Message: "17th century English criminal's names!"

[Opinions] 17th century English criminal's names!

by Lethe (reniannen17)

12/8/2008, 3:16 PM

I've been doing a uni course on crime in the early modern period in England and to add some interest while studying, started compiling some of the names I came across. Ok my title was a bit sensationalist, the list also includes accusers, witnesses, victims etc. Some are just weird and it's hard to tell whether it's just the random spelling. Others I just find strange because I expect to find them in my parents or grandparents generation and don't think of them as traditional. Others are just unsual or otherwise interesting.

Female:

Vasta
Sinah
Rathea
Awdly - hee hee
Loer - no higher
Alse
Jana
Fides
Dorcas
Bernet
Disne - related to Walt?
Fryswid
Marienie
Florendine
Thomasine – sometimes found as Thomazine which suggests it was commonly pronounced with a hard s.
Johanna
Jennet - Another one I’ve seen in Scottish records is Jonet.
Arabella
Ursula – Pretty common. It surprised me as I realised I thought of it as an outside name and would have assumed it was a more modern adoption, not a name traditionally used in England. Of course the btn entry explains why.
Ursley - maybe a pet form of Ursula?
Cicely
Tibia - and her sister Femur?
Lydia
Magdalen / Magdaline (same person)
Blanch
Joyce
Denise - all these last 3 I think of as 20thC names
Hester
Sybil / Sibil / Sibila
Philis
Penelope
Angel
Clemence
Mercy
Prudence
Gunnora (14thC)

Male:

Fulk
Clavel
Kenelm
Hercules
Ludowick
Constantine
Reginald
Cuthbert
Godfrey
Edmund
Gilbert
Leonard
Humphrey
Miles
Tobias
Morgan
Felix
Lionel
Amos
Abel
Ozias
Rowland
Bartholomew
Zachariah
Gamaliel
Ephraim
Gresham
Manly
Lion
Fortune

Japhery – presumably Jeffrey but gender unspecified

#English

This message was edited 12/8/2008, 3:48 PM

Replies

- Jonquil

12/9/2008, 5:10 AM

Vasta might be Vashti and Awdly is probably Audrey!
There are a few Puritan names there, naughty girls!

- Dot (Spider from Mars) +2

12/8/2008, 7:05 PM

Ursley I think is an English form of Ursula, not a pet form. (Like Margaret -> Margery, Cecilia -> Cecily, Timotheos -> Timothy, Dorothea -> Dorothy etc.)

Manly's interesting: I wonder if it's a virtue name, or an English form of the Roman name Manlius (which would refer to the hands)? Hee. Good thing that and Publius (Publy?) didn't catch on.

Fryswid, Gunnora interesting as well.

Thanks for posting.

ETA: Fryswid probably comes from Frideswide. Cool.

This message was edited 12/8/2008, 7:08 PM

- Lethe (reniannen17) +1

12/9/2008, 2:42 AM

I never thought of Ursley like that, yes you're probably right. I find it quite hard to say, maybe that's why the full Ursula was more popular.

And thanks for the info on Frideswide. I found it interesting she's really the only one with a very traditional old English name in the 17thC.

According to wiki, Gunnora was the consort and wife of Richard I of Normandy and was of Danish ancestry, so maybe the name is related to the male name Gunnar?

- Dot (Spider from Mars)

12/9/2008, 5:01 AM

That was my thinking as well. Gunnar -> Gunnora doesn't seem like a stretch at all. I think maybe it could also be a combination of the elements gunnr (war) and nord (north), but I'm thinking a feminine from of Gunnar is more likely.