I'd love to hear people's stories about distinctive names that appear in their families, and whether you have found their origins.
I've found a girl called Providence, one called Jubilee (born in 1887), boys in seafaring families called Ocean and Seaman, and two boys (in different families) named Royal and Prince. Other names, such as Sackville, Wyndham and Seymour, look like they are taken from surnames.
Two of my ancestors had the first names Barnabas and Israel - while not unique, they were certainly unusual and the names were carried on for a few generations.
I have a some mysteries in my family though:
My great-grandmother's name was Dorothy Selman Oliver. You would imagine Selman could be her mother's maiden name, but it's not, or for the previous three generations. And it's not misread from Selma - it appears as Selman in the birth index, on her christening record and in the 1911 census. Her three brothers have the surnames Henry, William and James. So where did Selman come from?
My great-great-grandfather had a brother called Weymouth Nunn Moul. Nunn was his mother's maiden name, but I don't know where Weymouth came from! Obviously it's a town in Dorset, but the family lived in Essex, and his father was not a mariner.
My Frazer family often use the middle name Lovat/Lovett for their sons. There is a Scottish clan Fraser of Lovat... maybe they're connected, but my Frazers are in Worcestershire. The family also use Gilbert as a middle name long before it became popular as a first name.
Can anyone shed any light on my mysteries? Or just share your own stories of weird names!