Unusual Names

52 Ancestors in 52 weeks Challenge-

Under the heading of better late than never I am jumping in at week three, determined to try to keep up or at least stay close this year!

Names are fascinating - I have run across patterns that involve time periods and ethnic groups.  My "Germans from Russia" Ancestors had the frustrating habit of giving the name of a deceased child to the next child born of that gender.  I have found families with 2 or 3 Marys or Georges!  I have also been frustrated at times by the seeming use of only 5 or 6 names in a particular time period, There might be 100 years when all the family used William, John, James and Robert, Mary, Sarah, Rebecca and Catherine.  The best though are the ones that are so different, you wonder where they came from and have to find out, or suffer from unrequited curiosity!  Here are a few of my favorites.

On my husband's side we had several of these unusual names:

There was this guy - 

Abiathur Kennison b. 1801 Canada d. 1876 Seward Nebraska

I found him in the Bible --Abiathar, in the Old Testament, son of Ahimelech, priest of Nob. He was the sole survivor of a massacre carried out by Doeg. Fleeing to David, he remained with him throughout his wanderings and his reign. He was loyal through the rebellion of Absalom, but he supported Adonijah against Solomon.

This one - 

Eusebius J McClesky b. 1806 South Carolina d. 1887 Mississippi 

He was named after a man called 'the Father of Church History' -  Eusebius of Caesarea, also called Eusebius Pamphili, (flourished 4th century, Caesarea Palestinae, Palestine), bishop, exegete, polemicist, and historian whose account of the first centuries of Christianity, in his Ecclesiastical History, is a landmark in Christian historiography.

And these guys - 

Flavius C Guyton b. 1845 South Carolina and Julius C Guyton b. 1847 South Carolina d. 1916 Mississippi

In my head I always make the C in the middle name Caesar!  I suspect the two names are from the play 'Julius Caesar' by William Shakespeare.  There was of course a Julius Caesar and a famous General Flavius in history.  It is impossible to know now which is the correct source but I lean towards the play. 

On my side I found names taken from more recent history;

Francis Marion Marcum b. 1827 Kentucky d. 1870 Missouri

I found his namesake in the Revolutionary War -
Francis Marion (1732-1795), one of the great partisan leaders of the American Revolutionary War, was known as the "Swamp Fox" because of his craftiness in eluding pursuers in the Carolina swamps and his brilliant guerrilla operations. Francis Marion was born in Berkeley County, S.C.

Then there was -

George Washington Medlin b. 1850 Illinois d. 1924 Missouri

There were a lot of men named after the father of our country!

There were Hezekiahs and Ezekiels, Thomas Jeffersons Andrew Jacksons, and even a Jefferson Davis!

One of the things this proved to me was something I read in a Louis L'Amour western one time...While there were some uneducated people in the early days of the country, there were a lot that learned to read using the Bible and books were precious.  You might find a trapper with a copy of Plutarchs Lives, or a cowboy reading Blackstone's Law.  The founding fathers were not the only educated people in the new world, many a 3rd or 4th son of nobility emigrated looking for land and freedom.  

I think the names are interesting because they bring me up short and make me think - who is this farmer who has read Shakespeare?