Virtue Names and Grace Names

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

We heard from Nora Carruthers in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and she wrote to us to say that she’s intrigued by the name of her great-great-grandfather. His name was Workman Hard Labor Honeycutt.

I’d hire him.

Right. There’s a man with three jobs. He’s working a double shift from the day he was born.

Yeah.

Yeah, I found that really fascinating, too. She said that her mother said that his first and middle name reflected the family’s Quaker religious beliefs and the importance of and the sanctity of hard work.

Workman Hard Labor is an example of a virtue name. These are also called grace names, and they’re used in several cultures to express the virtues that a parent hopes that their child grows up with.

And these have been used among Quakers and among Puritans in the early colonies in the United States. A lot of them are hyphenated, like hate evil, be courteous, search the scriptures.

But I think my favorite is Preserved, which means saved from sin. And there was actually a guy in the early 19th century named Preserved. He was a prominent New York shipping merchant, and his name was Preserved Fish.

But Zervid Fish, like he’s canned tuna or something.

Yes, yes. He’s sardines in a can with a key top.

Yes, but apparently he was well-known and he is a distant relative of Hamilton Fish, the future governor of New York.

How about that?

You know, sometimes these are called hortatory names. It comes from the same Latin word for urging that gives us words like exhort.

Thanks to Nora from South Carolina for bringing this to our attention.

And you can share your memories and your odd family names to words@waywordradio.org or try us on our website where you’ll find all of our past episodes at waywordradio.org.