The most popular baby names of 2023 have been revealed with Mohummad and Olivia topping the charts.
Half a century ago in 1973 the most popular names were Michael for boys and Jennifer for girls, while a century ago in 1923 the nation’s favourite names were the very traditional John for boys and Mary for girls.
But what really is in a name? And how would our ancestors feel knowing that decades or even centuries later their names would garner a chuckle or two?
Take Mr Easy Pease. He was a labourer from Rochford and as you might guess from his name, a bit of a character.
In November 1878 he was one of a group of men charged with being ‘drunk and riotous’ inside a pub and was locked up with hard labour.
Two years later, again in Rochford, Easy Pease was convicted of assaulting a woman named Eliza Green.
Birth and death records which are widely available online or at the Essex Records Office in Chelmsford offer us a snapshot of name trends of the past and some of the more unusual names that Essex residents had.
On Boxing Day 1729 someone named ‘Good Cook’ was buried at St Margaret’s Church in Stanford Rivers.
Then there was ‘Rosetta Stone’. She was born in 1915 in Orsett. Was she named after the famous Egyptian stone stele on purpose?
Parish records also show a ‘Father Christmas’ was buried on May 30, 1564 in Dedham. Archivists at the Essex Records Office discovered the historical entry showing his resting place.
But historical records show that Christmas was not an uncommon surname in this county at the time and that Father was sometimes a respectful title given to an old and vulnerable man.
There is also a record of a ‘Father England’ dying in Great Leighs in February 1624.
Records also reveal Essex residents with well known names long before their descendants would make them famous.
For example, in 1824 a ‘Bamba Gascoine Brooks’ was baptised in Bradwell. Brooks was baptised in Bradwell – some 111 years before the famous University Challenge quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne was even born.
There are also those named after famous historical figures, for example, a ‘Henry Tudor’ was baptised in Shelley, near Ongar in February 1721, while an ‘Anne Boleyn’ was christened in Manuden in 1821.
Meanwhile, an unusually named ‘Hephzibah Pudding’ was baptised in 1822 in Clavering.
Virtuous names were very common in the 17th and 18th centuries. A woman named ‘Comfort Cribb’ was christened in Grays in 1785, a ‘Temperance Fixer’ died in Fyfield in 1595, ‘Providence Twaitt’ was buried at St Mary Magdalen Church in Colchester in June 1795 while a woman named ‘Fortune Long’ from Great Leighs was married in 1670 to Thomas Cowland.
Game of Thrones fans will be pleased to hear there have been several John Snows native to Essex including a John Snow who was born in Prittlewell in 1874. There have been several Aryas too.
It would be a push to find a Tyrion or a Daeneyrs but there was a Rob Stark who was born in 1903 and lived in Brightlingsea.
Keeping to the Christmas theme there have been several Ebenezers in Essex. Ebenezer Ladbrook was born in Earles Colne in 1849. The most famous holder of this name was perhaps Ebenezer Mather of Canvey and he was certainly no Scrooge.
Mather was the original fisherman’s friend and founded the Royal Nation Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.
Ebenezer died two days before Christmas in 1927 of heart failure.
He was buried in St Katherine’s Churchyard on Canvey.
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