Tag Archives: Baby Names from Yesteryear

Interview with Zeffy from Baby Names from Yesteryear

16 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Blog Reviews

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Winterhalter_Eugenie_1855Zeffy is the enthusiastic blogger at Baby Names from Yesteryear, which features wonderful, winning, and sometimes slightly wacky names from history. Whether you enjoy names of English gentlemen, ladies from antiquity, or contemporary British royals, you will find many beautiful names which are elegant, elaborate and eccentric. You will also find names from South America, and names from Zeffy’s own family tree. One of my favourites of Zeffy’s posts is an extremely sweet story about one of her sentimental favourites – I dare you to read it without either smiling tenderly or getting a tear in your eye. Zeffy has been away from blogging for a year, but she’s back (hooray!!!), and this is a chance to catch up with her and find out what Zeffy is short for.

What is your name? 
Sephora. I go by Zeffy online, a nickname given to me by my loopy, but incredibly sweet, university professor.

Have you ever wished you had a different name?
Have I ever! I’ve disliked my name for most of my life. As a child, all I wanted was a nice common name, something like Jessica or Rebecca, so I could blend in. I was a bit shy as a child so I hated being different from everyone else. It was only when I got to my late teens that I realised my name was quite nice and fitted my personality very well. I would never consider changing it now – having such an unusual name is a big part of my identity.

How did you become interested in names?
It goes back to having an unusual name. I’ve always wanted to know where my name came from, what it meant, how it came to be used. My curiosity stemmed from having absolutely no clue about my name’s origins. I guess my interest in names in general dates back to when I started school and noticed that I was the only one whose name wasn’t “normal”. Since then I’ve always loved reading about names and looking up meanings. There hasn’t been a time when I haven’t been interested in names and their stories.

How did you become interested in names from the past?
I’m obsessed with history. I’ve always been interested in the history of people’s lives, particularly focusing on the social and private life of early 19th century English aristocrats. There’s something very fascinating about discovering the small details of what people 200 years ago ate for breakfast, where they bought their boots from, why they married who they did, and what they named their children. That’s what attracts me to names from the past – it’s a glimpse into the personal and private life of someone who lived hundreds of years ago.

What inspired you to begin a name blog?
I came across The Gentleman’s Magazine during my last year of university. I was meant to be researching contemporary reviews for Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, but I kept flipping back and having a look through all the wedding announcements. Once I left university, I had a heck of a lot of time on my hands, and I really don’t deal well with boredom. I had to find a project to do before I completely lost my sanity. I thought about all the lovely names I’d read and decided to share them. I knew there had to be someone out there who was equally as interested in Georgian era names as I was. I couldn’t be the only one who oohed and ahhed over them!

Do you have a favourite blog entry on Baby Names from Yesteryear?
I really enjoyed writing about The Patronesses of Almack’s and Popular Names of the Georgian Era. They hit on my favourite time period in history so I can’t help but have a soft spot for them. Having said that, the posts I tend to like the most are those which required me to really do research, to look through a number of sources before hitting name gold. I’m such a geek, I know.

Do you have a pet peeve in regard to names? 
When people think that many of the current trends are a modern concept. People have been naming their children all sorts of weird and wonderful things for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Masculine names on girls, surnames used as first names, nature names, unusual names … it’s all been done before, so let’s not get in a tizzy about them now.

There’s also something about the word “unique” which I find unrealistic. The chance of any name being unique is truly slim, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to change spellings in search for uniqueness.

What are some of your favourite names? 
A few of my current favourites are Minerva, Emmeline, Margaux, Josephine and Magdalene. For boys, Alexander, Lucien, Mikael and Hart are long time favourites. I think Noa is absolutely darling. Tierney, Seren, Clover, Lyra, Orion and Shia are just a few that are on my favourites list.

What names do you dislike?
I’ve never been a fan of overly “cute” names, on girls or boys, for a number of reasons. Children don’t need cute names to be cute. A lot of names that fall into that category for me have really taken off in England and Wales where there is currently a trend for over-the-top cuteness, especially on the girls’ side. There’s a message behind that trend which I’m not comfortable with.

I’m also not at all keen on the Mae/May/Mai hyphenated names which are very popular over here. It feels like half the female population under the age of 5 answers to Something-Mae. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike Mae or May. Just please, please stop hyphenating it!

Are there any names you love, but could never use?
So, so many. Hyacinth is always in the back of my mind, but I think of Hyacinth Bucket [from sit-com Keeping Up Appearances]and it’s over. Millicent is another. I really love how it sounds, but not how it looks. Ptolemy is probably the biggest one. Why does the P have to be silent?! I so wish it wasn’t; it would be a serious contender then.

What are your favourite names in the UK Top 100?
Eleanor (#63) and Alexander (#27).

What are your favourite names that have never charted in the UK?
Sanceline and Holland.

Do you have any names picked out for your future children? 
Not really. Children haven’t crossed my mind yet so it’s all up in the air. If, however, I were to have a baby at this exact moment, I guess it would be something like Emmeline Clover, Emmeline Jane Noa, or Noa Emmeline Jane. I adore Jane. I know it has in the past been overused in the middle spot, but it’s lovely and I can’t help myself. For a boy, it would be Alexander Lucien or Shia Alexander. I think when it comes down to it, I won’t be as tame in my choices. It’s fun having a name on the unusual side so I think I’ll go down that path. But who knows?!

What is something we don’t know about you?
I’m incapable or remaining serious for very long. Trying to answer your questions without making silly and inappropriate jokes hasn’t been easy! Also, I love exclamation marks 🙂

What advice would you give someone who was choosing a baby name?
I wouldn’t. I don’t have any children so I don’t know anything about how hard the naming process is or the pressures of it. I only wish all parents would put as much time as possible into choosing their child’s name. Your child has to live with their name every single day. That’s a big thing. Take it seriously! (Yay, got to use an exclamation mark again.)

(Painting shown is Eugenie, Empress of the French and Her Ladies by Franz Xaver Winterhalter; 1855 – one of the many lovely illustrations on Zeffy’s blog)

Saturday Historical Sibsets: The Siblings of the Sea-Born Babe

20 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Sibsets in the News

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This is a story I read on Baby Names from Yesteryear, and with Zeffy’s blessing, I have investigated some of the history behind it.

On March 21 1857, a baby was born on board a convict ship, two days after leaving England for Western Australia. He was named Alfred John Claris Wells – Alfred and John were family names, but Claris was in honour of the ship he was born on, the Clara. It seems that he went by the name Claris in everyday life.

Claris’ parents weren’t convicts. His father, Alexander Wells, was a pensioner guard employed to watch over the convicts on board ship. These guards tended to be recruited from the rural working class, and offered farmland in Australia as an inducement. The Wells family had been in villages around Sevenoaks in Kent since at least the 17th century, and Alexander’s branch of it had lived in the village of Leigh for several generations.

Claris’ mother was named Caroline Emily Minnor Goulding, and she married Alexander when she was in her early twenties, while he was in his early thirties.

The Clara arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia on July 3 1857 with its one very small extra passenger. The Wells family was offered farmland in Newcastle (now called Toodyay), one of the first inland towns to be established in Western Australia. It’s in the Avon Valley about 85 km from Perth, and today at least, Toodyay is a very pleasant country town, an easy drive from the city and popular for weekends away. Back then, it would been just a village, and farming difficult, even with free convict labour offered as part of the deal.

Claris wasn’t the only child of Alexander and Emily. His siblings were:

Martha (1852-1936) She was born in Kent, and was five years old when she arrived in Australia. She was living in Fremantle when she died at a ripe old age.

Alexander Thomas (b. 1855) He was born in Kent, and seems to have died before the family came to Australia.

Amelia Ann (b.1858-?) Amelia is missing from some family records, which makes me suspect she died during early childhood.

Ellen – known as Eliza (1859-1937) Eliza married a local man named Alfred Hutchings when she was 20, and had twelve children. The Hutchings moved to Northam, a town very close to Toodyay.

Emily (b. 1862-?)

Alexander (1864-?)

Alexander Wells died in 1863 aged 45, leaving his widow Caroline in a fairly desperate situation. She was 34 years old, had at least three children still living, and must have been pregnant.

In 1864 she married a convict called Esau Wetherall, a name that wouldn’t look out of place in a novel by Thomas Hardy. Esau was born in London, and had lived in Somerset. At the age of 35, he was transported to Fremantle on the Scindian, sentenced to fifteen years for horse-stealing. He was in the first group of convicts to arrive in Western Australia, and because they weren’t really prepared for convicts at the time, they only sent those who had a record of good behaviour. While in Toodyay, he was accused of stealing a sheep and brought to trial, but was acquitted. At the time of his marriage to Caroline, he was 49.

Caroline and Esau had only one child together, a baby girl who was stillborn in 1865. This was Claris’ half-sister.

Esau had been married before – his first wife was Mary Mallaby, and they were married in Toodyay the same year that the Wells family had arrived, in 1857, just after Esau was granted his ticket of leave. Mary died in 1864, so like Caroline, Esau had been left widowed and no doubt in equally desperate circumstances.

Esau and Mary had five children together, and these were Claris’ step-siblings.

Sarah (1858-1874) Sarah died when she was only 16 years old.

Mary Ann (b. 1859-1941) Mary married a man named Donald Lee when she was 18, and had fourteen children. She lived her whole life in Toodyay.

Ellen – known as Elizabeth (1861-1941) Elizabeth married a man named Thomas McKnoe when she was 17 and had eleven children. She was living in Perth when she died.

Twins Edwin and Frederick (1864-1864) Mary left behind her newborn twins when she died, and it’s not surprising they only lived for a few months. It’s very possible that Mary died giving birth to the twins, or shortly after the birth.

So Claris Wells had six siblings, one half-sister and five step-siblings.

Esau Wetherall died in 1889, at the age of 73. Although he has numerous descendants living today, for many years the family was deeply ashamed of having convict ancestry, and he wasn’t talked about or even mentioned.

Caroline Wetherall died in 1905 at the age of 75. However, the Wells family continued through her son Claris, and next time I will follow his family line through all the generations.

NOTE: Passenger list for the Clara is here.

(Picture is of a painting of Fremantle Harbour in the 19th century, close to where the Clara would have docked when she arrived)