by Sara McGinnis posted in Pregnancy

Why in the world would parents name their children something the likes of No-Merit or Humiliation" Though it's difficult for those of us giving birth in the modern world to understand choosing a word that sound like an insult for a first name, the Puritans seem to have had their reasons -- and their thinking paved the path for some hard-to-believe monikers.
I've been digging through the information over at History of Nothing, and here's the scoop on why such names were chosen: "Ostensibly, the goal was to give children godly names that wouldn?t be tainted by unbelievers using them. They also helped Puritans to recognise their own."
A look at History of Nothing's curated list of 12 doozies from Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature, published in 1888:
- Humiliation (Humiliation Hynde had two sons in the 1620s, he called them both Humiliation Hynde)
- Fly-debate

- No-merit (NoMerit Vynall was born in Warbleton, a haven of beautiful names)

- Helpless

- Reformation

- Abstinence

- More-triale

- Handmaid

- Obedience

- Forsaken

- Sorry-for-sin (Sorry-for-sin Coupard lived in Warbleton)

- Lament (Lament Foxe was born in 1594)
But they're not all bad! Some could even be described as "strangely pleasant" if you will...
- Silence

- Creedence

- Dust

- Make-peace

- Tace (it?s another word for silence, and is of course a female name)

- Placid

- Kill-sin (Kill-sin Pimple did Jury service in the 1650s)

- Freegif...