What Were Puritan Parents Thinking?

The Wacky Names They Gave their Kids

William Dobson, Portrait of a Family, Probably that of Richard Streatfeild, circa 1645 (Public Domain)

Summer will be here before you know it, and you may soon be looking for a great beach read. You could do worse than this page-turner from 1888 called Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature. No, really, stay with me. The author, Charles W.E. Bardsley, combed the parish registers and death records from 16th and 17th century England and found some…