~ names from "Abstracts of Wills and Other Records, Currituck and Dare Counties, North Carolina (1663-1850)"

General Name Discussion
1

ok so hi! i’m levi and i come from a relatively small community on the north carolina coast called the outer banks.

the outer banks is a collection of barrier islands all along the coast, which you can see in this image. i’m from nags head, and most of my extended family is in kill devil hills, colington, and wanchese. my family immigrated to nags head before ~1732, which is when my 7x great-grandfather was born. he was born and died in nags head woods, which is where my great-grandparents house and my family’s cemetery are located.

enough about me; one of the more interesting things about outer banks is that it was the first english settlement in north america! the towns of manteo and wanchese (which are croatan and roanoac, respectively) are settled on roanoke island, home of the lost colony. a majority of the tourists who visit manteo are there for fort raleigh, where the original settlement is preserved, or for the lost colony, which is a theater that stages a muscial based on the the real lost colony every summer.

fun fact: i have never seen the play, which is pretty lame coming from a local. also, if you want to read more about the outer banks and its history written by someone who knows what they’re talking about, i recommend a journey through the outer banks, by wes snyder. you should also check out memories of manteo and roanoke island, as told by cora mae basnight, by suzanne tate b.c. cora was one of my cousins!

ok so thats enough backstory, onto the funny stuff! the first drop down has some funny, weird and down-right terrible names from wills i read, and the second just has some funny commentary i wrote while reading. please ask me if you want to know more about any of these people, i know way. too. much.

names

comfort applestal chandler
cuniff powers
uriah angel
azariam parker
armstead soles
bethiah miller
uphanne miller
proskate nickens
william farquhar
wineford chittam
wineford jarvis (niece of wineford chittam)
solo (short for solomon) alcock
comfort litchfield
cisiah litchfield
archelaus turtne
rasha lee
zebulon lee
fornete chrismas
zebah lee
lydia except its spelled “lyddea”
brazilla jones
zadock jones
catron jones
darkis jones
sier jones
bunnell whealey
docksey jones
freelove jones
uphan ives
ebyah fisher
darkes jasper (dorcas???)
love jenkins
rilane heath
joleff (jolliff) holstead
maharshalhashbas gamewell
molleky gregory
director hall (84)
director gregory (daughter of director hall)
director chaplin (granddaughter of director hall)
vashte hall
euphan ferebee
butts roberts
larsus flora
beriss etheridge
berther beggs
rosimon perkins
glishby scarborough
linner etheridge
righte dauge
huldey dauge
epaphroditus davis
jacque linner douge (jacqueline???)
partheany dough
azehel simmons
dyke bunnel
isles cooper
dixia creed
robbard burrus
zilphae burrus (daughter of robbard burrus)
wealthey caffey
theopheloust kiln
ezebell baxter
affiah rodgers
thamil brooks
marmeduke cox
drives greves
mordica beasley
joakim beasley
presseller bennet
laban ballance
cortena ballance
luraner adams
marchant woodard
zorabable hampton
magor whidbee
SCHOONER RESOLUTION
lettissha white
mordecia beesley
dorastus williams
fawnia williams
lem woodhouse
persiller wright
[at this point i realized there was an index and started going alphabetically]
hosea ball
aseneath ballance
irrenoia ballance
sivility miller
angilies bernard
eudissa bernard
bretania gallop bean
daygherredge beasley
fernetty beasley
jerustae ann beasley
brickhouse bell
lycurgus bell
cornelius but its spelled cornealus
sacky boldin
DOS BRIGHT
stannop brit
millborough capps
embley bunnel
susias abiar burnham
roassa burrus
earthdy burt
salatheal capps
alidae bradley
archabell daniels
beltashaser daniels
seineth daniels
elverge douge
nelope douge
unas douge
roeding deers
southwood denby
catherny dough
doitridge dough
GARLOP DOUGH
hambelton dough
green berry dowdy
suffier dowdy
tamer dowdy
ardelea doxey
thirza doxey
mager everton
barcilla farrow
barshaba farrow
laranza burris farrow
nasa farrow
pharaoh farrow.
permely fisher
dorpha foster
jehue gaimel
shadrack gallop
joiles/giels gibbs
lowdenner glasgow
manloff r. gregory
matt drives grieves
toleyse grieves
altinteo griggs
zero hamelton
augustus servantor hawkins
rosmus hersleff
bershaby holloway
parentha parr
sinney parr
JULIAN MCHORNEY
equila jarvis
oliff jarvis
jabez jennett
izayah jones
zackaryath jones
burthy ann kaymore
johnack land
doyley and doysey latter
horashe lee
pashea whitehurst
bathiah long
brittania mchorney
manlif mchorney
sinderelly melson
cateran midgett
temptey morriset
alice but its spelled aliss
sngth murrell
jsua nash
metable norton
malchia palmer
wicker parker
isaher parr
thamer thaney and thermy parr
otelia parsons
golden gallop
latimore thomas poyner
whitust poyner
felinda pugh
parhance pugh
barley quidley
cloah ritter
wrincher roberts
readin rollison
penolipe sanderson
ressia sanderson
scarllea sanderson
sharloty sanderson
surrey sanderson
patient savage
zephaniah sawyer
zebedee scarborough
gwinefold shepard
telamaceus shergold
sementer simmons
permenos smith
armistead soles
gehue tatem
beannia taylor
bonapart taylor
gallaton taylor
trimegan taylor
pormenus turner
assenth white
lykercus whitehead
cleopatra wicker
unice williams
appelone winship
ireana woodhouse
ansaline worden
ibcoy wright

commentary (there are swear words but they are censored)

not a name but they did used to spell dowdy as “odowdee”
also not a name but a guy left his still to his two young daughters and i think thats hilarious
[during the jones episode at the beginning] jesus what are they feeding those jones people
jesus fucking christ what is this next one [about maharshalhashbas]
COME ON GUYS [about butts roberts]
oh my god why would you do that. thats like me naming my son the n-word. [about dyke bunnel]
oh director chaplin made a comeback, shes on her fathers will
john callis said “child my said wife may be with.” SIR. not you shaming your own wife.
JOSHUA CAMPBELL GAVE HIS WIFE THEIR BED AND SAID “that is enough more that all i ever got from her” SIR.
solomon campbell said “child my wife is big with” im offended on her behalf wtf
THERES A GUY WITH THE LAST NAME WORMINGTON
william brabble mentions “my beloved wife and my beloved evan miller” bro.
they spelled cousin as “couzen” send help.
you mean that bitch on my computer that never shuts up when i press the windows key by accident? [about cortena ballance]
thats like fuckin naming my kid….dinghy memo [about schooner resolution]
ok letisha isnt a bad name but why r there extra letters [about lettissha white]
OH MY GOD ITS SOLO ALCOCK
im not going to say anything…i respect the dead i respect the dead i respect the dead [about irrenoia ballance]
yk the saying ‘built like a brick shithouse’? thats this guy. ‘built like a brickhouse shit’ doesn’t have the same ring but MAN is it even funnier
WHO EVEN NAMES THEIR KID THIS SHIT [about lycurgus bell]
thats a fucking sloagan wtf [about millborough capps]
oh my god i found dyke again
this isnt rlly bad but i found someone named “morning” and thats kinda cute
what even [about earthdy burt]
YO THERES AN EBENEZER IN HERE
someone smashed mitchell and michael together for their son. mitchael. pronounced “mitch-i-AEL”
they hated this boy omg [about southwood denby]
thats the full name. green berry dowdy. [about you guessed it, green berry dowdy]
THERES A MOURNING IN HERE. MOURNING FARROW.
i cant with old white people istg— [about pharaoh farrow]
oh my god theres a family in here named gaylard
were just hating our children now arent we. [about toleyse grieves]
again wtf are they feeding the joneses [about more joneses]
theres some fucking mccoys in here
mcdougles is misspelled “mcdongles”
i just—no. [about sinderelly melson]
god really has left us [about thamer thaney and thermy parr]
IM TAKING AWAY THE LETTER S NO MORE [about the sanderson girls]
wineford count: 7 [that was a game i played while reading to find all the winefords]
THIS IS A FUCKING MEDICINE [about trimegan taylor]

again, ask me questions about these people, my home, or just straight random stuff.

6 Likes
2

I’d love to now more about Bethiah [name_u]Miller[/name_u], never heard of the name Bethiah before,

3

@Devils_Daughter I’ll read anything and every single thing you publish about the lot of them, that’s hilarious
I kinda want to read wills now

4

Also I got to [name_u]Julian[/name_u], thought oh, a normal name, what happened ? Right, McHORNY happened, of course.

2 Likes
5

a quick search showed me “bethiah” is a variant of “bithiah” which means “daughter of yahweh” in hebrew! in the old testament, bithiah was a daughter of pharaoh and is believed to be the woman who pulled moses from the river nile when he was a baby.

onto bethiah: i found out her married name is either clark or clerk. she was the daughter of thomas miller sr. (died in 1785) and his wife (whose name i did not find). she had one brother, william bemby miller (d. 1805), and three sisters, mary brooks, betty taylor, and fanny jerrett.

she married george clark and had two children, elizabeth and henry. after george’s death in 1783, she was responsible for their children (who were over 16 at the time) and their house, which was actually pretty common for currituck county in the 18th century. neither george, bethiah, or her son henry ever owned slaves.

i wasn’t able to find anything on elizabeth, but henry, the son, married an elizabeth hancock, who died in 1809.

a little funny fact: in her husband’s will, her name is misspellt “bethior”

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6

This is so cool! Thank you for sharing, I love seeing historical names. [name_f]My[/name_f] cousin and her husband live in Kill Devil [name_f]Hills[/name_f]! It’s such a beautiful area.

7

oh my god, thank you so much! believe it or not, i only do this as a hobby. my family tells me all the time that i should become a full-time genealogist/researcher, but doing this genuinely brings me joy and i don’t want to ruin that. i also definitely recommend reading wills and old records in general, it is hilarious

the mchornys had pretty normal names (probably to make up for the last name) besides two people named brittania and manlif. mchorny is also misspelt “machorney,” “mackhorney,” and “mchorney.” beautiful.

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8

ah that’s so cool! i never meet or hear about people from my home so this is surprising! it’s always stunning down there (probably why we have so many tourists), but i love spring and summer because nags head is just covered in foliage. i’m getting sentimental now omg i miss it

i actually have no clue what daygherredge is supposed to be. a majority of the names i see are just misspelt because a large majority of the population back then was uneducated, i.e. “jacque linner” for jacqueline, “berther” for bertha, “zackaryath” for zachariah. i’m thinking it’s a misspelling of doitridge, which itself is a misspelling of the last name doddridge.

9

Proskate Nickens make me crack up the most. I can’t decide what kind of pro skater they should be so now my mental image is just wildly oscillating between a figure skater and skateboarder. I’d love to hear anything you have on them :slight_smile:

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10

the highlights for me:

comfort applestal chandler – he’s just a simple farm boy that finds comfort in apple stalls

proskate nickens – i wonder how it feels to be one letter away from prostate…

fornete chrismas – the fact that i saw “fortnite” says something about today’s era

brazilla jones – so many wonderful associations… gorilla, bridezillas, etc.

maharshalhashbas gamewell – someone had a stroke while trying to say “marshmallow”

butts roberts – speaks for itself

sivility miller – i guess they’ve been misspelling virtue names longer than i thought

daygherredge beasley – a day garage? where you park your car?

stannop brit – oh my gosh, stoooop.

garlop dough – mmmm, for making garlop bread? i love garlop bread.

pharaoh farrow – hm, yes, they’re the same, but different.

golden gallop – oh, yeah. the horse that won the kentucky derby last year, right?

patient savage – i suppose it’s better than an impatient savage…

sementer simmons – when the semester feels like you’re walking through cement

trimegan taylor – now i’m sitting here… wishing there were three of me…

unice williams – aww, stop it! u nice, too!

3 Likes
11

t.w. incest

proskate is my favorite, tied with solo alcock; i can’t read them without cracking up. in my mind, proskate is something you’d name your kid if you really hated them and loved skateboarding. i found that his real name is not unfortunately proskate, it’s prescott. how you mishear prescott and come up with proskate, i don’t know.

prescott was born in 1768 in currituck county, which is north of dare county on the outer banks. his mother’s name was rachel leah polly nickens (b.1738 d.1831) and his father was either edward nickens (b.1730 d.1792) or captain thomas hall (b.1740 d.1804). rachel was the daughter of richard nickens (b.1705 d.1774) and rachel zornes (b. 1710 d.1807). rachel had 3 siblings, an older brother edward (b.1730 d.1792), an older sister margaret (b.1735 d.unk), and another sister elizabeth (no dates).

prescott had three full brothers, phillip (b.1762 d.unk), edward (b.1764 d.unk), and richard nickens (b.1770, d.unk). he also had several half-siblings, as rachel married captain thomas hall in 1764, and had as many as 21 children with him. i didn’t find a marriage record to a edward nickens, but records are iffy going this far back. edward, the brother, might be prescott’s father but i do not want to venture into that idea. cousin marriages were and still are very common in dare, currituck, and hyde county because until the late 1800s, getting off the islands were hard, and eventually everyone is related to each other. i don’t know the attitude people would have towards brother-sister incest back then, but we generally look down upon that now, at least in dare county.

back to prescott: the 1800 census has him living in hertford county with 4 other people in his household. he married an elzenia travis in 1795, and had 4 children with her: lemuel (b.1794 d.1862), hester (b.1815 d.1902), elizabeth (b.1820 d.1870), and leanna (b.1822 d.1869). sometime before 1803, he sold land to a john northern, as northern mentioned in his will. all of prescott’s children married and had children of their own. he died in 1836, in tennessee, at the age of 68.

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This was really interesting; thanks for sharing! Commentary made me laugh :joy:

[name_f]Kinda[/name_f] loving Lyddea??

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13

no but you should be doing this!! i was laughing the entire time reading your post, especially at “i wonder how it feels to be one letter away from prostate…” and “now i’m sitting here… wishing there were three of me…”

also: a little something about garlop dough: even the transcriber was confused about his name because there’s a little question mark in parentheses beside his name in the index :sob:

the evidence

image

oh and patient savage? it’s not patient, it’s pashent. pashent savage. that’s not even the worst part, her brother’s name is just george. george and pashent savage. horrible.

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Beautiful :laughing:

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omg thank you! i was just hoping everyone else found these as funny as i did!

and me too! it’s grown on me, but i kinda like it with just the one d: lydea. like, isn’t she so cute??

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16

everyone did their kids so dirty and its drives me insane! i see it in my family too and i’m just like—pray tell, why did you name your first two sons “little nichodemus jr.” and “dameron” and then name the next one james

or or, when they give all of their sons names that are batshit insane, but the girls all have completely normal names. like yeah, these are my kids alpheus, azariah, margaret, bannister i, bannister ii (b.c. bannister i died as a child so we had to reuse it like its a cup or something), little john pugh, pharaoh, rinaldo, caroline, cordelia, and nancy. in what world is this okay

this hobby only drives me insane sometimes.

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:laughing:

I hate the super mismatched sets but they’re a good source of entertainment haha

18

Yeah, turning [name_u]Prescott[/name_u] into Proskate is quite the stretch. Maybe somebody had terrible handwriting or a really strong accent?
Thank you for all the info, I was not expecting that much!