I think there might be another possibility to be considered here...It would have been quite common to name a child after a maternal maiden name in the family, and Friend can be a surname. It might be possible that the maiden name of the father or mother (or grandparent) of this person was Friend. For example, in my Robinson family a Robinson man married a woman with the surname Smith and they had a child named Smith Robinson. They happen to be Quakers--although that isn't really significant to the point I'm making here. Joan In a message dated 12/19/2008 9:27:08 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes: So far, we don't have any examples of a birthright Quaker with the first name of "Friend." I think we are safe to say that it wasn't a Quaker practice to use "Friend" as a name.