Pick A Name

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   I took the Create a Character class on Saturday, and that inspired me to come up with an acceptable faire character and name.   Since David wouldn't have been used in England at the time (being a Jewish name and Henry had expelled the Jews from England already), that meant actually going to the library.

   So, I went to the library and did a bit of name research, and found a few interesting things.

1)   According to babtismal records, the names William, John and Thomas accounted for 50.5% of all boys names from between 1600-1650.   For girls, Elizabeth, Anne and Mary accounted for 52%.   This figures are all about the same from about 1550 to about 1750.

2)   The books to use for name research are: Withycombe's "The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names" and Reany's "Dictionary of British Surnames".   Both of them tell you where the name was found, gives some speculation on origins, and also lists alternate spellings.   Actually, I'd known this already, but it was nice to acutally use this.

3)   I found names that could easily be mispronounced as "Butt-fish", or at least heard that way when the customer de-code basic faire accent.   It'd be a name for a seller of flatfish, or a fishwife.

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