It’s always really interesting to take a dive into the censuses, not just to research your own family history, but to look at other people’s. Our innate nosiness comes into play here, as well as curiosity about how much history changes over a relatively short period of time.

I’m always particularly interested in naming practices. In my own family, my great-grandmother’s brother was due to be named Guy Clifford until his father got drunk on the way to register his birth. The baby was duly registered as Horatio Nelson, and was known by my family as Nelson for the rest of his life, although, presumably, his parents could have ignored the birth registration between themselves and continued to call him Guy. There are also several Hepzhibahs and Zipporahs in my Gloucester family, their names duly spelled different ways in the census and on other official records, taking into account both literacy and their strong Gloucestershire accents: Zipporah commonly being recorded as Zipprah and Zipprer.

But although we all know of unusual names, or of names being passed down from generation to generation, other naming practices seem to have had a relatively brief moment in the sun before fading into obscurity. One of those seems to be the practice of naming babies born on Christmas Day after that occasion. Across the 19th century, but particularly in the late Victorian era, there were several babies – both boys and girls – named Christmas, with additional flourishes being made to the name to make it even more unusual. For example, Christmasia Morgan was born in Swansea in 1875, and, perhaps understandably, chose to be known as Chrissie in adulthood. Christmas Daisy Perry, from Plaistow and born on Christmas Day 1886, was known by her family as Daisy, unlike Christmas Daisy Cannon of Battersea (born on Christmas Day 1884) who went by her first name.

Meanwhile, in rural Montgomeryshire, Wales, farmer William Lloyd Roberts and his wife Eleanor had three children. Two of them were given names reflecting their Welsh heritage – Euronwy Eirianwedd, the eldest child and elder daughter, being born in 1880, and Baldwyn Lloyd, the only son, in 1892. The second daughter, however, was born at Christmas 1885, and named Christmascella Olwen Roberts. Although the census enumerators did not seem to have many issues with spelling her name, modern day transcribers appear to have had more, unable to believe her unusually festive name. Christmascella moved to Manchester to work as a servant, before marrying and settling in the St Helens area, near Liverpool. How the locals dealt with her unusual first name and Welsh middle name is not recorded, but certainly Christmascella seems to have accepted her parents’ choice of name and was not known as by her middle name nor an abbreviation of her first.

Some children named Christmas had more ordinary middle names – such as Christmas Harriet Cliff and Christmas Alice Payne, both born in 1863. They were unlike Christmas Leviathan Hewitt, a baby boy born in December 1868. Christmas Leviathan had been the humble son of a Norfolk agricultural labourer named James; he and his wife Mary Ann had called their first son Jonathan, giving no clue as to how they would name their second born (subsequent children were all given ‘ordinary’ names as well). Curiously, another Christmas Leviathan Hewitt was born 21 years later – but he was not, as you might expect, the son of the older one. In fact, the older Hewitt had died aged 20 the year before, being buried the week before his 21st birthday, on 17 December 1889.

My first thought was that this younger Christmas Leviathan Hewitt must have been a relative of his recently deceased namesake, as both were from the same village, Paston, in Norfolk. The younger Hewitt, son of labourer William Hewitt and his wife Emma Amelia, was baptised on 16 February 1890 – but he wasn’t born on Christmas Day, and so it seems likely that he was named after this assumed relative. He was born in December, but on 12 December 1889, which would make it a bit of a stretch for his parents to name him after the festive season. A check of the Hewitt genealogy online shows that William was the younger brother of James Hewitt – and thus the uncle of the older Christmas Leviathan. As a mark of respect to his nephew, buried five days after his baby’s birth, he named the baby after him.

Combining Christmas with a flower name – always popular in Victorian and Edwardian Britain – made for some pretty names, although not all of these were girls. In addition to the numerous girls named Christmas Daisy was Christmas Lily Bethel, a saddler’s daughter from Suffolk, born at Christmas 1880. In the 1881 census, all of her siblings had their first names written out, but just an initial for their middle name. Her parents seemed to have made sure, though, that the enumerator wrote out three-month-old Christmas Lily’s name out in full, the only one in her family to have that privilege.

Christmas Garnet Miller had a similarly pretty name – the time of year together with a gemstone – but this was a boy, born not on Christmas Day but the day before, on Christmas Eve 1882. A farmer’s son, he does not seem to have preferred to be known by a nickname or his middle name, but proudly displayed his full name. Another little boy born a year later in Wrexham was registered as Christmas Day Parry, but sadly died two weeks after his birth. Another tragic Christmas was Christmas Holly Aldous, born in Norwich at Christmas 1888. A former shopkeeper, at the age of 30, he died of wounds while serving in the 1st Battalion Norfolk Regiment during World War One.

Other children seem to have been named Christmas to fit a surname, rather than because of when they were born. When Stephen and Rose Ann Eve had a little boy in 1902, for example, they named him John Christmas Eve – even though he was born in November. Older siblings had ordinary middle names, so why they suddenly decided to give this particular child a festive middle name is not clear. John was not the only similarly named individual, however; Alfred Christmas Eve was born 15 years earlier, on Christmas Day 1877. Although it was understandable to give him the middle name of Christmas, having a child called Christmas Eve who was born on Christmas Day seems a bit perverse. Meanwhile, Ernest Christmas Day, a gamekeeper’s son, was born in Surrey on Christmas Day 1899. Another man listed himself as John Christmas Day in the 1911 census, and had been born on Christmas Eve – yet all other records list him as John Doy, so perhaps he had simply not taken this one census very seriously!

Other children were named simply Christmas Day – with one engineer in Norwich being blessed with the name, and another man, a carrier in Huntingdonshire, named identically. There were numerous festive birds – two Christmas Larks (father and son), a Christmas Finch and Christmas Cock, a Norfolk brazier – and Christmas flowers, such as Christmas Bloom, a farm bailiff, and possibly even a servant named Christmas Flora.

There seem to have been particular geographic clusters of Christmases in Norfolk and Wales and they came from all strata of society, but were especially found in labouring families. Whether their names were the result of sentimentality or humour is not clear, but those named Christmas seem to have largely taken their names in good humour themselves – and some men named Christmas still stuck to naming conventions by calling their own sons Christmas – such as Christmas Lark, a Norfolk stonecutter, who gave his own son the same name in 1862.

The name Christmas was used throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, although the late Victorian era seems to have been the zenith of seasonal naming. It reflects both Victorian sentimentality, but also humour in naming; those with the surnames Eve or Day knew giving their children the first or middle name Christmas was a unique opportunity to create an instantly recognisable name. Combined with a flower, jewel or bird name also made for a creative or ‘pretty’ name, even though many of those named Christmas were in fact male. Some children appreciated the name; others didn’t, and there must have been some confusion for those who came across a Christmas and assumed their name reflected their birth date, only to be told otherwise. But for those of us tracking our ancestors online, the use of striking names certainly makes our family members stand out. {