Last March I posted a tongue-in-cheek list of girls' names from the extended family trees of my wife and myself that, for various reasons, we won't be using. It's long past time to post the boys' edition, particularly because I am lacking anything else I could whip into shape in time and -- more importantly -- because my wife showed me three different positive pregnancy tests (!!!!) in the past couple of days.
Cleophus
My great-great-grandfather's name was Joseph. "Joseph C." Some time ago I discovered records pertaining to his nephew, the son of his brother (said brother shall appear later in this post). The nephew's name was "Joseph Charles" and I figured he was named directly for his uncle Joseph C., my ancestor. Finally unearthing great-great-grandfather's death certificate cured me of that misperception. His middle name wasn't Charles, it was Cleophus. Cleophus! I should have figured, since his sister was given "Cleora" as her first name.
The case for:
--Cleophus is a variant of Cleophas, which is of Greek origin and means "vision of glory." In the Bible he was husband to one of the Marys who stood at the foot of the cross. St. Cleopas of Emmaus and his friend go down as the first to see the resurrected Jesus. That's a pretty big deal in world history.
St. Cleopas the Apostle by Joseph von Führich, 1837, is in the Kunsthalle Bremen
--It's unique. Never been in the top 1,000 boys' names in the U.S. The little rugrat wouldn't have to struggle to stand out among all the other Cleophi in school.
--James Brown's character in The Blues Brothers was Rev. Cleophus James. What's cooler than the Godfather of Soul?
James Brown as Rev. Cleophus James in The Blues Brothers, 1980
--As for reverends who aren't fictional characters, Princeton Theological Seminary has a professor named
Cleophus J. LaRue. He's the Francis Landey Patton Professor of Homiletics, which sounds pretty kick-ass.
Rev. Cleophus Robinson was a minor gospel star born in Mississippi but relocated to Chicago.
--There's a Cleophus Quealy brewery in San Leandro. Apparently Cleophus was the name of an ancestor of one of its founders. I like beer and the Bay Area.
The case agin':
--The best-known bearer of the name in recent years is serial killer Cleophus Prince, Jr., the Clairemont killer.
--I'd need a new wife. That's a compelling argument against to me.
Apthorp
It's been nearly two years since I posted about Apthorp Caswell, my ancestor born in the town of Littleton, New Hampshire before it was called Littleton and before there was a town. He was the first English baby born there, since his wandering pioneer father was itching to settle the place before anyone else. A wild story.
I told that story to my sister and said they named the baby after the new town. She asked the name of the town. I told her, "Apthorp." She still hasn't stopped laughing. But I take this seriously. Being descended not only from Apthorp but from Apthorp, Jr., I've got two direct ancestors with this name.
The case for:
--A venerable old New England name. East Apthorp's 18th-century house remains on the Harvard campus and many members of the family were prominent in the Union Army during the Civil War.
Apthorp House at Harvard University, built in the 1760s by East Apthorp (which sounds like a town, not a man)
--The name apparently derives from a place in Northamptonshire. The Apthorps wound up moving north into Scotland, where they were known as a most "unruly clan." Sounds like my family.
--The Apthorp on the Upper West Side is one of New York's most beautiful buildings. It was so named because Boston-born Charles Apthorp owned a farm and manor house on the site. I love the building though I could never afford it, and as someone who's been caught between Boston and New York in my life I can relate.
The case against:
--A venerable old New England name is not always a good thing if you have any morals. Charles Apthorp, who made the family fortune, was considered the richest man in Boston in the mid-1700s. I think he's a grade-A dirtbag. He made the fortune in large part by importing slaves. He took commissions for finding runaway servants and returning them to cruel masters. He organized the forced exile of the Acadians from Nova Scotia, resulting in much disease and starvation. Then he bought the two front pews at King's Chapel and played the pious and humble Christian.
--The town in New Hampshire was named Apthorp only because they invested money. I'm tired of some rich person investing money to make a profit and being showered in glory while the people doing the work and freezing through White Mountain winters are forgetten. The hell with them. Especially since they sold their holdings and the town was renamed 15 years later anyway.
--The damn apartment building's only an option for the hedge fund crowd anyway.
The courtyard of the Apthorp apartment building, 78th and Broadway in New York
Lindorf
Joseph Cleophus's brother, who had the sense to name his son Joseph Charles instead, was called Lindorf. He grew up in Ripton, Vermont, but served in the 7th Maine Infantry under an assumed name for reasons I cannot guess. He returned to Ripton, married and had six children. When he was in his 50s he did a two-year stint in state prison for grand larceny and died soon after his release. He may be an iffy person to name a child after anyway.
I have a pet theory that he was named Lindorf because my ancestors couldn't spell. Lindorf's dad had a brother named Lyndorph. He very likely was named for that uncle. Uncle Lyndorph, too, may have been mis-named. His parents lived very near the town of Landaff, New Hampshire, before moving over the border to Canada. Maybe they wanted to give him a name from "back home" and couldn't remember how to spell it, or figured they'd spruce it up a bit. (By the way, Landaff, New Hampshire, is named for the Bishop of Llandaff in Wales, who was personal chaplain to King George III.)
The case for:
--Not a lot here. It's unique for sure.
--Lindor truffles are pretty good, but there's no "f."
--Lindorf was the leading love interest in the 1798 novel Caroline de Litchfield by Isabelle De Montolieu. Mary Wollstonecraft was a fan.
The case against:
--I can't find anything else remotely cool with this name. Lindorf is a small town between Munich and Stuttgart. But I'm not German and neither is my wife. It's also an auto repair shop in Medford, Oregon. Not all that compelling.
--Lindorff with two f's is "a leading outsourced receivables management company in Europe, and one of the leading on a global basis." Someone wake me up. At least muckraking lefty journalist Dave Lindorff seems interesting.
The Dutch staff of the Oslo-based corporate receivables giant Lindorff. Feel the excitement.
Gaius
My 4x-great-grandfather was named Gaius Perkins. When he was born in 1777, this was a popular name in New England, probably because all things Roman were in vogue in those heady days of revolution in the name of democracy. In fact, as I explained in a recent post, another man Gaius Perkins named with virtually the same lifespan lived one town over and I had them confused for a while. Good rule of thumb I should have remembered: my ancestor was the one who had no money.
The case for:
--It's actually the true first name of many a Roman emperor, including Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Caligula, plus many other prominent Roman figures.
--Dr. Gaius Baltar, a glib and neurotic narcissist who evolves into a halfway decent person, was one of the more interesting characters on Battlestar Galactica.
The case against:
--I'm not really that into sci-fi anyway.
--Who wants to name a kid after Caligula?
Caligula. Rather, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. He seems like such a nice young man.
Ebenezer
Like many people with colonial New England ancestry, I've got an Ebenezer or two on the tree. Don't have time to look them up but they're not direct ancestors.
The case for:
--Ebenezer Ako-Adjei was one of the Big Six who worked for Ghanian independence. He brought Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president, into politics and served under him in several cabinet positions. As thanks Dr. Nkrumah tossed him in prison for four years. When he got out, he'd had enough of Ghanian politics but was given his nation's highest honor, the Order of the Star of Ghana.
--Massachusetts-born Ebenezer Allen (1743-1806) was a founder of Poultney, Vermont, moving there around the time my own ancestors settled a bit to the east. He served in the American Revolution under his cousin, Ethan Allen, and spent four years in the Vermont legislature at the time it became a U.S. state. He was instrumental in drafting the 1793 Vermont state constitution, which remains in force. The Common Benefits clause of that constitution was invoked in the 1999 civil unions decision that arguably launched the marriage equality revolution. A strong abolitionist, in 1777 Ebenezer Allen freed two slaves he acquired on moral grounds.
The case against:
--One word: Scrooge. Yeah, he was redeemed at the end. But the name "Ebenezer Scrooge" still is shorthand for a rich, heartless miser. I guess Rockefeller had better publicists.
One vision of Ebenezer Scrooge. Would you name your son after this man?
--Ebenezer Balfour was the bad guy, not redeemed at the end, in
Kidnapped. He tried to kill his nephew to steal his inheritance. When that didn't work he tried to sell him into slavery. Authors really do not seem to like this name.
Benoni
As Land of Enchantment has instructed us, this name means "son of my sorrow" and was given when a son was illegitimate or his mother died giving birth. I am descended from Benoni Shaw (1672-1751) of Lakenham, Massachusetts, and his mother died giving birth to him. I'm steering clear of this one.
Cornelius
All the names I've listed so far come from the 1/8 of my ancestry that's New England Yankee. My Irish family, for the most part, has given me precious little material to work with for this post. An endless stream of James, Joseph, John, Patrick, Michael, Edward, Thomas, William, and the occasional George or Henry tossed in. But most Irish Catholic families in America have a Cornelius or two on the family tree, and so it is with mine.
Most of these gents went by Connie in the old days. Best known, perhaps, was legendary baseball manager Connie Mack, born Cornelius McGillicuddy in East Brookfield, Massachusetts on December 22, 1867. Mack, as you can see, used nicknames for his first and last names, a tradition carried on by his progeny, the Florida Republican politicians Connie Mack III and Connie Mack IV. Who knew you could serve in the U.S. Congress under a nom de scène? IOKIYAR.
The case for:
--I went to school with a kid named Cornelius. He wasn't called Connie, he was called Corny. Not in a mean way, because he was a very friendly and well-liked kid. And he was six inches taller than anyone else in class and had big brothers who played linebacker.
--Cornelius, it turns out, is Chevy Chase's name: Cornelius Crane Chase. I did not know that, nor did I know that Chase's family had been in New York City since its founding by the Dutch in 1624. He's descended from Van Cortlandts and from Mayflower passengers. His maternal grandmother's second husband was Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, and Chevy spent plenty of time as a kid at the Crane estate in Ipswich, Mass. They have an awesome beach there.
Apparently he's not impressed: per Wikipedia, he told his brother John that "people who defined themselves in terms of their ancestry were like potatoes – the best parts of them were underground. He disdained the pretension of my mother's side of the family, as embodied by her mother, Cattie."
Cornelius Crane Chase, original SNL cast member
The case against:
--Baseball's Connie Mack was a penny-pincher who stayed on too long, giving him a lifetime losing record. He then bequeathed the world two Florida Republicans. He did send his best players to the Red Sox in the 30s for little return, but no dice.
--Cornelius Vanderbilt, the "Commodore," made a fortune in shipping and railroads. He built the first Grand Central Depot and gave the money to start Vanderbilt University. He did a lot of stuff. But I'm not one to lionize tycoons and robber barons.
A march was composed for the funeral of Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1877
--
Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic in the Harry Potter series, is one of the more spineless politicians you'll ever see. I'm sure my kids will read these books one day.
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I could go on for pages, but I'll stop there. Perhaps another day we'll discuss Ichabod, Isaachar, Elkanah, Eleazer, Hezekiah, and Zebedee. Or my wife's ancestors Sixto, Eleutario, Eustaquio, and Wenceslao.
Oddest names in YOUR family?