Interesting names from my family cemetery

[blackapple]

I was snapping pics of some specific family members' tombstones and while I did that couldn't help but notice many cool names.

Lots of Leedell/Lydells, Izora/Azora (males), Oder (male), Paralee (several, all female), Azlee/Azalee (pron AZZ lee or AZZA lee, not a ZAY lee, all females), Spicy/Spice (females), Dossie/Doss (females), Tabatha (I know it's a common enough name but I saw 3 stones with this spelling, all pre 1900s and no Tabitha), Estalee (female), Rock (male), Zilpha/Zilphia (several, one is my 4th great grandmother), Sentha/Senthie (female, I am assuming Cynthia).

God there were so many, I wish I had written them all down!

[ckevans]

Paralee is a name that I find mystifying and fascinating. It goes back to the 18th century in the South, and the spelling is almost always with the -ee at the end, at a time when that was not a common way to spell other names. I wish I could figure out where it came from. :)

[Jennifer]

Paralee: it may be a derivative of Pearly (referencing CKE's talk at the ANS, you never know how the Southern accent will change names). Could also have roots in French/Cajun culture.

[ckevans]

Pearlie was a great suggestion, but I don't think the dates work, either.

In the index on Ancestry Library to the 1850 US Census (the first to give the names of all residents, not just heads of families), there are already 430 Paralees. They are almost all born in the South, and in fact very heavily concentrated in Tennessee; over half seem to have been born in Tennessee, with the rest primarily from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri. All the signs are that it's an "inland Southern" name -- it doesn't seem to be found even in the South Atlantic states of Virginia and the Carolinas, much less in the Northeast.

There are only 66 women named Pearly in the 1850 Census, and most of them are in the North. There are actually no women with the spelling Pearlie in the 1850 Census. There are 6 spelled Pearlee, but 3 of them are in New Hampshire and 1 each in New York, Maine, and Delaware.

And Paralee is much more common than other -lee names in 1850. There are only 2 women named Marilee and 6 named Marylee (no Maralees) in 1850 in the whole country. And not a single Estalee. :)