I collect weird Quaker names (it’s a long story). And while Preservèd Fish is probably the best, there are a lot of close contenders.
See, Quaker women sometimes used their maiden names for their sons’ first names. This led to a bunch of unusual first names, like Warner or Sharpless or Dillwyn. But the absolute winner of this category has to be CoffinPitts, whose mother I imagine had to be a member of the well-known Coffin family.
But that’s not all!
Quakers (like some other Protestant groups) sometimes used virtues as first names for their children, often girls, which gives us the amazing names Freedom, Remembrance, & Restore Lippincott (brothers),Thankful Thayer, increase Woodward, Content Hussey, Experience Field, and Experience Burt Merrick,which I can’t help reading as a command.
Anyway, without further ado, here is a selection of my best Authentic 18th-to-19th-Century Quaker Names, all belonging to real people who actually lived
Tabatha Turnpenny
Deborah Darby
Milcah Martha Moore
Pennock Passmore
Rowena Ruble
Hepsa Hathoway Howland
Leander Lippincott
Valrosa V. Vail
Benajah Butcher
Hipparchia Hinchman
Abigail Physick
Marmaduke Cooper Cope
Fanny Marsh
William Hood Dunwoody Zook
Sharpless Townsend Zook
Mehitable Jenkins
Mildred Ratcliff
Dorcas Starbuck
Grizzell Kite
Othniel Alsop
Huldah Wickersham
Kersey Grave
Pusey Grave
Jerusha Conant
Lysander Hard
Booth Tarkington
Jemimah G. Schotwell
Zilpha H. Spooner
Ledra Heazlit
Zimri Gaunt
Adonijah Peacock
Adonijah Peacock Jr.
Adonijah Peacock III (yes, they kept this one up for at least 3 generations)
Theodocia Vinicomb
Amariah Ballinger
Featherston Sadler
Melchezed Peacock
Fanny Canby
Mungo Bewley
Morris Morris, Jr. (I find it fascinating that an 18th-century man went through life named Morris Morris and decided that his son needed that experience too)
