View Message

Thanks for bringing Francis Marion's slave to my attention. I of course have no idea if he was named after the month or if it was a short form of Junius.

---

I did just check the 1870 census for people named after the last four months of the year, which I think would have been both considered the most unusual choices then, and the ones least likely to be mistaken for other names by the indexers.

---

There were 12 people named September. 11 were Black or Mulatto, with one White woman born in Ireland.
There were 13 people named October. 7 of them were Black. Six were White, 3 living in Connecticut, two in Michigan and one in Missouri. Two of the White men in Connecticut were a father and a son.
There were 27 people named November, 26 Black and one White woman in Ohio.
There were 12 named December, 10 Black and one White woman each in North Carolina and Minnesota. The North Carolina White example was only a few months old in 1870 and is listed as "Dessie" in the 1880 census.

---

So, of people named after those four months in 1870, only October is not predominantly the name of former slaves or their children.

This message was edited 6/4/2025, 8:59 AM