Nicola here, talking about names. Back in July, Christina posted about names and saints’ days, and recently a previous Wench guest, Elizabeth Hawksley, wrote a fascinating piece on her own blog here about why the name Thomas fell out of popularity in 1532. It seems to me that whether we’re talking about about choosing names for characters in books or how we feel about our own names, it’s a perennially fascinating topic.
This time around, my interest was sparked by the BBC genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are, which returned to our screens in the UK last week with a new series. The first programme explored the family history of actress Jodie Whittaker. Among the family stories that emerged was one relating to her grandmother, who was called Greta Verdun Bedford. This was the moment I learned something completely new to me – that in the past, babies have been named after battles.
Great Verdun Bedford had been named after the First World War Battle of Verdun, which took place in 1916. (The photo is of the battlefield landscape today.) The name was chosen 
not to commemorate any member of the family who had fought or died there, as Jodie originally imagined, but because there was a strong tradition for choosing battle names for children during that period. A number of other World War I battles were also adopted as names during the War and immediately afterwards, including Heligoland, Dardanelles, Ypres, Loos, Somme and Vimy Ridge. You can find the full list here on the National Archives Page along with the frequency with which they occurred. In total there were over 1600 First World War related baby names registered in the years between 1914 and 1949 and that was only where the child was had a battle name as its first name. If you include middle names, there are many, many more.
Girls were not spared this fashion, either. Some were given identical names to the boys: Flanders, Mons, Jutland. In other cases there were feminine versions of the battles, including Sommeria and Arrasina or Dardanella. In some cases the names were given to recognise the sacrifice of family members in particular battles; in others, they were simply to show solidarity with the troops or with the civilian populations who were suffering.
Of course this got me wondering when this fashion first started. I went on the Ancestry website and searched for people named after some of the better-known Napoleonic War era battles. There were some glorious examples, including Talavera Vernon Anson, who was born in November 1809 (the battle occurred in July of that year). There were also many, many Waterloos and a few Austerlitz’s. A number of boys born in 1806 were given names that were a combination of Horatio, Nelson and Trafalgar, including Horatio Trafalgar Taylor of Oldham in Lancashire.
I tried to see how far back you could trace the influence of battles on naming of babies in the UK. There were definitely some called Blenheim at the start of the 18th century but earlier than that the records aren’t really there to tell you. I did wonder whether in the 15th century an archer came back from the 100 Years War and called his child Agincourt! I wouldn’t be surprised.
Continuing the battle-inspired theme, there were over a hundred babies named “Peace” in 1918 and quite a few called “Victory.” 
Some children born on 11th November were called “Armistice” and a tradition that survives to this day is the increase in the number of girls called “Poppy” named around November each year!
As with Nelson, parents were also inspired by prominent leaders during the First World War: 11 children were named Haig and 166 were named Kitchener and 25 called Cavell after British nurse Edith Cavell. There’s a particularly interesting post on this on the Scotland’s People site here.
I can’t leave this topic without a nod to Wellington and Napoleon. Whilst it seems logical to assume that people would name their children after heroes like Wellington, whose surname Wellesley was also used in tribute, it’s interesting that a number of British parents called they children Napoleon and even Bonaparte. This probably didn’t indicate any lack of patriotism, just a liking for the names. Someone even went the whole hog and called their son Napoleon The Great! Napoleon Bonaparte Bottomley born in 1860 in Yorkshire, had a brother called Inkerman, after a dubious success for the British and French in the Crimean War, and a sister called Harriet Beecher Stowe!
I wonder whether other countries have this tradition as well?
As far as I know, I have neither battles nor hero names in my family tree and when I’ve found a name that looks unusual it’s been a mis-transcription of something ordinary. Have you come across anything heroic or battle related in your family? Any Florence Nightingales or Churchills, Poppies or Peace? How would you feel being named for a battle, and if you were to choose your own name to commemorate something important to you, what would it be?
