Some of these names—as, for instance, Priscilla, Damaris, Dorcas, and Phebe—stood in James’s reign almost at the head of girls’ names in England. Indeed, alike in London and the provinces, the list of girl-names at Elizabeth’s death was a perfect contrast to that when she ascended the throne. Then the great national names of Isabella, Matilda, Emma, and Cecilia ruled supreme. Then the four heroines Anna, Judith, Susan, and Hester, one or two of whom were in the Apocryphal narrative, had stamped themselves on our registers in what appeared indelible lines, although they were of much more recent popularity than the others. They lost prestige, but did not die out. Many Puritans had a sneaking fondness for them, finding in their histories a parallel to their own troubles, and perchance they had a private and more godly rendering of the popular ballad of their day:
“In Ninivie old Toby dwelt,
An aged man, and blind was he:
And much affliction he had felt,
Which brought him unto poverty:
He had by Anna, his true wife,
One only sonne, and eke no more.”
Esther[13] is still popular in our villages, so is Susan. Hannah has her admirers, and only Judith may be said to be forgotten. But their glory was from 1450 to 1550. After that they became secondary personages. Throughout the south of England, especially in the counties that surrounded London, the Bible had been ransacked from nook to corner. The zealots early dived into the innermost recesses of Scripture. They made themselves as familiar with chapters devoted solely to genealogical tables, as to those which they quoted to defend their doctrinal creed. The eighth chapter of Romans was not more studied by them than the thirty-sixth of Genesis, and the dukes of Edom classified in the one were laid under frequent contribution to witness to the adoption treated of in the other. Thus names unheard of in 1558 were “household words” in 1603.
The slowest to take up the new custom were the northern counties. They were out of the current; and Lancashire, besides being inaccessible, had stuck to the old faith. Names lingered on in the Palatinate that had been dead nearly a hundred years in the south. Gawin figures in all northern registers till a century ago, and Thurston[14] was yet popular in the Fylde district, when it had become forgotten in the Fens. Scotland was never touched at all. The General Assembly of 1645 makes no hint on the subject, although it dwelt on nearly every other topic. Nothing demonstrates the clannish feeling of North Britain as this does. At this moment Scotland has scarcely any Bible names.
In Yorkshire, however, Puritanism made early stand, though its effects on nomenclature were not immediately visible. It was like the fire that smoulders among the underwood before it catches flame; it spreads the more rapidly afterwards. The Genevan Bible crept into the dales and farmsteads, and their own primitive life seemed to be but reflected in its pages. The patriarchs lived as graziers, and so did they. There was a good deal about sheep and kine in its chapters, and their own lives were spent among the milk-pails and wool shears. The women of the Old Testament baked cakes, and knew what good butter was. So did the dales’ folk. By slow degrees Cecilia, Isabella, and Emma lapsed from their pedestal, and the little babes were turned into Sarahs, Rebeccas, and Deborahs. As the seventeenth century progressed the state of things became still more changed. There had been villages in Sussex and Kent previous to Elizabeth’s death, where the Presbyterian rector, by his personal influence at the time of baptism, had turned the new generation into a Hebrew colony. The same thing occurred in Yorkshire only half a century later. As nonconformity gained ground, Guy, and Miles, and Peter, and Philip became forgotten. The lads were no sooner ushered into existence than they were transformed into duplicates of Joel, and Amos, and Obediah. The measles still ran through the family, but it was Phineas and Caleb, not Robert and Roger, that underwent the infliction. Chosen leaders of Israel passed through the critical stages of teething. As for the twelve sons of Jacob, they could all have answered to their names in the dames’ schools, through their little apple-cheeked representatives, who lined the rude benches. On the village green, every prophet from Isaiah to Malachi might be seen of an evening playing leap-frog: unless, indeed, Zephaniah was stealing apples in the garth.
From Yorkshire, about the close of the seventeenth century, the rage for Scripture names passed into Lancashire. Nonconformity was making progress; the new industries were already turning villages into small centres of population, and the Church of England not providing for the increase, chapels were built. If we look over the pages of the directories of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire, and strike out the surnames, we could imagine we were consulting anciently inscribed registers of Joppa or Jericho. It would seem as if Canaan and the West Riding had got inextricably mixed.
What a spectacle meets our eye! Within the limits of ten leaves we have three Pharoahs, while as many Hephzibahs are to be found on one single page. Adah and Zillah Pickles, sisters, are milliners. Jehoiada Rhodes makes saws—not Solomon’s sort—and Hariph Crawshaw keeps a farm. Vashni, from somewhere in the Chronicles, is rescued from oblivion by Vashni Wilkinson, coal merchant, who very likely goes to Barzillai Williamson, on the same page, for his joints, Barzillai being a butcher. Jachin, known to but a few as situated in the Book of Kings, is in the person of Jachin Firth, a beer retailer, familiar to all his neighbours. Heber Holdsworth on one page is faced by Er Illingworth on the other. Asa and Joab are extremely popular, while Abner, Adna, Ashael, Erastus, Eunice, Benaiah, Aquila, Elihu, and Philemon enjoy a fair amount of patronage. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, having been rescued from Chaldæan fire, have been deluged with baptismal water. How curious it is to contemplate such entries as Lemuel Wilson, Kelita Wilkinson, Shelah Haggas, Shadrach Newbold, Neriah Pearce, Jeduthan Jempson, Azariah Griffiths, Naphtali Matson, Philemon Jakes, Hameth Fell, Eleph Bisat, Malachi Ford, or Shallum Richardson. As to other parts of the Scriptures, I have lighted upon name after name that I did not know existed in the Bible at all till I looked into the Lancashire and Yorkshire directories.
The Bible has decided the nomenclature of the north of England. In towns like Oldham, Bolton, Ashton, and Blackburn, the clergyman’s baptismal register is but a record of Bible names. A clerical friend of mine christened twins Cain and Abel, only the other day, much against his own wishes. Another parson on the Derbyshire border was gravely informed, at the proper moment, that the name of baptism was Ramoth-Gilead. “Boy or girl, eh?” he asked in a somewhat agitated voice. The parents had opened the Bible hap-hazard, according to the village tradition, and selected the first name the eye fell on. It was but a year ago a little child was christened Tellno in a town within six miles of Manchester, at the suggestion of a cotton-spinner, the father, a workman of the name of Lees, having asked his advice. “I suppose it must be a Scripture name,” said his master. “Oh yes! that’s of course.” “Suppose you choose Tellno,” said his employer. “That’ll do,” replied the other, who had never heard it before, and liked it the better on that account. The child is now Tell-no Lees, the father, too late, finding that he had been hoaxed.[15] “Sirs,” was the answer given to a bewildered curate, after the usual demand to name the child. He objected, but was informed that it was a Scripture name, and the verse “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” was triumphantly appealed to. This reminds one of the Puritan who styled his dog “Moreover” after the dog in the Gospel: “Moreover the dog came and licked his sores.”
There is, again, a story of a clergyman making the customary demand as to name from a knot of women round the font. “Ax her,” said one. Turning to the woman who appeared to be indicated, he again asked, “What name?” “Ax her,” she replied. The third woman, being questioned, gave the same reply. At last he discovered the name to be the Scriptural Achsah, Caleb’s daughter—a name, by the way, which was somewhat popular with our forefathers. No wonder this mistake arose, when Achsah used to be entered in some such manner as this:
“1743-4, Jan. 3. Baptized Axar Starrs (a woman of ripe years), of Stockport.