Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature. Bardsley Charles Wareing Endell
can be more precise than this. To the strict Puritan to reject the Richards, Mileses, and Henrys of the Teutonic, and the Bartholomews, Simons, Peters, and Nicholases of the ecclesiastic class, was to remove the Canaanite out of the land.
How early this “article of religion” was obeyed, one or two quotations will show. Take the first four baptismal entries in the Canterbury Cathedral register:
“1564, Dec. 3. Abdias, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.
“1567, April 26. Barnabas, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.
“1569, June 1. Ezeckiell, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.
“1572, Feb. 10. Posthumus, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.”
Another son seems to have been Philemon:
“1623, April 27. John, the sonne of Philemon Pownoll.”
A daughter “Repentance” must be added:
“1583, Dec. 8. Married William Arnolde and Repentance Pownoll.”
Take another instance, a little later, from the baptisms of St. Peter’s, Cornhill:
“1589, Nov. 2. Bezaleell, sonne of Michaell Nichollson, cordwayner.
“1599, Sep. 23. Aholiab, sonne of Michaell Nicholson, cordwainer.
“1595, May 18. Sara, daughter of Michaell Nichollson, cobler.
“1599, Nov. 1. Buried Rebecca, daughter of Michaell Nicholson, cordwainer, 13 yeares.”
Rebecca, therefore, would be baptized in 1586. Sara and Aholiab died of the plague in 1603. Both old Robert Pownoll and the cobler must have been Puritans of a pronounced type.
The Presbyterian clergy were careful to set an example of right name-giving:
“1613, July 28. Baptized Jaell, daughter of Roger Mainwaring, preacher.” – St. Helen, Bishopsgate.
“1617, Jan. 25. Baptized Ezekyell, sonne of Mr. Richard Culverwell, minister.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
“1582, – . Buried Zachary, sonne of Thomas Newton, minister.” – Barking, Essex.
A still more interesting proof comes from Northampton. As an example of bigotry it is truly marvellous. On July 16, 1590, Archbishop Whitgift furnished the Lord Treasurer with the following, amongst many articles against Edmond Snape, curate of St. Peter’s, in that town:
“Item: Christopher Hodgekinson obteyned a promise of the said Snape that he would baptize his child; but Snape added, saying, ‘You must then give it a christian name allowed in the Scriptures.’ Then Hodgekinson told him that his wife’s father, whose name was Richard, desired to have the giving of that name.”
At the time of service Snape proceeded till they came to the place of naming: they said “Richard;”
“But hearing them calling it Richard, and that they would not give it any other name, he stayed there, and would not in any case baptize the child. And so it was carried away thence, and was baptized the week following at Allhallows Churche, and called Richard.” – Strype’s “Whitgift,” ii. 9.
This may be an extreme case, but I doubt not the majority of the Presbyterian clergy did their best to uproot the old English names, so far as their power of persuasion could go.
Even the pulpit was used in behalf of the new doctrine. William Jenkin, the afterwards ejected minister, in his “Expositions of Jude,” delivered in Christ Church, London, said, while commenting on the first verse, “Our baptismal names ought to be such as may prove remembrances of duty.” He then instances Leah, Alpheus, and Hannah as aware of parental obligations in this respect, and adds —
“’Tis good to impose such names as expresse our baptismal promise. A good name is as a thread tyed about the finger, to make us mindful of the errand we came into the world to do for our Master.” – Edition 1652, p. 7.
As a general rule, the New Testament names spread the most rapidly, especially girl-names of the Priscilla, Dorcas, Tabitha, and Martha type. They were the property of the Reformation. Damaris bothered the clerks much, and is found indifferently as Tamaris, Damris, Dammeris, Dampris, and Dameris. By James I.’s day it had become a fashionable name:
“1617, April 13. Christened Damaris, d. of Doctor Masters.
“ – , May 29. Christened Damaris, d. of Doctor Kingsley.” – Canterbury Cathedral.
Martha, which sprang into instant popularity, is registered at the outset:
“1563, July 25. Christened Martha Wattam.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
Phebe had a great run. The first I have seen is —
“1568, Oct. 24. Christened Phebe, d. of Harry Cut.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
Dorcas was, perhaps, the prime favourite, often styled and entered Darcas. Every register has it, and every page. A political ballad says —
“Come, Dorcas and Cloe,
With Lois and Zoe,
Young Lettice, and Beterice, and Jane;
Phill, Dorothy, Maud,
Come troop it abroad,
For now is our time to reign.”
Persis, Tryphena, and Tryphosa were also largely used. The earliest Persis I know is —
“1579, Maye 3. Christened Persis, d. of William Hopkinson, minister heare.” – Salehurst.
Some of these names – as, for instance, Priscilla, Damaris, Dorcas, and Phebe – stood in James’s reign almost at the head of girls’ names in England. Indeed, alike in London and the provinces, the list of girl-names at Elizabeth’s death was a perfect contrast to that when she ascended the throne. Then the great national names of Isabella, Matilda, Emma, and Cecilia ruled supreme. Then the four heroines Anna, Judith, Susan, and Hester, one or two of whom were in the Apocryphal narrative, had stamped themselves on our registers in what appeared indelible lines, although they were of much more recent popularity than the others. They lost prestige, but did not die out. Many Puritans had a sneaking fondness for them, finding in their histories a parallel to their own troubles, and perchance they had a private and more godly rendering of the popular ballad of their day:
“In Ninivie old Toby dwelt,
An aged man, and blind was he:
And much affliction he had felt,
Which brought him unto poverty:
He had by Anna, his true wife,
One only sonne, and eke no more.”
Esther13 is still popular in our villages, so is Susan. Hannah has her admirers, and only Judith may be said to be forgotten. But their glory was from 1450 to 1550. After that they became secondary personages. Throughout the south of England, especially in the counties that surrounded London, the Bible had been ransacked from nook to corner. The zealots early dived into the innermost recesses of Scripture. They made themselves as familiar with chapters devoted solely to genealogical tables, as to those which they quoted to defend their doctrinal creed. The eighth chapter of Romans was not more studied by them than the thirty-sixth of Genesis, and the dukes of Edom classified in the one were laid under frequent contribution to witness to the adoption treated of in the other. Thus names unheard of in 1558 were “household words” in 1603.
The slowest to take up the new custom were the northern counties. They were out of the current; and Lancashire, besides being inaccessible, had stuck to the old faith. Names lingered on in the Palatinate that had been dead nearly a hundred years in the south. Gawin figures in all northern registers till a century ago, and Thurston14 was yet popular in the Fylde district, when it had become forgotten in the Fens. Scotland was never touched at all. The General Assembly of
Esther’s other name of Hadassah had a share of favour. So late as William and Mary’s reign we find the name in use:
“1691, May 24. Christened Hadasa, daughter of Arthur Richardson.
“1693, Sep. 4. Christened John, son of Nicholas and Hadassah Davis.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
In the Lancashire “Church Surveys,” 1649-1655, being the first volume of the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society’s publications, edited by Colonel Fishwick, occur Thurston Brown, Thurston Brere, Thurston Brich, on one single page of the index.