certainly have used it as a second name.
                                        Viktoria.
_

[iluleah]

Names over the centuries have evolved and just like anything else there is a cycle....

Prior to taking surnames, people used just a given name until increases in population and surnames were needed to tax people, so Thomas, son of John became Thomas Johnson or Thomas Johns, William who live near Lincoln became William Lincoln and William who was the village baker became Wm Baker and so on.
On marriage the female gave up her fathers surname and took her husbands, however many chose to use her surname as a middle name for their children and/or the maiden name of either of their mothers.

Many of these surnames, which were later used as middle names then in later generations these became given names.

In my maternal ancestry there are three surnames that each generation some one in the family use and call their male child that as a given name and I have always known those names as 'family names' however only after researching do I now know where they really come from......... so just like the cycle of fashion or design names come in cycles.........and many of those names also give the FH researcher huge clues about female maiden names especially as you go back and it is often difficult to find those maiden names, well it certainly has for my research