Quaker Names for Ladies

One of our favorite and completely ridiculous family conversations involves the discussion of names, no, not for cows, but for children. The fun of the conversation must have origins in the fact that there are eight of us, which meant that there were eight of us to name.

The trouble has become, in recent times, that of projecting into the future because eight children naming their own children unique names tends to cause conflict, especially because we all like the same names. The fact that usually a husband and wife are involved in naming their children and not an individual and their seven siblings doesn't ever seem to phase us. In fun, we have even proposed an auction for names, given that it would not be fair for one person to get all of the good names just because they happened to have children first!

We all have a lot of male names that we like (the top ranking are Silas and Obadiah!), but the real difficulty is that none of us really like that many names for girls, and so inspired by the trip to Jamestown in search of our ancestors, I pulled out the Angell family genealogy and wrote down all of the female names that I could find for the past ten generations (there were a lot of repeats).

Consider it the beginning of the auction.

Auction - First Round - The Good Old Faithfuls

Mary
Sarah Ann
Martha
Elizabeth
Lydia
Anne
Anna
Annie
Rachel
Rebekah
Hannah
Lydia
Sarah
Pheobe

Auction - Second Round - The Known, Perhaps Generational

Dorothy
Miriam
Judith
Eleanor
Barbara
Susannah
Margaret
Jane


Auction - Third Round - The Virtuous

Patience
Charity
Prudence

Auction - Fourth and Final Round - The Unusual

Damaris
Penina
Keziah
Rhoda
Zelpha
Penelope
Jeclovy