Slightly off topic, but I only have the one Christian name.......I've lost count over the years when official forms have been returned to me when I haven't put two names down hence leaving a blank box on the forms or even completing forms online and I wonder if this has happened to other people to? I was adamant that my two girls had two Christian names because of this........! Lin In a message dated 10/11/2011 11:34:44 GMT Standard Time, [email protected] writes: On 10 Nov 2011 at 8:14, Brian Binns wrote: > I was researching my wife's ancestors in Sutton in Ashfield parish > records when I found a son who I had previously been unaware of, > having been born and died between censuses. > > His name was Harry Ewart Sansom JONES born 23 May 1898. I knew of the > name Sansom as it was his mother's maiden name, but the name Ewart > initially stumped me, as I was unaware of any relations with this > name, nor any previous female surname. I then thought of other Ewarts > and remembered that it was William Gladstone's middle name, and after > Googling him, I found that he had died on 19th May 1898 . Query > solved, they had obviously named him after one of Britain's most > famous Prime Ministers. > > However, just being curious, I put in the Christian name Ewart in the > "Ancestry" Births search and found that in the April-June quarter 1898 > a staggering 649 boys were given the Christian name of Ewart, mainly > as a second or third one, but not always. Considering these births > would probably have occurred in the last 5 weeks of that quarter, that > is some total. The name Ewart of course occurs in other quarters, but > not with those numbers. Mind you, this should surprise me. Have you > seen how many people were called Horatio Nelson XYZ? > > Interestingly my Great Grandmother was called Mary Inkerman LEE, after > the eponymous battle of The Crimean War. I don't suppose we had many > named John Falklands Smith in 1982! How times change.> When I was writing my regular bi-monthly column for the former Practical Family History magazine (which closed last December) called "Roy's Ramblings", I frequently wrote about children - especially in Victorian times - who had been given weird and bizarre names. Horatio Nelsons were very common and, to my astonishment, so were Napoleons and Napoleon Buenopartes!!! Many children were named by Victorians after Crimean War battles and also battles of the Boer War. Try entering "Balaclava" as a first name for births at FreeBMD or enter "+Balaclava" - the plus symbol gives you records where it was a middle name. I particularly like ALMA BALACLAVA WRAIGHT, born at Faversham RD, Kent in 1856 and married at Milton, Kent, in 1885 - she was named after TWO Crimean War battles! I would also recommend anyone sufficiently interested to look at FreeBMD and see how many children were given VERDUN either as a first or middle name from 1916 as a tribute to the French soldiers who died in that terrible conflict. One of them was a gentleman called VERDUN JENKINS, the elder brother of the late actor Richard Burton (real name Jenkins) whom I met once when I was still a working journalist and a very nice chap he was, too. I often used to wonder what sort of ragging and banter some of these poor little so-and-sos suffered at school over their names! -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE Notts Surname List http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~hughw/notts.html ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message