Pondering what to name an infant? Tired of the standard George, William, and John? Of Mary, Marjorie, and Joan? Or, for that matter, of Deirdre, Dawn, Rip, and Gary? Turn back then to a list of names borne (one might almost say, like crosses) by long-dead worthies of the ancient town of Norwich, Connecticut, once known in the old Yankee days as “The Rose of New England.” This interesting seventeenth and eighteenth century roster—including some of the best familiesseemed amusing as far back as 1845, when Miss Frances M. Caulkins gathered the names in her History of Norwich , something of a classic in the field of local history.

Finally, for those among our readers taken unexpectedly with quadruplets, let us not forget what Samuel Bliss and did about four daughters: He named them Desire, Thankful, Freelove, and Mindwell. It would be folly indeed to jump to twentieth-century conclusions about either Number One or Number Three, or, for that matter, about the submission of Miss Peck or the buttoned lips of Miss Leffingwell.

— Oliver Jensen

MALES

Merit Rockwell Friend Weeks Aquilla Giffords Shadrach Lampheer Zorobabel Wightman Retrieve Moore Hopestill Armstrong Yet-once Barstow

FEMALES

Experience Porter Submit Peck Remembrance Carrier Deliverance Squire Obedience Copp Temperance Edgerton Love Kingsbury Civil Tracy Mercy Polley Silence Leffingwell