Greenwich Time. August 18, 1989
It seems to me that almost everywhere I look these days friends and acquaintances of mine are getting married and preparing for the big jump into settling down and starting a family. While this plunge as of yet does not include me, I've been watching and listening with fascination to the attention those close to me are paying to this big turning point in their lives.
Most establishing would-be parents of children give careful consideration into choosing the first names of a newborn. I know this is a daunting task, for this name will accompany the child through infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
This is a big decision for anyone to make. The stakes in such a decision are highest for the child, of course, who by and large is totally defenseless against your choice. (Indeed, perhaps the only time.)
I care very much about those who are close to me, especially those who were gleefully contemplating the day soon when you will be tying the knot and embarking on a new adventure in life. I realize lots of you are very busy with careers, shopping around for that first home, picking up the proper china pattern of the bridal registry, organizing the church ceremony, trying to find the right band play at your wedding reception, and just plainly trying to cope with everyday life in general.
Since you know that I care you know how sincere I am in offering to help you decide on names for the kids. After all, what are friends for anyway?
Many of you know I've been working with the good folks at the Historical Society for some time now, wandering through burying grounds and reading the old gravestones, browsing through old deeds and legal documents of landowners from yesteryear, recalling the contributions of veterans from long ago, looking up lost relatives in the genealogies we have on file, and so on.
I have picked up just for you a rich variety of names affixed to the identities of earlier generations of my forbears and other families here in Greenwich. Some are beautiful; some are near bizarre.
Although most of our Yankee forebears had what we would consider to be ordinary names, some of the Puritan faithful went to extremes in naming their children. For the most part they used names derived from the Old Testament in the Bible. Thus we find a number of names that are rarely, if at all, used today, such as Hazakiah, Job, Ebenezer, Jeduthen, and Azubah.
The name Theophilus is found through several concurrent generations of the Peck family members at their burying ground on Round Hill Road. The name itself translates from the Greek for "beloved of God." Ebenezer is derived from the Hebrew term for "a foundation of stone." Keziah, a name assigned to girls by the Puritans, was one of the daughters of Job and translates from the Hebrew for "a powdered cinnamon-like bark," or fragrance.
Are you seeking to instill goodness and purity in your children at an early age? Some of the more conservative Puritans give their newborns the so-called "Virtue" names. Thus we find names like Deliverance Mead, Charity Knapp Mead, Thankful Lockwood, Prudence Avery, and so on.
If one pictures through the genealogies contained in Spencer P. Mead's Ye Historie of Ye Town of Greenwich, we find names like Mindwell used in the Bates, Close, Ferris and Rundle families, along with Mercy Ferris and Mercy Merritt.
Patience appears in the Husted and Rundle genealogies, Comfort is found in the Finch and Howe family trees, and Prudence is another found in the Mead and Knapp family lineages.
Some of those who fought in our Revolution, Civil War and other military conflicts went to battle with first names like Moses Peck, Jabez Mead, Jeduthen Ferris, Jared Mead, Solomon Close, Ezekiel Reynolds, Isaac Palmer, Drake Lockwood, Arod Peck, Zachariah Tilson, Elnathan Husted and Erastus Burns.
Other first names found throughout the genealogies of the old families worthy of mention include such as Shubal, Enoch, Lot, Eliphalet, Zebulan, Phineas and Titus.
For the women one can find names such as Theodosia, Mehitable, Jemima, Sehra, Leaticia and Drucilla.
Today the majority of us whose roots go way back have been spared the difficulties of such names, and I think dear God and my parents for sparing me such a name.
I did by chance page through the phone book and I did find one Mead family and treat that still retains one old name – the one and only Elkanah Mead Insurance Agency, which I admit has a nice ring to it.
I hope those of you pondering the choice of the names of your children can now rest with peace of mind you deserve. I hope the in-laws will abide by whatever you decide, but in case a line of demarcation is been drawn, I must say, I'm sorry, kids: if it's a choice between Keziah and Mindwell or Theophilus and Arod, please don't call me-you'll just have to work it out for yourselves. I've done all that I can.
Jeffrey Bingham Mead is a direct descendant of one of the founding families of the Town of Greenwich. He is a free-lance writer and a member of the Greenwich Historical Society.
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