I’ve written a Puritan name acrostic for you all! An acrostic is a poem in which a letter from each line (especially the first letter) spells something out.
Happy…
Temperance – 232 girls in 2016. It was a top 1000 name between 2011 and 2014.
Hope – 1324 girls (#240) and 7 boys.
Amity – 42 girls. Amity means “friendship.”
Noble – 140 boys and 15 girls.
Knowledge – 112 boys and 8 girls.
Sincere – 405 boys (#628) and 39 girls. The other option was Silence.
Grace – 7531 girls (#19) and 15 boys.
Increase – Famously borne by Increase Mather (1639-1723). I’m a little surprised this one isn’t anywhere in the SSA data.
Victory – 47 girls and 16 boys.
Independence – 6 girls.
Nazareth – 64 girls and 47 boys. ‘N’ is one of the less common letters for Puritan names; Noble is the only ‘N’ virtue name I could find. My other choice for this slot was the very random word-name “Notwithstanding,” which was mentioned in Albion’s Seed.* Yes, someone really named their kid Notwithstanding.
Godswill – 6 boys. This might be a modern creation, but it’s up there with Obedience.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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(As usual, the data came from the Social Security Administration. The book I mention, Albion’s Seed, is by David Hackett Fischer and contains information on colonial American naming practices.)
The Well-Informed Namer 