Hortatory Names May 8, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
Hortatory names were names given by Puritans in South-East England and, to a much lesser extent, in New England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A hortatory name exhorts correct Christian behaviour with the few syllables of the first name available. A tame example might be Hope Smith, a more dramatic example might be Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon, a seventeenth-century English economist (pictured); he was of poor reputation and was allegedly called ‘Damned Barbon’ by his friends. The result, in any case, is that if you are researching in Sussex or in other puritan regions you will from time to time trip over such day-to-day and yet curious records as: ‘Christmas, 1723. Assessment for repairs of highways: Mr. Thankful Bishop paid 7 s 6 d’.
Beach gave a long list of such wonderful nonsense in yesterday’s post about a curious seventeenth-century Sussex jury; most readers will have heard, meanwhile, of the name ‘Increase’ Mather. But there were many more wonderful names given by religious parents: some of which must have infected Bunyan’s prose. Beach’s favourite is perhaps the last in this list (that could have been much longer): Hate Evil, Fight-the-Good-Fight-of Faith, Abstinence, Kill-Sin, Be-Courteous, Safely-on-High, Wrestling, Free-Gift, Faint-Not, Abuse Not, Hate-Ill, Fly-from-Fornication and the brilliant, brilliant Magnify. The closest modern equivalent in onomastics is that period of high eccentricity in the late 1960s where hippy parents named their children Rainbow, Mountain Heart, Flying Fish and River Phoenix.
Some puritan parents seem to have played around with the unity of the Christian and Surname: in the same way that some imbecile called Card, a century ago, called his son Christmas or Valentine. Consider Lively Moody, Anger Bull and Savage Bear. How Lively, Anger and Savage must have come to hate Mum and Dad! It is certainly striking that though this naming trend continued in one family through many children, it rarely hopped from generation to generation. So Thomas Hely, the vicar of Warbleton in Sussex had, in the 1580s, four kids: Much-Mercye, Sin-Denie, Increased and Fear Not. He also seems to have bullied his parishioners into following suit. But, by the 1630s, the habit was in steep decline even in Warbleton and Sussex more generally as puritans began to criticize these fabulously insane naming conventions.
‘[I]t is a petulant absurdity to give [children] ridiculous names, the very rehearsing whereof causeth laughter. There be certain affectate names which mistaken zeal chooseth for honour, but the event discovers a proud singularity.’ These are the words of Thomas Adams, a proud Puritan and a wise man. He was perhaps anticipating the treatment dealt out to the Reverend Sabbaith Clerke, who was mockingly called, in the mid seventeenth century, ‘Saturday’. Ouch. There was also the danger that the hortatory child would not live up to their parents’ ambitions. Consider, for example, a lovely girl named Fly-from-Fornication Bull who appears in the Sussex Quarter Records in 1646 for having had sex with one Nathaniel Hugget (not her husband) in Goodman Woodman’s shop at Hailsham.
The naming habit collapsed under such contradictions as Fly and Goodman. However, there are occasional late examples. For instance, ‘A man named Sykes, resident in this locality [Thurstonville, Yorkshire], had four sons whom he named respectively Love-well, Do-well, Die-well, and Fare-well.’ This dates to 1865 and didn’t finish happily: ‘Sad to say, Fare-well Sykes met an untimely end by drowning, and was buried this week (eleventh Sunday after Trinity) in Lockwood churchyard.’ Other ridiculous naming traditions: drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com
