By the time you are reading this article, we will have witnessed our own unique piece of history with the coronation of a new king, Charles III. Throughout history, the crowning of a new monarch has been followed by a change in name trends, to reflect the name of the newly-crowned king or queen.
Will it be the same this time, I wonder? I’m not doubting that thousands will line the streets or sit entranced in front of their TVs, but will family historians of the future be able to make a credible guess at their ancestor’s year of birth, just from that person’s given name?
Naming patterns
Naming patterns don’t just stop with newly-crowned monarchs. Ann Kilbourne was recently researching an ancestor who was born in Somerset in late Victorian times. Would you like to guess his birth year from just his name: Ernest Jubilee Boyce? Of course, it was 1887, the year of Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee. The same family line also had a penchant for naming their children after world events.
Like many people of his time, Ernest seems to have followed the progress of events during the Second Boer War and this was reflected in the naming of his daughter, Ellen Pretoria Mafeking Boyce, who was born at Axbridge, Somerset in quarter 2 of 1900, perfectly coinciding with the relief of Mafeking, which took place on 17 May 1900. This was followed by the birth of Edward Coronation Boyce, who was born in quarter 3 of 1902, also at Axbridge.
King Edward VII’s coronation had originally been planned for 26 June 1902, but an emergency operation due to appendicitis, just two days before that date, meant it was postponed until 9 August 1902. Choosing popular Christian names can date us for the rest of our lives, but they can also give family historians valuable clues to point to potential birth years. I have previously looked at the upsurge in names around historical events, a year either side of Queen Victoria’s coronation and saw the name Victoria used on over 800 occasions. I wonder if the name Charles will make it into the top ten
