Slate collected some of the best, worst, and strangest names the English Puritans came up with. Most of these are courtesy of the 1888 book by Charles Bardsley, Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature (seen here on the Public Domain Review’s website), which includes Parish records with details about some of the people who had these names.
20 Puritan Names That Are Utterly Strange
- Dancell-Dallphebo-Mark-Anthony-Gallery-Cesar. Son of Dancell-Dallphebo-Mark-Anthony-Gallery-Cesar, born 1676.
- Praise-God. Full name, Praise-God Barebone. The Barebones were a rich source of crazy names. This one was a leather-worker, member of a particularly odd Puritan group and an MP. He gave his name to the Barebones Parliament, which ruled Britain in 1653.
- If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned. Praise-God’s son, he made a name for himself as an economist. But, for some inexplicable reason, he decided to go by the name Nicolas Barbon.
- Fear-God. Also a Barebone.
- Job-raked-out-of-the-ashes
- Has-descendants
- Wrestling
- Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith
- Fly-fornication
- Jesus-Christ-came-into-the-world- to-save. Brother of “Damned Barebone”. I can only imagine this name shortened to “Save.”
- Thanks
- What-God-will
- Joy-in-sorrow. A name attached to many stories of difficult births.
- Remember
- Fear-not. His/her surname was “Helly”, born 1589.
- Experience
- Anger
- Abuse-not
- Die-Well. A brother of Farewell Sykes, who died in 1865. We can assume they had rather pessimistic parents.
- Continent. Continent Walker was born in 1594 in Sussex.
