312 On some Curiosities and Statistics of Parish Registers. 



Overton, and Richard Little ; while the sons of some of these gentle- 

 men again appear under the surnames of Egerton, Goodman, Ken- 

 clarke, and Richardson. There is one curious case in the Cherhill 

 registers of a surname attributed sometimes to a husband and some- 

 times to his wife. Joseph and Martha Manners were blessed with 

 a very numerous family from 1803 and downwards, in the several 

 entries of which the name of Hillier is sometimes given as a second 

 Christian name to the husband (which it really was) , and sometimes 

 (two Christian names being then very uncommon in the parish) it 

 is attributed to the wife, under the impression no doubt that it was 

 her maiden name. With regard to the use of a second Christian 

 name, the earliest example of it in parochial registers with which 

 I am acquainted is at Merborough, in Yorkshire, where " Robert 

 Browne Lillie" was baptized in 1592. In my own registers I do 

 not find it occur at all before 1775, and after this only at rare in- 

 tervals until a recent period. In fact out of one thousand seven 

 hundred and twenty-two baptisms recorded, I see only one hundred 

 and seventy-five children to whom two names were given, and seven 

 who have been favoured with three. At Burbage, on the other 

 hand, I find the following entry as early as 1781 : " Ap. 29. Bap- 

 tized Charles Caractacus Ostorious Maximilian Gustavus Adolphus, 

 son of Charles Stone, tailor, and Jenny his wife." But the practice 

 of giving a plurality of names is so largely on the increase that I 

 should not be suprized if some afternoon I were required to baptize 

 a child as " Albert Edward Victor Christian George Frederick Ernest 

 Alexander John Charles," after the Prince of Wales and the whole 

 of his interesting male offspring. It is royal personages, I may add, 

 who appear to have been the originators of this custom, of which an 

 example is to be met with as early as 1028 in the person of XJrrace 

 Teresa, Queen of Leon. And again towards the end of this same 

 century we find the name of Mary Isabella, as Queen of Castile and 

 Leon. This lady appears to have chosen her two names herself, 

 having been of Moorish origin, and baptized as a preliminary to her 

 marriage with King Alfonso VI. I am not aware of any man 

 who bore more than one baptismal name until two centuries after 

 this, when we find Andronicus Guidon Comnenus spoken of as 



