A baby boy came into the world in 1874 in Boston, to Mr. and Mrs. College. They named their son ‘Yale’, but did it help to get him accepted to that prestigious Boston university?

Elias Blood of Coos, New Hampshire named his son Royal Blood, born about 1824. Did people treat him any better for it?

Alexander the Great Huggins married Mary Alice Cossitt in 1876 in Indiana. I wonder if Mary Alice thought he lived up to his name.

One Michigan family had quite a cosmic flair. William and Matilda Kelley named their sons Day Star, Bright Venus, Gay Saturn, Grand Orion, Jupiter and Mars. Did they had trouble with the other boys at school?

On the other hand, what were the parents of Hilarius Junk thinking? It’s no wonder that we find him in the 1880 census in Fredonia, Wisconsin as a saloon keeper. Perhaps he was a cousin to Les Junk of Tuscarora, Pennsylvania…

Wiley Hair was a long-time resident of Honeycutts, North Carolina.

Drinkard Dowell resided in Breckenridge County, Kentucky in 1850, but what were his parents trying to encourage with that moniker?

Pool Hall is really the name of a man who left a will in Jefferson County, Georgia. Trouble in River City…

Matthew Grouchy lived happily ever after in Clark County, Iowa in 1880.

There were four men named Bigger Head in the 1850 US Federal Census. Did their parents not realize what they were doing?

Archibald Butt of West Virginia went by the nickname Baldy. Not making this up.

And I am not making this one up, either: Seymour Butts resided in Windsor, New York in the early to mid 1850’s. Did he bristle at the snickers he got every time he had to state his name?

Oh, the funny side of genealogy research!

I apologize if any of these were your ancestors. 😉

Raquel Lindaas, AG