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Odd Names
Strange Victorian NamesRaspberry Lemon
Lettice Burger
Bovril
Okay
Never
Toilet
Baboon
Evil
Susan Semolina Thrower
Happy
Freezer Breezer
Princess Cheese
Minty Badger
Scary LookerThese are all real children’s names and almost make what celebrities call their children now normal.Via Veritas Vita
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I'm sorry but most of these aren't true. Most of them are incorrect readings of census takers' poor writing: Toilet was Violet, Scary was Jeany, Evil was Evie, Freezer was likely 'Fred R.', and Okay was the initials 'O.K.' (a phrase which likely hadn't reached England at this time to make it an awkward name). Raspberry has some precedent as a first name. Lettice IS a real name, without debate (Lettice is the medieval English form of Letitia, and is pronounced 'la-tees,' not like the vegetable). Minty is short for Aramintha. Never seems to be a bad spelling of an Indian name, and Baboon is probably a poor transcription of another non-English name - an issue very, *very* common in old censuses. Happy is just a weird virtue name.
The only real ones on the list are Princess Cheese and Bovril.
Funny enough, though, there is a very strange company named Freezer Breezer apparently.

This message was edited 9/22/2023, 7:13 PM

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Toilet was a boy so definitely not Violet

This message was edited 9/23/2023, 12:26 AM

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It was not as uncommon as it is today for boys to have girls' names.
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I can see Violet being once a gender neutral name, personally. I don't like it for masculine use, but I can see it and I wouldn't mind baby boy Violets to be born in 50 years time
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It this list is indeed from census records, one should point out that census takers did sometimes make mistakes in recording gender as well as in spelling names.
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Minty Badger! These are great, I love that XD
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These are amazing! Are they British? English? Scottish? Where did you find them? Having seen Susan Semolina Thrower and Minty Badger, I don't think I'll ever be unhappy again. Thank you!
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They are British and I found them online actually in a history programme aimed at 8-12 year olds. The programme is a historical sketch show occasionally absurd but tries to be historically accurate and will say if it really happened or not.
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Weird
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