Re: OT: Grump about pretentious names

JohnB wrote:
On 31 Mar, 01:58, Alison Kilpatrick <akilpatr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I've just found a distantly lateral, 19th century cousin, of English
heritage and born to a landed Irish family, with the middle names of
Geoffrey Plantagenet (and most definitely not of that ilk!). Why on
earth would parents saddle a child with such a moniker ... ?

... which reminds me that, a few years ago, I found another distant
cousin, also of the mid-19th century, Scottish by birth and lineage,
whose middle names were "Guiseppe Garibaldi".

Was this a Victorian fad?

Anyone else found similarly pretentious claims to fame during his/her
family history research pursuits?

Alison

I have a g*grandfather called Langham Booth. I later came across a
family tree for a more famous line of Booths (descended from Sir
Robert Booth of Dunham Massey) in which there was also a Langham
Booth. Langham is not a common Christian name as far as I'm aware so I
do wonder if the more noble line influenced the more common one. There
is, I suppose, a remote possibility that the two lines do connect
somewhere but I'd fall off my chair if I found it!

This sort of pretention (? snobbery) was probably not uncommon. I have a late Victorian relative surnamed Talbot who christened his son C E Chetwynd Talbot in a (completely false) assumption of a link with the aristocratic family of that name. His third partner (whom I am pretty certain he never actually married) styled herself "de Burgh" although she was in fact the daughter of a licensed victualler called Burge.

David
.