Week 28 – Character. Although my immediate family stuck mainly to traditional names for their children, some more distant branches chose...

Week 24 – Popular name. I imagine that like me, most family historians have found themselves at some point sighing at the lack of...

Like it or loathe it, royal anniversaries – like royal births – have had a noticeable influence on the naming of British children. It’s a...

While all names have a meaning, in the past some were apparently given to children in order to encourage them towards a better way of...

We tend to think that the quest for unusual and original baby names is a recent phenomenon, but history proves otherwise! Certain modern...

After writing about some mysterious spelling changes of surnames for my last 52 Ancestors blog, I went on to think about those who...

Week 15 – How do you spell that? This week’s prompt immediately struck a chord with me, as I frequently have the impression that my...

St Valentine has been associated with romantic love since at least the late 14th century, and many of us will be marking 14 February with...

The relatively uncommon surname Christmas was originally – as you might expect – a nickname for someone born or baptised at Christmas and...