From Yorkshire, about the close of the seventeenth century, the rage for Scripture names passed into Lancashire. Nonconformity was making progress; the new industries were already turning villages into small centres of population, and the Church of England not providing for the increase, chapels were built. If we look over the pages of the directories of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire, and strike out the surnames, we could imagine we were consulting anciently inscribed registers of Joppa or Jericho. It would seem as if Canaan and the West Riding had got inextricably mixed.
What a spectacle meets our eye! Within the limits of ten leaves we have three Pharoahs, while as many Hephzibahs are to be found on one single page. Adah and Zillah Pickles, sisters, are milliners. Jehoiada Rhodes makes saws – not Solomon’s sort – and Hariph Crawshaw keeps a farm. Vashni, from somewhere in the Chronicles, is rescued from oblivion by Vashni Wilkinson, coal merchant, who very likely goes to Barzillai Williamson, on the same page, for his joints, Barzillai being a butcher. Jachin, known to but a few as situated in the Book of Kings, is in the person of Jachin Firth, a beer retailer, familiar to all his neighbours. Heber Holdsworth on one page is faced by Er Illingworth on the other. Asa and Joab are extremely popular, while Abner, Adna, Ashael, Erastus, Eunice, Benaiah, Aquila, Elihu, and Philemon enjoy a fair amount of patronage. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, having been rescued from Chaldæan fire, have been deluged with baptismal water. How curious it is to contemplate such entries as Lemuel Wilson, Kelita Wilkinson, Shelah Haggas, Shadrach Newbold, Neriah Pearce, Jeduthan Jempson, Azariah Griffiths, Naphtali Matson, Philemon Jakes, Hameth Fell, Eleph Bisat, Malachi Ford, or Shallum Richardson. As to other parts of the Scriptures, I have lighted upon name after name that I did not know existed in the Bible at all till I looked into the Lancashire and Yorkshire directories.
The Bible has decided the nomenclature of the north of England. In towns like Oldham, Bolton, Ashton, and Blackburn, the clergyman’s baptismal register is but a record of Bible names. A clerical friend of mine christened twins Cain and Abel, only the other day, much against his own wishes. Another parson on the Derbyshire border was gravely informed, at the proper moment, that the name of baptism was Ramoth-Gilead. “Boy or girl, eh?” he asked in a somewhat agitated voice. The parents had opened the Bible hap-hazard, according to the village tradition, and selected the first name the eye fell on. It was but a year ago a little child was christened Tellno in a town within six miles of Manchester, at the suggestion of a cotton-spinner, the father, a workman of the name of Lees, having asked his advice. “I suppose it must be a Scripture name,” said his master. “Oh yes! that’s of course.” “Suppose you choose Tellno,” said his employer. “That’ll do,” replied the other, who had never heard it before, and liked it the better on that account. The child is now Tell-no Lees, the father, too late, finding that he had been hoaxed.15 “Sirs,” was the answer given to a bewildered curate, after the usual demand to name the child. He objected, but was informed that it was a Scripture name, and the verse “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” was triumphantly appealed to. This reminds one of the Puritan who styled his dog “Moreover” after the dog in the Gospel: “Moreover the dog came and licked his sores.”
There is, again, a story of a clergyman making the customary demand as to name from a knot of women round the font. “Ax her,” said one. Turning to the woman who appeared to be indicated, he again asked, “What name?” “Ax her,” she replied. The third woman, being questioned, gave the same reply. At last he discovered the name to be the Scriptural Achsah, Caleb’s daughter – a name, by the way, which was somewhat popular with our forefathers. No wonder this mistake arose, when Achsah used to be entered in some such manner as this:
“1743-4, Jan. 3. Baptized Axar Starrs (a woman of ripe years), of Stockport.
“1743-4, Jan. 3. Married Warren Davenport, of Stockport, Esq., and Axar Starrs, aforesaid, spinster.” – Marple, Cheshire.
Axar’s father was Caleb Starrs. The scriptural relationship was thus preserved. Achsah crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers, and has prospered there ever since. It is still popular in Devonshire and the south-west of England. All these stories serve to show the quarry whence modern names are hewn.
I have mentioned the north because I have studied its Post-Office Directories carefully. But if any one will visit the shires of Dorset, and Devon, and Hampshire, he will find the same result. The Hebrew has won the day. Just as in England, north of Trent, we can still measure off the ravages of the Dane by striking a line through all local names lying westward ending in “by,” so we have but to count up the baptismal names of the peasantry of these southern counties to see that they have become the bondsmen of an Eastern despot. In fact, go where and when we will from the reign of Elizabeth, we find the same influence at work. Take a few places and people at random.
Looking at our testamentary records, we find the will of Kerenhappuch Benett proved in 1762, while Kerenhappuch Horrocks figures in the Manchester Directory for 1877. Onesiphorus Luffe appears on a halfpenny token of 1666; Habakkuk Leyman, 1650; Euodias Inman, 1650; Melchisedek Fritter, 1650; Elnathan Brock, 1654; and Abdiah Martin, 1664 (“Tokens of Seventeenth Century”). Shallum Stent was married in 1681 (Racton, Sussex); Gershom Baylie was constable of Lewes in 1619, Araunah Verrall fulfilling the same office in 1784. Captain Epenetus Crosse presented a petition to Privy Council in 1660 (C. S. P. Colonial); Erastus Johnson was defendant in 1724, and Cressens Boote twenty years earlier. Barjonah Dove was Vicar of Croxton in 1694. Tryphena Monger was buried in Putney Churchyard in 1702, and Tryphosa Saunders at St. Peter’s, Worcester, in 1770. Mahaliel Payne, Azarias Phesant, and Pelatiah Barnard are recorded in State Papers, 1650-1663 (C. S. P.), and Aminadab Henley was dwelling in Kent in 1640 (“Proceedings in Kent.” Camden Society). Shadrack Pride is a collector of hearth-money in 1699, and Gamaliel Chase is communicated with in 1635 (C. S. P.). Onesiphorus Albin proposes a better plan of collecting the alien duty in 1692 (C. S. P.), while Mordecai Abbott is appointed deputy-paymaster of the forces in 1697 (C. S. P.). Eliakim Palmer is married at Somerset House Chapel in 1740; Dalilah White is buried at Cowley in 1791, and Keziah Simmons is christened there in 1850. Selah Collins is baptized at Dyrham, Gloucestershire, in 1752, and Keturah Jones is interred at Clifton in 1778. Eli-lama-Sabachthani Pressnail was existing in 1862 (Notes and Queries), and the Times recorded a Talitha-Cumi People about the same time. The will of Mahershalalhashbaz Christmas was proved not very long ago. Mrs. Mahershalalhashbaz Bradford was dwelling in Ringwood, Hampshire, in 1863; and on January 31, 1802, the register of Beccles Church received the entry, “Mahershalalhashbaz, son of Henry and Sarah Clarke, baptized,” the same being followed, October 14, 1804, by the baptismal entry of “Zaphnaphpaaneah,” another son of the same couple. A grant of administration in the estate of Acts-Apostles Pegden was made in 1865. His four brothers, older than himself, were of course the four Evangelists, and had there been a sixth I dare say his name would have been “Romans.” An older member of this family, many years one of the kennel-keepers of Tickham fox-hounds, was Pontius Pilate Pegden. At a confirmation at Faversham in 1847, the incumbent of Dunkirk presented to the amazed archbishop a boy named “Acts-Apostles.” These are, of course, mere eccentricities, but eccentricities follow a beaten path, and have their use in calculations of the nature we are considering. Eccentricities in dress are proverbially but exaggerations of the prevailing fashion.
II. POPULARITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The affection felt by the Puritans for the Old Testament has been observed by all writers upon the period, and of the period. Cleveland’s remark, quoted by Hume, is, of course, an exaggeration.
“Cromwell,” he says, “hath beat up his drums cleane through the Old Testament – you may learne the genealogy of our Saviour by the names in his regiment. The muster-master uses no other list than the first chapter of Matthew.”
Lord Macaulay puts it much more faithfully in his first chapter, speaking, too, of an earlier period than the Commonwealth:
“In such a history (i. e. Old Testament) it was not difficult for fierce and gloomy spirits to find much that might be distorted to suit their wishes. The extreme Puritans, therefore, began to feel for the Old Testament a preference which, perhaps, they did not distinctly avow even to themselves, but which showed itself in all their sentiments and habits. They paid to the Hebrew language a respect which they refused to that tongue in which the discourses of Jesus and the Epistles of Paul have come down to us. They baptized their children by the names, not of Christian saints, but of Hebrew patriarchs and warriors.”
The Presbyterian clergy had another objection to the New Testament names. The possessors were all saints, and in the saints’ calendar. The apostolic title was as a red rag to his blood-shot eye.
“Upon Saint Peter, Paul, John, Jude, and James,
They will not put the ‘saint’ unto their names,”
says the Water-poet in execrable verse. Its local use was still more trying, as no man could pass through a single quarter of London without seeing half a dozen churches, or lanes, or taverns dedicated to Saint somebody or other.
“Others to make all things recant
The christian and surname of saint,
Would force all churches, streets, and towns
The holy title to renounce.”
To avoid any saintly taint, the Puritan avoided the saints themselves.
But the discontented party in the Church had, as Macaulay says, a decided hankering after the Old Testament on other grounds than this. They paid the Hebrew language an almost superstitious reverence.16 Ananias, the deacon, in the “Alchemist,” published in 1610, says —
“Heathen Greek, I take it.
Subtle. How! heathen Greek?
Ananias. All’s heathen but the Hebrew.”17
Bishop Corbet, in his “Distracted Puritan,” has a lance to point at the same weakness:
“In the holy tongue of Canaan
I placed my chiefest pleasure,
Till I pricked my foot
With an Hebrew root,
That I bled beyond all measure.”
In the “City Match,” written by Mayne in 1639, Bannsright says —
“Mistress Dorcas,
If you’ll be usher to that holy, learned woman,
That can heal broken shins, scald heads, and th’ itch,
Your schoolmistress: that can expound, and teaches
To knit in Chaldee, and work Hebrew samplers,
I’ll help you back again.”
The Puritan was ever nicknamed after some Old Testament worthy. I could quote many instances, but let two from the author of the “London Diurnall” suffice. Addressing Prince Rupert, he says —
“Let the zeal-twanging nose, that wants a ridge,
Snuffling devoutly, drop his silver bridge:
Yes, and the gossip’s spoon augment the summe,
Altho’ poor Caleb lose his christendome.”
More racy is his attack on Pembroke, as a member of the Mixed Assembly:
“Forbeare, good Pembroke, be not over-daring:
Such company may chance to spoil thy swearing;
And these drum-major oaths of bulk unruly
May dwindle to a feeble ‘by my truly.’
He that the noble Percy’s blood inherits,
Will he strike up a Hotspur of the spirits?
He’ll fright the Obediahs out of tune,
With his uncircumcis-ed Algernoon:
A name so stubborne, ’tis not to be scanned
By him in Gath with the six fingered hand.”
If a Bible quotation was put into the zealot’s mouth, his cynical foe took care that it should come from the older Scriptures. In George Chapman’s “An Humorous Day’s Work,” after Lemot has suggested a “full test of experiment” to prove her virtue, Florilla the Puritan cries —
“O husband, this is perfect trial indeed.”
To which the gruff Labervele replies —
“And you will try all this now, will you not?
Florilla. Yes, my good head: for it is written, we must pass to perfection through all temptation: Abacuk the fourth.
Labervele. Abacuk! cuck me no cucks: in a-doors, I say: thieves, Puritans, murderers! in a-doors, I say!”
In the same facetious strain, Taylor, the Water-poet, addresses a child thus:
“To learne thy duty reade no more than this:
Paul’s nineteenth chapter unto Genesis.”
This certainly tallies with the charge in “Hudibras,” that they
“Corrupted the Old Testament
To serve the New as precedent.”
This affection for the older Scriptures had its effect upon our nomenclature. No book, no story, especially if gloomy in its outline and melancholy in its issues, escaped the more morbid Puritan’s notice. Every minister of the Lord’s vengeance, every stern witness against natural abomination, the prophet that prophesied ill – these were the names that were in favour. And he that was least bitter in his maledictions was most at a discount. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in every-day request, Shadrach and Abednego being the favourites. Mordecai, too, was daily commemorated; while Jeremiah attained a popularity, as Jeremy, he can never altogether lose. “Lamentations” was so melancholy, that it must needs be personified, don a Puritanical habit, and stand at the font as godfather – I mean witness – to some wretched infant who had done nothing to merit such a fate. “Lamentations Chapman” appeared as defendant in a suit in Chancery about 1590. The exact date is not to be found, but the case was tried towards the close of Elizabeth’s reign (“Chancery Suits, Elizabeth”).
It is really hard to say why names of melancholy import became so common. Perhaps it was a spirit morbidly brooding on the religious oppressions of the times; perhaps it was bile. Any way, Camden says “Dust” and “Ashes” were names in use in the days of Elizabeth and James. These, no doubt, were translations of the Hebrew “Aphrah” into the “vulgar tongue,” the name having become exceedingly common. Micah, in one of the most mournful prophecies of the Old Testament, says —
“Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all: in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust.”
Literally: “in the house of dust roll thyself in the dust.” The name was quickly seized upon:
“Sept., 1599. Baptized Affray, d. of Richard Manne of Lymehus.” – Stepney.
“May 15, 1576. Wedding of William Brickhead and Affera Lawrence.” – St. Peter’s, Cornhill.
This last entry proves how early the name had arisen. In Kent it had become very common. The registers of Canterbury Cathedral teem with it:
“1601, June 5. Christened Afra, the daughter of William Warriner.
“1614, Oct. 30. Christened Aphora, the daughter of Mr. Merrewether.
“1635, July 20. Robert Fuller maryed Apherie Pitt.”
In these instances we see at a glance the origin of the licentious Aphra Behn’s name, which looks so like a nom-de-plume, and has puzzled many. She was born at Canterbury, with the surname of Johnson, baptized Aphra, and married a Dutch merchant named Behn. When acting as a Government spy at Antwerp in 1666, she signs a letter “Aphara Behn” (C. S. P.), which is nearer the Biblical form than many others. It is just possible her father might have rolled himself several times in the dust had he lived to read some of his daughter’s writings. Their tone is not Puritanic. The name has become obsolete; indeed, it scarcely survived the seventeenth century, dying out within a hundred years of its rise. But it was very popular in its day.
Rachel, in her dying pains, had styled, under deep depression, her babe Benoni (“son of my sorrow”); but his father turned it into the more cheerful Benjamin (“son of the right hand”). Of course, Puritanism sided with the mother, and the Benonis flourished at a ratio of six to one over the Benjamins:
“1607. Christened Benony, sonne of Beniamyn Ruthin, mariner.” – Stepney.
“1661, Dec. 20. Christened Margrett, d. of Bennoni Wallington, goldsmith.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
“1637, May 6. Order to transmit Benoni Bucke to England from Virginia.” – “C. S. P. Colonial.”
“1656, March 25. Petition of Benoni Honeywood.” – “C. S. P. Colonial.”
I don’t think, however, all these mothers died in childbed. It would speak badly for the chirurgic skill of the seventeenth century if they did. It was the Church of Christ that was in travail.
Ichabod was equally common. There was something hard and unrelenting in Jael (already mentioned) that naturally suited the temper of every fanatic:
“1613, July 28. Christened Jaell, d. of Roger Manwaryng, preacher.” – St. Helen, Bishopsgate.
Mehetabell had something in it, probably its length, that made it popular among the Puritan faction. It lasted well, too:
“1680, March 24. Married Philip Penn and Mehittabela Hilder.” – Cant. Cath.
“1693, May 21. Baptized Mehetabell, d. of Jeremiah Hart, apothecary.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
But while Deborah, an especial pet of the fanatics, Sara, Rebecca, Rachel, Zipporah, and Leah were in high favour as Old Testament heroines, none had such a run as Abigail:
“1573, Oct. Abigoll Cumberford, christened.” – Stepney.
“1617, Oct. 15. Christened Abbigale, d. of John Webb, shoemaker.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
“1635, Jan. 19. Married Jarrett Birkhead and Abigaile Whitehead.” – Ditto.
“May 30, 1721. Married Robert Elles and Abigail Six.” – Cant. Cath.
Few Scripture names made themselves so popular as this. At the conclusion of the sixteenth century it was beginning its career, and by Queen Anne’s day had reached its zenith. When the Cavalier was drinking at the alehouse, he would waggishly chant through his nose, with eye upturned —
“Come, sisters, and sing
An hymne to our king,
Who sitteth on high degree.
The men at Whitehall,
And the wicked, shall fall,
And hey, then, up go we!
‘A match,’ quoth my sister Joice,
‘Contented,’ quoth Rachel, too;
Quoth Abigaile, ‘Yea,’ and Faith, ‘Verily,’
And Charity, ‘Let it be so.’”
A curious error has been propagated by writers who ought to have known better. It is customarily asserted that abigail, as a cant term for a waiting-maid, only arose after Abigail Hill, the Duchess of Marlborough’s cousin, became waiting-woman to the queen, and supplanted her kinswoman. Certainly we find both Swift and Fielding using the term after this event. But there is good reason for believing that the sobriquet is as old as Charles I.’s reign. Indeed, there can be no reasonable doubt but that we owe the term to the enormous popularity of Beaumont’s comedy, “The Scornful Ladie,” written about 1613, and played in 1616. The chief part falls to the lot of “Abigal, a waiting-gentlewoman,” as the dramatis personæ styles her, the playwright associating the name and employment after the scriptural narrative. But Beaumont knew his Bible well.
That Abigail at once became a cant term is proved by “The Parson’s Wedding,” written by Killigrew some time between 1645 and 1650. Wanton addresses the Parson:
“Was she deaf to your report?
Parson. Yes, yes.
Wanton. And Ugly, her abigail, she had her say, too?
Parson. Yes, yes.”
That this sentence would never have been written but for Beaumont’s play, there can be no reasonable doubt. It was performed so late as 1783. In 1673, after yearly performances, it was published as a droll, and entitled “The False Heir.” In 1742 it appears again under the title of “The Feigned Shipwreck.” Samuel Pepys, in his Diary, records his visits to the playhouse to see “The Scornful Lady” at least four times, viz. 1661, 1662, 1665, and 1667. Writing December 27, 1665, he says —
“By coach to the King’s Playhouse, and there saw ‘The Scornful Lady’ well acted: Doll Common doing Abigail most excellently.”
Abigail passed out of favour about the middle of the last century, but Mrs. Masham’s artifices had little to do with it. The comedy had done its work, and Abigail coming into use, like Malkin two centuries before, as the cant term for a kitchen drab, or common serving wench, as is sufficiently proved by the literature of the day, the name lost caste with all classes, and was compelled to bid adieu to public favour.
This affection for the Old Testament has never died out among the Nonconformists. The large batch of names I have already quoted from modern directories is almost wholly from the earlier Testament. Wherever Dissent is strong, there will be found a large proportion of these names. Amongst the passengers who went out to New England in James and Charles’s reigns will be found such names as Ebed-meleck Gastrell, Oziell Lane, Ephraim Howe, Ezechell Clement, Jeremy Clement, Zachary Cripps, Noah Fletcher, Enoch Gould, Zebulon Cunninghame, Seth Smith, Peleg Bucke, Gercyon Bucke (Gershom), Rachell Saunders, Lea Saunders, Calebb Carr, Jonathan Franklin, Boaz Sharpe, Esau del a Ware, Pharaoh Flinton, Othniell Haggat, Mordecay Knight, Obediah Hawes, Gamaliell Ellis, Esaias Raughton, Azarias Pinney, Elisha Mallowes, Malachi Mallock, Jonadab Illett, Joshua Long, Enecha Fitch (seemingly a feminine of Enoch), and Job Perridge. Occasionally an Epenetus Olney, or Nathaniell Patient, or Epaphroditus Haughton, or Cornelius Conway, or Feleaman Dickerson (Philemon), or Theophilus Lucas, or Annanias Mann is met with; but these are few, and were evidently selected for their size, the temptation to poach on apostolic preserves being too great when such big game was to be obtained. Besides, they were not in the calendar! These names went to Virginia, and they are not forgotten.
III. Objectionable Scripture Names
Camden says —
“In times of Christianity, the names of most holy and vertuous persons, and of their most worthy progenitors, were given to stirre up men to the imitation of them, whose names they bare. But succeeding ages, little regarding St. Chrysostome’s admonition to the contrary, have recalled prophane names, so as now Diana, Cassandra, Hyppolitus, Venus, Lais, names of unhappy disastre, are as rife somewhere, as ever they were in Paganisme.” – “Remaines,” p. 43.
The most cursory survey of our registers proves this. Captain Hercules Huncks and Ensign Neptune Howard fought under the Earl of Northumberland in 1640 (Peacock’s “Army List of Roundheads and Cavaliers”). Both were Royalists.
“1643, Feb. 6. Buried Paris, son of William and Margaret Lee.” – St. Michael, Spurriergate, York.
“1670, March 13. Baptized Cassandra, d. of James Smyth.” – Banbury.
“1679, July 2. Buried Cassandra, ye wife of Edward Williams.” – St. Michael, Barbados, (Hotten).
“1631, May 26. Married John Cotton and Venus18 Levat.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
Cartwright, the great Puritan, attacked these names in 1575, as “savouring of paganism” (Neal, v. p. xv. Appendix). It was a pity he did not include some names in the list of his co-religionists, for surely Tamar and Dinah were just as objectionable as Venus or Lais. The doctrine of a fallen nature could be upheld, and the blessed state of self-abasement maintained, without a daily reminder in the shape of a Bible name of evil repute. Bishop Corbett brought it as a distinct charge against the Puritans, that they loved to select the most unsavoury stories of Old Testament history for their converse. In the “Maypole” he makes a zealot minister say —
“To challenge liberty and recreation,
Let it be done in holy contemplation.
Brothers and sisters in the fields may walk,
Beginning of the Holy Word to talk:
Of David and Uria’s lovely wife,
Of Tamar and her lustful brother’s strife.”
One thing is certain, these names became popular:
“1610, March. Baptized Bathsheba, d. of John Hamond, of Ratcliffe.” – Stepney.
“1672, Feb. 23. Buried Bathsheba, wife of Richard Brinley, hosier.” – St. Denis Backchurch.
The alternate form of Bath-shua (1 Chron. iii. 5) was used, although the clerks did not always know how to spell it:
“1609, July 1. Baptized Bathshira and Tabitha, daughters of Sir Antonie Dering, Knight.
“1609, July 5. Buried Bathshira and Tabitha, ds. of Sir Antonie Dering, Knight, being twines.” – Pluckley, Kent.
“1601, Jan. Baptized Thamar, d. of Henry Reynold.” – Stepney.
“1691, Nov. 20. Baptized Tamar, d. of Francis and Tamar Lee.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.
“1698, April 10. Buried Tamar, wife of Richard Robinson, of Fell-foot.” – Cartmel.
As for Dinah, she became a great favourite from her first introduction; every register contains her name before Elizabeth’s death:
“1585, Aug. 15. Christening of Dina, d. of John Lister, barbor.
“1591, Aug. 21. Buried Mrs. Dina Walthall, a vertuous yong woman, 30 years.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
Crossing the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers, she settled down at length as the typical negress; yet Puritan writers admitted that when she “went out to see the daughters of the land,” she meant to be seen of the sons also!
Taylor, the Water-poet, seems to imply that Goliath was registered at baptism by the Puritan:
“Quoth he, ‘what might the child baptized be?
Was it a male She, or a female He?’ —
‘I know not what, but ’tis a Son,’ she said. —
‘Nay then,’ quoth he, ‘a wager may be laid
It had some Scripture name.’ – ‘Yes, so it had,’
Said she: ‘but my weak memory’s so bad,
I have forgot it: ’twas a godly name,
Tho’ out of my remembrance be the same:
’Twas one of the small prophets verily:
’Twas not Esaias, nor yet Jeremy,
Ezekiel, Daniel, nor good Obadiah,
Ah, now I do remember, ’twas Goliah!’”
Pharaoh occurs, and went out to Virginia, where it has ever since remained. It is, as already shown, familiar enough in Yorkshire.
Of New Testament names, whose associations are of evil repute, we may mention Ananias, Sapphira, and Antipas. Ananias had become so closely connected with Puritanism, that not only did Dryden poke fun at the relationship in the “Alchemist,” but Ananias Dulman became the cant term for a long-winded zealot preacher. So says Neal.
“1603, Sep. 12. Buried Ananias, sonne of George Warren, 17 years.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.
“1621, Sep. Baptized Ananias, son of Ananias Jarratt, glassmaker.” – Stepney.
Sapphira occurs in Bunhill Fields:
“Here lyeth the body of Mrs. Sapphira Lightmaker, wife of Mr. Edward Lightmaker, of Broadhurst, in Sussex, gent. She died in the Lorde, Dec. 20, 1704, aged 81 years.”
She was therefore born in 1633. Her brother (they were brought up Presbyterians) was Robert Leighton, who died Archbishop of Glasgow.
Drusilla, again, was objectionable, but perchance her character was less historically known then:
“1622. Baptized Drusilla, d. of Thomas Davis.” – Ludlow.
Antipas, curiously enough, was almost popular, although a murderer and an adulterer:
“1633, Feb. 28. Baptized Antipas, sonne of Robert Barnes, of Shadwell.” – Stepney.
“1662. Petition of Antipas Charrington.” – “Cal. St. P. Dom.”
“1650. Antipas Swinnerton, Tedbury, wollman.” – “Tokens of Seventeenth Century.”
Dr. Increase Mather, the eminent Puritan, in his work entitled “Remarkable Providences,” published at Boston, U.S.A., in 1684, has a story of an interposition in behalf of his friend Antipas Newman.
Of other instances, somewhat later, Sehon Stace, who lived in Warding in 1707 (“Suss. Arch. Coll.,” xii. 254), commemorates the King of the Amorites, Milcom Groat (“Cal. St. P.,” 1660) representing on English soil “the abomination of the children of Ammon.” Dr. Pusey and Mr. Spurgeon might be excused a little astonishment at such a conversion by baptism.
Barrabas cannot be considered a happy choice:
“Buried, 1713, Oct. 18, Barabas, sonne of Barabas Bowen.” – All-Hallows, Barking.
Mr. Maskell draws attention to the name in his history of that church. There is something so emphatic about “now Barrabas was a robber,” that thoughts of theft seem proper to the very name. We should have locked up the spoons, we feel sure, had father or son called upon us. The father who called his son “Judas-not-Iscariot” scarcely cleared the name of its evil associations, nor would it quite meet the difficulty suggested by the remark in “Tristram Shandy:”
“Your Billy, sir – would you for the world have called him Judas?.. Would you, sir, if a Jew of a godfather had proposed the name of your child, and offered you his purse along with it – would you have consented to such a desecration of him?”
We have all heard the story of Beelzebub. If the child had been inadvertently so baptized, a remedy might have been found in former days by changing the name at confirmation. Until 1552, the bishop confirmed by name. Archbishop Peccham laid down a rule:
“The minister shall take care not to permit wanton names, which being pronounced do sound to lasciviousness, to be given to children baptized, especially of the female sex: and if otherwise it be done, the same shall be changed by the bishop at confirmation.”
That this law had been carelessly followed after the Reformation is clear, else Venus Levat, already quoted, would not have been married in 1631 under that name. Certainly Dinah and Tamar come under the ban of this injunction.
Curiously enough, the change of name was sanctioned in the case of orthodox names, for Lord Coke says —
“If a man be baptized by the name of Thomas, and after, at his confirmation by the Bishop, he is named John, his name of confirmation shall stand.”
He then quotes the case of Sir Francis Gawdie, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, whose name by baptism was Thomas, Thomas being changed to Francis at confirmation. He holds that Francis shall stand (“Institutes,” 1. iii.). This practice manifestly arose out of Peccham’s rule, but it is strange that wanton instances should be left unchanged, and the orthodox allowed to be altered.
Arising out of the Puritan error of permitting names like Tamar and Dinah to stand, modern eccentricity has gone very far, and it would be satisfactory to see many names in use at present forbidden. I need not quote the Venuses of our directories. Emanuel is of an opposite character, and should be considered blasphemy. We have not adopted Christ yet, as Dr. Doran reminded us they have done in Germany, but my copy of the London Directory shows at least one German, bearing the baptismal name of Christ, at present dwelling in the metropolis. Puritan eccentricity is a trifle to this.