Favorite Name ~ Week 6

This week’s prompt is Favorite name. “Favorite name could be a name of an ancestor that makes you smile. Perhaps it’s an unusual name. ”

This is another tough one. There are so many possibilities.

I love that there is a Thankful Bigelow (supposedly sister of third great grandfather Jared Bigelow but I can’t find any actual sources [yet]). What would a nickname have been? Or would she always formally be called Thankful?

Then there is my fourth great grandmother Hopeful Finch whose mother was Mindwell Moore. Lovely names. Hopeful is sometimes listed as Hope.

My French-Canadian great grandmother was named “Felicite.” In the 1870 census she was listed as “Fillis.” After that, her name was Americanized to “Melissa.”  My grandfather told us her name was Felicite. He pronounced it “fill a seat.” Knowing that led me to look further and I found a church record where she was listed as Felicite.

But I think favorite names has to go to  a whole family.  My great grandmother Frankie Davis married Watson P Merrill (Wat) and they had twelve children.

Several of my grandmother’s siblings went by their middle names. Grace May was called May. Darius Wayne was always known as Wayne. Francis Clare was Uncle Clare and Frances E was Aunt Frances. Florence Gail was always Aunt Gail. So Great Grandma Frankie who, as far as I can tell, never had a document listing her as anything but Frankie named two of her children Francis/Frances.