* What is this name?

[KSS]

Can anyone suggest what this female forename is? It's from a 1915 record and the girl was English.


ID:2884

[KSS]

Oops! It's the first daughter.

[dogsbody]

I would offer PIRDIE as the name possibly a derivative of Pirdita

[steveabye]

Possibly Pirdie

[KSS]

I also think it is Pirdie but I didn't mention that as I didn't want to put ideas into anyone's mind. I can't find Pirdie in any list of names and I get no hits with Free BMD or Ancestry. I've tried all sorts of combinations of possible letters but nothing sensible comes up.

[margarita]

In my researches I have come across various 'odd' first names which have turned out to be mother's or grandmother's maiden name. Could this be the case here?

margarita

[jmurphy]

'Pirdie' is a surname. A Google search turns up links to Ancestry and other family history sites (including this thread).

I thought I had a source for 'Pirdie' as a first name, but I was mistaken -- I was mis-remembering George MacDonald's book The Princess and Curdie.

Jan

[jeemo]

These two links show instances of Pirdie being used as a first name so it must have been used but it would seem that it is not that common.

http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.carey/1701/mb.ashx
http://genforum.genealogy.com/jaymes/messages/4.html

John

[NickWalker]

Purdy appears a few times in records (a first name later made famous by Joanna Lumley in 'The New Avengers') as does Perdita. So I would still go along with dogsbody's suggestion of it being Pirdie a shortened version of Perdita (perhaps the person writing the record couldn't spell it).

Is it possible to find the name by searching on FreeBMD? Do you known the surname and approx date of birth?

[steveabye]

Did the family have anything to do with guns ?

[KSS]

Thanks for the responses and ideas. The surname was Griffiths with DoB between 1899 and 1915 but I can't find a match in any search. Pirdie wasn't a maiden name of anyone on the mother's side, but I can't trace the father's ancestors. After more searches I found, as in those links, some use of the name as a forename in America.
It's possible that the name was incorrectly recorded. I hadn't thought of Purdy - I'll check that and Perdita. Birdie was a possibility but the only Birdie Griffiths was much too old.
Steve: the father was a soldier (private) so I don't think that he would have used a Purdy!

[KSS]

I'd forgotten that the wife's grandfather was Italian and that several of the offspring anglicised the Italian names which were given to them. So Pirdie/Pirdita looks quite likely.

[LittleMissP]

Do you know the likely area where Pirdie was born? Have you found the parents in the 1901 census?

Paula

[KSS]

Paula,
Her father was a soldier stationed in Ireland in 1899 but he is not on the 1901 census. He was probably in South Africa. The mother was in Nottingham with her parents, but no mention of Pirdie so she was born after 1901. The family seemed to have stayed in the Nottingham area as birth certs for other children in 1908 and 1915 show Nottingham.
Keith

[margarita]

What was the mother's maiden name?

(Sorry, if you've already written it in one of you earlier posts, but it's getting very late and my brain's not functioning well.)

margarita

[steveabye]

You say the Father was in S. Africa at some time before the daughter was born, could be he came across the name there, they liked it so used it for the daughter.

[KSS]

It's possible that the name originated in South Africa. I'll have a look at that. Thanks.

The mother's maiden name was Bernaschina. However, the family was known as Morland and used this name even on some official documents.