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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: harewoodhouse on Friday 30 January 09 09:46 GMT (UK)
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;D came across strange family of Colmer's from Somerset..some of the kids were called...Cornelius agrippa, cleopatra and ptolmey...I dont know what they were on but I think it is safe to say they wanted the kids to stand out from the crowd
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30 or so years ago we met a couple at a party who had called their son Ptolemy, and the other child had an unusual name too - can't quite remember - ships passing in the night ....
eadaoin
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The only Ptolemy I've heard of is Ptolemy Dean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_Dean the architectural historian - I see he has a sister Tacita - which is also pretty unusual.
Carole
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As far as I know, Ptolemy and Cleopatra were both names used by the ancient egyptian pharaoh's etc. There was a big egyptian revival at the turn of the century, when archaeologists discovered tutenkamun's tomb I think?
Perhaps this family had a special interest in egyptian history.
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;D yes, but I imagine these poor kids got bullied at school for it, the other day I was looking at a record for a women her full name was Caroline Harriet Sarah Elizabeth Henslow....I was thinking that theres a cunning way to teach your kid the alphabet...well most of it ;D
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There is or was a Ptolomey family in Doncaster, also a Caesar family. I know Doncaster is a former Roman fort, but this is ridiculous. Incidentally the Ptolomeys were Greek migrants to Egypt, and not native Egyptians. Cleopatra was Greek by birth.
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I pity Cornelius the most, Cleopatra could shorten her name to Cleo, Ptolomey to Pat or Tommy but Cornelius Agrippa...what can you do with that, maybe Con. I have a family who still to this day call one of the children Cornelius but mostly now it is used as a middle name.
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I had a great Uncle whose middle name was Vaseline. Thank god that did not continue down through the family . Loandy ;D
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Ptolmey must be making a come back -there are several birth regs 2000-2005 where the forename is Ptolomey!!
Suz
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My grandfather was called Ptolemy. The ways it has been transcribed are numerous including a school register for my dad and his siblings which said Thomas ;D ;D ;D
I guess the Welsh accent wouldn't have helped LOL
I admire my Gt Grandfathers choice of name and think it was a wonderful choice. Unusual but not strange I don't think. :)
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I have an ancestor who has the name PASHON as his third name. Strangely apart from granmother who only had one given name all the rest have two given names all of which are what I tem as normal names.
This ancestor wwas born in 1887 and I have yet to discover why PASHON was added or what the name means.
Jean
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One of my Gt Uncles born in the 1890s had Stancliffe as a middle name - no family connection - he was named for the curate. If I hadn't known I could have spent years trying to track down the elusive Stanciffe side of the family ;D
Carole
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I don't know if I would call this name strange, but it is a mystery. I've always wanted to post about it and thought this thread might be a place for it :)
My grandfather spoke affectionately of a great aunt called 'Auntie Timmie' (Timmy?). Funny name for a lady. Now it is many years later, and we have discovered living relatives who had also heard stories passed down about 'Auntie Timmie'. She came from Ireland but moved to England with her second husband, and in her elderly years (and presumably after her husband passed away) came to live with some of the family in north London.
It wasn't until finding an elderly relative (grandfather's cousin) who told us Auntie Timmie's real name was Emily!
I have a fairly good idea where and after when 'Emily' died, and I've been told the second husband's surname... yet I have been unable to track her down. I know it does not add much, but I can't help wanting to unravel the mysterious name and give some place on the Tree to this lady I've heard so many stories about. Could 'Timmie' be short for some other name she went by? Maybe I'm barking up a wrong tree looking for an 'Emily'?
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Timmy/Timmie is a nickname for Timothea, Timandra and Timberley
but Emily may be her correct name - often aunts were known by a name some child in the family, as they started to talk, called them.
If you have your aunts d.o.b. and surname - as well as a rough idea when she died and where - why not search surname only? Do you know where/when husband died ? She may be buried with him???
I had great aunts who were Dot (Doris), Trot (Dorothy) Bubbles (Beryl), and Bud (Violet) -we never knew their correct names until after they died!!!
all of the Sarah Ellens in my family went by the name of nellie and 2 of the marthas were known as Patty!
the strangest one is Uncle Bink - his name was Arthur!!!! We never knew where his nickname came from !
Suz
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i quite fancy one i came across whilst looking for ancestors in my local archives......... Ealing Hands Greaves ... Poor Child. (no joke) :)
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Here's one from my tree: Able Doolittle (married to Thankful Moss)
Re: 'Auntie Timmie' (maiden name O'Neill) would have been born mid 1800s in Ireland. I have no idea who her first husband was but her second was apparently a man by the name of Duke, as we were told that she felt therefore she could call herself a 'duchess'! No idea when he died. I believe she would have died around Enfield Middlesex where she was living with family, somewhere after 1924. I've checked O'Neill, Duke, Duce, Duck... tried surnames only, so far no luck.
I know that when she left Ireland with her husband they settled first in Middlesbrough (don't know why, or when!), and I did find an suggestive Emily & William Duke in that area in the 1901 census.
I know exactly the address she was at early 1920's, so perhaps mystery will be solved with the next census (or just my luck she will have moved there a month after it was taken) ::)
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With regard to odd nicknames - a elderly family friend of my childhood had a friend called Regatta. We assumed that she had some exotic family ancestry - perhaps from Iceland...............
Many years later, we found out that Regatta was a nickname from school because her surname was Henley ;D
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A teacher in Wisconsin's name: Marijauna Pepsi Sawyer
URL: Chicago Sun Times March 8, 2009 http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1466840,w-marijuana-pepsi-jackson030809.article
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I know of two Thor's and an Odin, all children.
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My mother, Emily Hannah nee Ayres (1903-2003) was known throughout her life as Jum. The story was as follows: During the earlier part of 1903, her 14 year old uncle James Ayres (bc1889) emigrated (alone) to Australia, before he went, he said to his older brother her father, "If its a boy call him Jim after me" It wasn't a boy, but my mother was still called Jim.
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That's a nice story.
How did your great uncle get on in Australia?
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I've got a Tom Doris Waite... :-\
Can't imagine he'd have mentioned that at school! And it was also slightly weird as his father already had another son called Thomas, who was known as Billy.
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I once knew a family called Towle, they had a son and called him Terry because it seemed appropriate!
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Sorry Tsu, I forgot to answer your query. He married in 1916, his bride was from the same village as him, Bottisham Lode, Cambs. She went out to Australia in 1915, again alone like him, aged 23, and with German submarines everywhere in the North Atlantic. When he left England in 1903 she would have been aged 10. I have seen rumours of arranged marriages in this village, have posted queries on this site, but noone wants to know, it's like the Mafia Omata! Anyway, they married raised a family and I believe he died in Sydney around 1965. Got this from a grandson of his through the net. My mother who lived to 99 said that they had lost contact with him after he went to Australia, yet his grandson said that he had been in regular contact with his only surviving sister up to his death. We knew her quite well, and if this is correct to my knowledge she never mentioned the contact.
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Thanks for that Roger,
My husband's great grandfather went to Australia (and then to NZ) on his own in about 1883 after his mother died.
When you think about it, it was a massively brave thing to do. The equivalent of going to the moon on a one way ticket today.
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My wife has a relative who made a fortune in the NZ goldfield, sold out and went into dairy farming in a warmer climate- Australia
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Have a read of Potty, Fartwell & Knob, Extraordinary but true names of British People by Russell Ash. It's hilarious.
Joan
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What if a Potty married a Fartwell? More seriously there is a family, formerly of Lincolnshire surname Pimp
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Men with the name 'Ptolemy' are often called 'Tolly' for short.
Re nicknames etc, I often quote my uncle Jack (actually Horace) and I also had an uncle known as 'Chozzer'. Both of them are from a small village where nicknames were common. The latter was because he used to admire a politician called Sir Leonard Chiozza-Money and often quoted him.
Sir L was ultimately involved in a scandal and fell from favour!
ps I love the idea of the lady being called 'Thankful Doolittle' after her marriage!
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I pity Cornelius the most, Cleopatra could shorten her name to Cleo, Ptolomey to Pat or Tommy but Cornelius Agrippa...what can you do with that
I don't see how you get Pat from Ptolemy, but my grandma had a cousin Cornelius, which was always (sort of) shortened to Neil.
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Should have been nicknamed Corney!
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There was a Cornelius in every generation of that branch of the family, and I think one of the earlier ones was known as Corny.
Neil is a less obvious abbreviation, but would itself have been quite uncommon as a forename at the time.
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Most of my male ancestors were named John or William; an Osmond was extremely in tracing my family's move from Wiltshire to Dorset in the 17th century.
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The Colmer parents who gave strange names to their children lived in Middle Street, Yeovil. Robert Slade Colmer and his wife Jane were herbalists and owned a shop. They were both convicted of murdering a Mrs Mary Budge when they botched her abortion. The death penalty was waived and Robert Colmer ended up in either Rochester or Gravesend Prison where he died in 1889. His wife was later released and died in Yeovil in 1891. For those of you who would like to read the gristly details, follow this link: http://www.yeovilhistory.info/colmer-robertslade.htm
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Getting back to the earliest few posts, Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in the 1920s, wasn't it? So earlier than that, probably not the inspiration for Ptolemy, Cleo etc. Perhaps just a historicall-minded family?
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Ptolomey is in fact a Greek surname. I know of such a family at Doncaster; strangely there is alos a family named Caesar, one of whom claims descent from Julius.
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I think I've heard of that chap - indirectly, from a friend, it does sound familiar...
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Spotted a Ptolomey/Ptolemy in an Irish family tree connected to my DNA. Looking further it could also be Tolmey/Tolmy
I had never thought of it in that light but there is that old conjecture of Egyptians settling in Ireland very early ie BC
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There was a Ptolomy family in Doncaster recently. The name is Greek not Egyptian. The name of the Greeks who replaced the Egyptian pharoahs, and were replaced by the Romans.
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In my Paternal Ancestors I have one with the middle name of Claudius.
Where I used to live there was an elderly gentleman who had a Off Licence & his name
was Stonewall Jackson.
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Our local history group transcribed the gravestones in our local churchyard.
My favourite was Neighbour Crump. I checked on freebmd and he was christened Neighbour in about 1850.
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I would imagine that the word "Friend" will appear many times in a Quaker graveyard. I know it is a title to the Quakers, but have known at leat one person named and known as Friend.
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My great-great-grandad was named Verdant! This name was never passed down the generations sadly. He gave himself a middle name of Robert, presumably to fit in better ;D
Other than that, most of mine are fairly common - William and John mainly. Had a couple of Biblical names here and there: Abraham, Jethro, Abel. Austin was a good one, presumably a family name. Burt. Jesse. Ambrose. Some interesting female ones such as Augusta, Avery, Charity, Patience, Virtue, Lily, Thomasine, Diana and Amey among them.
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I worked with a young engineer whose name was Tem. On enquiring, he told me it was short for Temujin, the birth name of Genghis Khan. Apparently I was the first person that knew the origin of his name.
Off the top of my head the strangest name in my family tree is Ferdinando. Apparently quite popular in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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Off the top of my head the strangest name in my family tree is Ferdinando. Apparently quite popular in the 16th and 17th centuries.
There were several Ferdinandos in a family I'm researching 18th-19thC. They lived in Co. Durham. A granddaughter named her Lancashire-born son Ferdinando after his uncle & godfather. Thomas, William or John were the usual names of these families. It was a Catholic family. I wondered if it was a tribute to King Ferdinand, father of Queen Catherine of Aragon. One of my lines has several girls called Isabella. I was hoping to find a Ferdinand & Isabella pairing.
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Actually, I have one great-great-aunt with a strange name! Her name was Tryphena Ivy Levinia Pepper. Sadly, she died in infancy. Her sister was my great-grandmother, Florence Sarah Irene Pepper. Much more regular names thankfully ;D
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It was not uncommon for the next child of the same gender to be given the names of the child previously deceased, so perhaps your ancestor was lucky? In my own family in earlier times I have seen this take place from a few weeks after the death in some cases, to in one case several years before the next child of the same sex was born.
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Austin was a good one, presumably a family name.
Austin can be a variant of Augustine.
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My line with the Ferdinando's was definitely not Catholic. After checking my files, there were actually three of the name. The first seemed to have done for himself, working as a secretary at the Exchequer. Perhaps the other two were named in his honour.
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I have a couple of friends with Greek names (not related to each other) with long unusual names. One is Nickarzia (pronounced Nic-kar-zia) Zeke who has a Welsh surname but has Greek, Italian and English ancestry. The other is Christothea who has Greek ancestry.
In our family tree, unusual names I hadn't heard of, were the names Brilliana and Parthenia. Where have these names come from?
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Actually, I have one great-great-aunt with a strange name! Her name was Tryphena Ivy Levinia Pepper. Sadly, she died in infancy. Her sister was my great-grandmother, Florence Sarah Irene Pepper. Much more regular names thankfully ;D
Tryphena is mentioned in the New Testament, along with Tryphosa (Romans 16.12)
I've come across a few Tryphenas, but never a Tryphosa.
Thomas Hardy had a cousin named Tryphena Sparks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryphena_Sparks
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I also have a Tryphena in my tree and my first thought was that it sounded very Thomas Hardy.
He used some wonderful names in his books, Clym, Bathsheba, Gabriel, Angel etc.
Sadly most of mine are John, Robert, James, Ann, Martha.
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One unusual name for me is 'Ranieul' I currently have it as my middle name and got it from my grandfather whose first name it was. He got it from his uncle who got it from his granddad, My 3rd grt granddad was called 'Ranieul Ishmael Gipp' but I think was actually baptised 'Rainald' but through records went by the names Riley/Ranieul.
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Some strange family names I found in my line were.
Fearnot Shaw
Clone Maudelene Blackwell
Clorine Doris Brislane
Comfort Day
Some were American puritan names as I was told and others are just bizarre.
These are only but a few I found.
I have a large American and English family relation, as I have found out, since late last year.
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Though nevef really common in a widespread sense, these types of names were frequent in the later 17th and 18th centuries, and had a revival in the free churches during the 19th century.
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I mentioned before a lady called Spanisher Robson, who wed one of my several times great uncles. Only time I come across such a name.
And Kerrenhappuch. An old Biblical name.
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Kerrenhappuch. An old Biblical name.
Winston Graham used it for a character in a Poldark novel. The girl didn't like her name and shortened it to Keren.
I know a Kerenhappuch Street in a town in the North of England.
The few occurrences of the forename on Lancashire OPC have been transcribed as if it was 2 separate names, "middle name" Happuch/Happach/Happock. Result of a search for the name Kerenappuch was "This name does not exist in the database".
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Kerrenhappuch. An old Biblical name.
Winston Graham used it for a character in a Poldark novel. The girl didn't like her name and shortened it to Keren.
I know a Kerenhappuch Street in a town in the North of England.
The few occurrences of the forename on Lancashire OPC have been transcribed as if it was 2 separate names, "middle name" Happuch/Happach/Happock. Result of a search for the name Kerenappuch was "This name does not exist in the database".
In the Old Testament the third daughter of Job is named as "Keren-happuch", so not unreasonable that the name should have been split.
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Very likely that the original spelling was Tolmie or Tolme - derived from a gaelic nickname (Tolmach). Name reportedly comes from the descendants of an Iain Tolmach Mc'Rory who came from Gairloch in Scotland, descendants settled in/around the Black Isle in Scotland.
Spotted a Ptolomey/Ptolemy in an Irish family tree connected to my DNA. Looking further it could also be Tolmey/Tolmy
I had never thought of it in that light but there is that old conjecture of Egyptians settling in Ireland very early ie BC
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If I remember correctly, the principal of Rochdale College of Art in the 1950s/60s was called Julius Caesar.
I always liked the name of my friend's aunt - Clemency
My own family history is littered with Amoses, generation after generation, often an Amos Charles. My 4xgt-grandmother was called Thomasin, sometimes recorded as Tomason, Thompson, Thomasina, or even on the ship's passenger list when she emigrated to the USA as just Tam - I expect the ship's personnel found her Huntingdonshire accent difficult to understand.
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My 4xgt-grandmother was called Thomasin, sometimes recorded as Tomason, Thompson, Thomasina, or even on the ship's passenger list when she emigrated to the USA as just Tam - I expect the ship's personnel found her Huntingdonshire accent difficult to understand.
Perhaps some people called her Tamsin, which is a variant or nickname of Thomasin.
To cite another Thomas Hardy reference - there's a character in The Return Of The Native called Tamsin Yeobright, whose formal name is Thomasin.
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My 2xgt-grandfather's christian name was Pulleine and until a few months ago I had no idea where it came from. I eventually discovered it was his maternal grandmother's maiden name which for some reason his mother who died of typhus 2 months after his birth had given him.
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I actually have s Nebuchadnezzar Ayres amongst my many biblical named relatives.