The Name Pool

Have you noticed that the given names of our eighteenth and nineteenth century British ancestors were drawn from a surprisingly small pool?  John for example was carried by one in every five English males. The four most popular male names were carried by one in every two males. And the top thirteen male names were carried by 87% of the male population indicating that all of the other male names in use at the time were together borne by only 13% of the population.

That being the case, the usual popularity lists found on the internet – those that record the top 10, 20, 50 names – are unhelpful unless they provide frequency statistics.

There were also the commonly used spelling variations, abbreviations and diminutives.  For example, if you don’t know that Polly was a diminutive of Mary or that Nellie was a diminutive of Ellen and Eleanor and Helen, you may struggle to find your ancestors’ entries.  Harry for Henry, Bill for William, Fred or Alf for Alfred, Dick for Richard, Charlie or Lottie for Charlotte, Maggie, Meg or Maisie for Margaret.  Elizabeth was another extremely common name with multiple diminutives - Eliza, Liz, Lizzie, Betty, Betsy, Beth, Bessie, Lisbeth, Liza - the list goes on.

In the 1700s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, Thomas, Richard and James
Girls - Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane

In the 1800s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, James, George and Charles
Girls - Mary, Anna, Emma, Elizabeth and Margaret

There were, of course, always fads among names - copying that of the current Monarch and their family, for example, or using a traditional name common in your family.

Naming patterns were also common in many families, although they are by no means a reliable way of predicting the names of children.  Traditionally, the first son would be named for the paternal grandfather, the second son for the maternal grandfather and the third son for the father.  For females, the first daughter would be named for the maternal grandmother, the second daughter for the paternal grandmother and the third daughter for the mother.  Providing, of course, these names were not the same.  

Then, there are the families that seemed to delight in using unusual names for their children, and those who followed popular fads.  Horatio, for example, made a brief surge in popularity after Nelson's victory at Trafalgar.  Similarly, Adolf disappeared from German communities after World War 2.