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ArchivesMy column on Daphne
Here is the link to today's column:
https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-daphnes-meaning-goes-back-to-the-greeks/article_7cdc1b38-fd06-11ee-b7ff-3fb07be04e7e.html
This was one of the most fun names to research. Though I certainly knew about slaveowners giving "Classical" Roman and Greek names to slaves, Daphne hadn't been one that I thought of as being heavily used that way until I research the name in USA census records. It was quite a surprise to see that there were two free Black families in Talbot County, Maryland headed by women named Daphne in 1800.
It was interesting to see how the name seems to have been used for slaves in the USA before I could find evidence that it was ever used in Britain. Charlotte Yonge, one of the very first authors of a book on the history of names, said this about Daphne in the first edition of her book in 1863: "Daphne has not subsequently been used as a name except for dogs" (the "subsequently" referring to the original Greek myth!)
Though Daphne has a stereotype as an aristocratic English name, the first Daphnes in the 18th century in England were definitely NOT upper-class. As I mention in the column, Daphne Crossley, the second earliest Daphne I could find in the UK census, was listed as a "power loom weaver" in 1851. What I didn't have room to mention in the column was that she had two brothers and a sister who were also listed as "power loom weavers" that year. Their widowed mother Daphne Douglas Crossley never has an occupation listed in the census. By the way, her maiden name isn't in the census -- the reason I know it was Douglas is that she had a son whose first name was Douglas who emigrated to Massachusetts, and on his death certificate in Massachusetts it says his mother's maiden name was Douglas. Ancestry.com is putting a lot of links to other records in its census data, which helps one find such things out! It would be great if we could find out who the first Daphne's parents were back in Edinburgh, Scotland and why they gave her that name, but that information may well be completely lost.
The first aristocratic Daphne in England, as the column states, was Daphne De La Poer Beresford (1854-1941), a great-great-granddaughter of the first Earl of Tyrone. Her great-grandfather was a member of Parliament, while her own father was an army officer, which seems to be a career at lot of younger sons in noble families of Britain went into. Interestingly, this first aristocratic Daphne never married. The name rather suddenly starts turning up in the 1880s in multiple wealthy and upper middle class families in England, which is where it developed its modern "British upper class" stereotype. But there just wouldn't have been noticeable adult Daphnes among the British aristocracy until the start of the 20th century. So the character in "Bridgerton" is an anachronism, as are any other instances of fictional aristocratic Daphnes before 1854. Julia Quinn, the American author of the novels the TV series is based on, was simply guilty of projecting the name and its stereotype back into a past where it really did not exist.
https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-daphnes-meaning-goes-back-to-the-greeks/article_7cdc1b38-fd06-11ee-b7ff-3fb07be04e7e.html
This was one of the most fun names to research. Though I certainly knew about slaveowners giving "Classical" Roman and Greek names to slaves, Daphne hadn't been one that I thought of as being heavily used that way until I research the name in USA census records. It was quite a surprise to see that there were two free Black families in Talbot County, Maryland headed by women named Daphne in 1800.
It was interesting to see how the name seems to have been used for slaves in the USA before I could find evidence that it was ever used in Britain. Charlotte Yonge, one of the very first authors of a book on the history of names, said this about Daphne in the first edition of her book in 1863: "Daphne has not subsequently been used as a name except for dogs" (the "subsequently" referring to the original Greek myth!)
Though Daphne has a stereotype as an aristocratic English name, the first Daphnes in the 18th century in England were definitely NOT upper-class. As I mention in the column, Daphne Crossley, the second earliest Daphne I could find in the UK census, was listed as a "power loom weaver" in 1851. What I didn't have room to mention in the column was that she had two brothers and a sister who were also listed as "power loom weavers" that year. Their widowed mother Daphne Douglas Crossley never has an occupation listed in the census. By the way, her maiden name isn't in the census -- the reason I know it was Douglas is that she had a son whose first name was Douglas who emigrated to Massachusetts, and on his death certificate in Massachusetts it says his mother's maiden name was Douglas. Ancestry.com is putting a lot of links to other records in its census data, which helps one find such things out! It would be great if we could find out who the first Daphne's parents were back in Edinburgh, Scotland and why they gave her that name, but that information may well be completely lost.
The first aristocratic Daphne in England, as the column states, was Daphne De La Poer Beresford (1854-1941), a great-great-granddaughter of the first Earl of Tyrone. Her great-grandfather was a member of Parliament, while her own father was an army officer, which seems to be a career at lot of younger sons in noble families of Britain went into. Interestingly, this first aristocratic Daphne never married. The name rather suddenly starts turning up in the 1880s in multiple wealthy and upper middle class families in England, which is where it developed its modern "British upper class" stereotype. But there just wouldn't have been noticeable adult Daphnes among the British aristocracy until the start of the 20th century. So the character in "Bridgerton" is an anachronism, as are any other instances of fictional aristocratic Daphnes before 1854. Julia Quinn, the American author of the novels the TV series is based on, was simply guilty of projecting the name and its stereotype back into a past where it really did not exist.
This message was edited 4/21/2024, 2:01 PM
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