Genealogy Chat

In 1871, surely Amiable wasn't a name that was in use much for a baby girl? I'm sure they didn't even have dictionaries to know what the word meant. All her brothers & sisters have the usual James, Jane & Elizabeth type names. Where did they find names from I wonder?

Hi Karen There are 15 Amiable's on FreeBMD (5 births, 5 marriages & 5 deaths). There's one each on the Ancestry 1871 & 1891 indexes (different people). The name Elma apparently is the Greek for Amiable (as is Mabel in Latin), so maybe it was an Anglicisation of that name?

Perhaps the family had done the rounds of naming the children after various relatives and started on names with 'nice' qualities. Patience, Prudence and Mercy are others that come to mind.

I had one in my tree with the first name Mercy and her surname was Over! Another called Mercy had the misfortune to marry a mr Percy! Kim

Mercy Percy !!!! pfffffffttttt I have another ancestor named Tassie Leopoldine !!! Such an unusual name for a little girl! Maybe she was named after a ship in port ?!?!?! LOL

Richard, I just went to Free BMD because I didn't know you could just search by first name.....& of course........my Amiable is NOT on the births !!! Mine is Amiable Dinenage. Such an unusual name I'm sure it must be mis - transcibed somewhere. She was born 1870.

Karen: I just found your family in 1881, the name was "Amy" on that: William Hy. DINENAGE Head M Male 48 Bristol Colliery Clerk Jane DINEAGE Wife M Female 47 Liverpool Elizabeth DINEAGE Daur U Female 20 Southampton Domestic Servant Jane DINEAGE Daur U Female 15 Southampton Scholar Robert DINEAGE Son Male 12 Southampton Scholar Amy DINEAGE Daur Female 9 Southampton Scholar Frederick DINEAGE Son Male 7 Southampton Scholar Infant DINEAGE Son Male 1 m Walsall Wood, Stafford, England Source Information: Dwelling Lichfield Rd Census Place Walsall Foreign, Stafford, England Family History Library Film 1341678 Public Records Office Reference RG11 Piece / Folio 2831 / 79 Page Number 9

Amy/Amiable is not on FreeBMD, but her brother Fred is: Name: Dinenage, Frederick Shah Record Type: Births Quarter: September Year: 1873 District: Southampton County: Hampshire Volume: 2c Page: 28

I did a search for a lady today & in one lot of rellies i found Nis--Nisse--Hamlet H H.

I also have unusual names, Patience and Mercy but also Freedom, Ocean, Britannia, wisdom etc, The fun comes in when the enumerators (sp) decided to anglicize the names, trying to work that out on the census search no fun!!

wow !!! Thank you Richard!!! I was about to write that family off !! LOL You are great mate!! Cheers Karen

tracie, your names do sound like they were named after ships don't they !?!?

Why not call a baby Amiable, it's better than Apple! While trawling the indexes I have spotted several Victory's and one Mafeking. Bet you can't guess when he was born!

No worries, Tracey! Talking about naming after ships - I had an Elizabeth Winchester Sugden who was born at sea.... and, sure enough, I found that the name of the ship that she was born on was .... HMS Winchester!

LOL It is much more interesting than finding yet another Elizabeth or John isn't it!?!?

Speaking of strange names, I thought my relative odd calling their daughter St.Georgeaner Ann, maybe they were being patriotic - Grace R

Hi Janet, I wonder if one of the Victory's was my husbands grandmother? Her first names were Victory Peace. She was born the day before Armistice, and her father was a serving soldier in the DLI. Can only assume the obvious for those names! I've always thought it a really lovely name. Debbie

Makes you wonder what people in 100 years time will make of the names around at the moment? I'm always being told that my children have 'odd' names, but they're nothing like Fifi Trixibelle, Apple, Scout, Rumur...to name just a few! Ali

One of the names I noticed was Irate! A girl - some name!! Anne

Perhaps they meant to call her Annabelle but didn't know how to spell it!! I suppose that if you can call a child Nimrod (who also had siblings with quite usual names) then Amiable would be perfectly normal.