This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/FO.2ADI/205 Message Board Post: In a MAYFLOWER-L list discussion about New Engand nomenclature, replying to a query from me, the Genferret (Mustela genealogiae) wrote the following about biblical names, which I thought would interest readers of this bulletin board: <<It has been said by people who are paid to know these things that the early Plymouth colonists also tended to use biblical names which corresponded to the social status of the family--for instance, names of biblical kings would not be used by people of lower social status. Names were said to have been chosen for the moral qualities asociated with the biblical figure--humilty, devotion, faith, etc., the more "modest" sorts of qualities one would expect to be valued in Plymouth Colony. Of course previous use in the family tended to be of greatest importance, but when the biblical names were first being used these other factors seem to have had weight.>> Thank you again, Genferret. Did the two naming customs merge? Might the granddaughter, e.g., of a woman named "Perseverance" have been given the same name because it had been her grandmother's? If so, I imagine one could search, say, for all the Perseverances when trying to locate a forebear. Mignon Cameron