Are you looking for some Victorian names?
I love rummaging in old names. It feeds my curious side as a historian and results in having lists and lists and lists of names that I love for me to use in writing.
I know a lot of people are often putting up lists of names from the Victorian era or the Regency period. While it’s much easier to lump entire eras together, I think that does a bit of a disservice. After all the Victorian era lasted from the late 1830s until the turn of the century! That’s over 60 years! For us in the States, that era encompasses eras including the Second Great Awakening, the Industrial Revolution, the Antebellum South, the Civil War, the Gold Rush, the Oregon Trail, the Gilded Age, and some of the Progressive Era.
That’s a lot!
So instead, I prefer to break my information down by decade. Who knows, maybe I’ll eventually do some breaking down by geography and religion (Puritan names, anyone?)
Finding Names
One of my favorite tools for this research is going through the Social Security Administration, who have ranked which names were popular per decade from 1880 until now. Unfortunately, we don’t really have this available in the 1860s.
I also like census records, which are very helpful back until 1850. Before the 1850 census, only the heads of households are listed in US censuses.
Lastly, my other favorite place to look is in family trees. If I’m adding any names from family trees, they might not be all from 1860 exactly. I’ll put the year the person was born next to the name to help.
So, are you looking for some late Victorian names? Check these classic ones out and some more unique ones!
1860
Girls
- Alice (1868)
- Anna (1862)
- Adelaide (1860)
- Abbie
- Bell
- Cecelia (1868)
- Dora
- Delaney
- Etta (1867)
- Elsie (1869)
- Ella (1868)
- Elizabeth (1861)
- Estella
- Frances (1863)
- Hillma
- Helen (1868)
- Ida (1864)
- Kittie
- Lavinia (1868)
- Laura (1869)
- Minerva (1862)
- Mollie
- Mary (1862)
- Margaret (1862)
- Narsis
- Sarah (1862)
- Serenia
- Theresa
- Viny
- Wilhelmina (1860)
Boys
- Alfred (1867)
- Augustus (1861)
- Arvine (1869)
- Austin
- Abraham (1861)
- Benjamin (1865)
- Clarence (1869)
- Charles (1868)
- David (1860)
- Emery (1862)
- Ernest (1863)
- Elmer (1863)
- Frank (1869)
- George (1861)
- Harvey (1868)
- Jacob (1863)
- James (1867)
- Jerry
- Manday
- Morgan (1865)
- Mire
- Oliver (1860)
- Oscar (1862)
- Robert (1865)
- Stephen (1869)
- Seymour
- Thomas (1862)
- Victor (1869)
- Wilson
- Wiley