In a message dated Mon, 26 Aug 2002 10:04:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, av8ryx@yelmtel.com writes: "Shearjashub" Etc. You think those names are weird? I'm sure that each of them was picked for solid -- and, in many cases, deeply theological -- reasons. I, on the other hand, have a cousin who named her daughter Raven because that was the name of her favorite soap opera star. Which do you think our descendants will consider the most strange? Mark

***-----Original Message----- ***From: mdixon1918@aol.com [mailto:mdixon1918@aol.com] ***Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 10:26 AM ***To: MAYFLOWER-L@rootsweb.com ***Subject: Re: [MFLR] unusual names with links to Mayflower ***You think those names are weird? I'm sure that each of them was ***picked for solid -- and, in many cases, deeply theological -- reasons. *** ***I, on the other hand, have a cousin who named her daughter Raven ***because that was the name of her favorite soap opera star. *** ***Which do you think our descendants will consider the most strange? *** ***Mark But even that is not really new. In the middle of the eighteenth century Samuel Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_ was published in several volumes (I think it is the longest English novel). The title page tells us that the novel is a precautionary tale, teaching "the Distresses that may attend Misconduct both of Parents and Children in relation to Marriage," and then proceeds to tell the story of a young woman born into a wealthy family who runs off with Robert Lovelace, is wooed, imprisoned, drugged, raped, and dies of shame. Yet Clarissa Harlowe was a name given to young women in New England in the early nineteenth century, the most notable I suppose being Clarissa Harlowe Barton, born in North Oxford, MA, on Christmas Day 1821, who is known to us as Clara Barton, "angel of the battlefield" and founder of the American Red Cross. There's an essay by Daniel Hackett Fischer called "Forenames and the Family in New England: An Exercise in Historical Onomastics" which is found in the collection _Generations and Change: Genealogical Perspectives in Social History_(Macon, GA, Mercer University Press, 1986) edited by Taylor & Crandall which has many fascinating insights into the naming practices of the people of New England. Fischer also mentions that in the nineteenth century, "Americans in Europe were appalled to discover that the naming of children was elaborately regulated by the state. In France a revolutionary decree restricted choices to forenames in the Saint's Calendar, and those of ancient heroes. Until the mid-twentieth century, French bureaucrats solemnly compiled lists of authorized names...Similar state controls existed in Germany and other European nations. The unfettered freedom to name one's child in one's own way, which Americans take for granted, is not normal in the world." (pp 232-3)