Why do Confederates have best names?!?

[connecticut yankee]

Some well known Confederates arguably had the best names in the war. Are there any comparable UNION NAMES you might add to the list???

• States Rights Gist
  
  
• Decimus Et Ultimus Barziza
  
  
• Bushrod Johnson
  
  
• Moxley Sorrel
  
  
• Zebulon Vance
  
  
• Stand Watie
  
  
• Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard
  
  
• Jubal Early
  
  
• Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox
  
  
• Dorsey Pender
  
  
• Loreta Janeta Velázquez
  

 

[Carronade]

Perhaps it was the same rationale as in Johnny Cash's song A Boy Named Sue - so the boys would learn to fight while they were young

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Galusha Pennypacker.

Cadwallader Ringgold.

Kidder Breese.

Charles W. Flusser.

Roswell Hawks Lamson.

Garrett Pendergrast.

 

[Specster]

I think it has to do with that slow Southern Style....they apparently took their time in thinking up names

 

[saddlebum92]

Don't forget Phillip St George Cooke, and Phillip St George Cocke....one in each color....always wondered who the Phillip St George these contemporaries were apparently named for was, though I cant find any such reference

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

There was a tendency to use surnames as Christian names? Guessing Moxley was one? Guessing it was just what you did, 150 years ago, seems a little different now. It's still around, looking at any list of grads hailing from er, exclusive schools of specific types. " Throckmorton Browning Bix IV ". Him.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

I've always been partial to the name Moxley Sorrel - it just rings so Southern to me. Yankees named the kids other, and sometimes outlandish names, but "Moxley Sorrel" is so melodious.

 

[GELongstreet]

Well, at least when it comes to first names some seem only peculiar to us because the foreign roots. Decimus was a pretty common Roman name, as was Marcellus (Cadmus originally having Greek roots). Pierre and Gustave are extremely common French names with the Toutant being part of the family name. Zebulon a form of a common Hebrew name as it is one of the tribes. And Cadwallader comes from the Welsh.

But I´d say naming your child Decimus Et Ultimus, which means Tenth and Last, is a solid statement about your future family planning ... and apparently he really was the 10th and last child of his parents.

 

[saddlebum92]

Often, back then, men used middle names, and if theyd been named after a relative or someone not carrying the same patronymic, you might find a fella named Thomas Jefferson Johnson becoming known as Jefferson Johnson. George Washington Custis was sometimes known as 'Wash'. Naming styles change over time. Remember too, The Confederates that are most celebrated are NOT rank and file soldiers, but upper class leaders; as such, they were far more likely to have several middle names, or to be named for a beloved uncle or even a President, since so many of the preWar 15 were Southern.

 

[Burning Billy]

Philippe Régis Denis de Keredern de Trobriand.

He was one of the good ones, too.

 

[diane]

Then there's some whose name didn't seem to matter! You can call me Bill, you can call me Fred but you doesn't have to call me Late For Dinner. Hiram Ulysses Grant aka Ulysses Hiram Grant aka Ulysses Simpson Grant aka Ulysses S Grant aka U S Grant aka Sam Grant... Or Nathan Bedford Forrest, who would look around for his grandfather if you called him Nathan and went by Bedford until his grandfather died and a baby brother was named Bedford, then it was Nathan, then the little brother passed and it was Nathan for the family and Bedford for everybody else.

 

[mofederal]

George Gordon Meade, George Armstrong Custer, Wesley Merritt, Ulric Dahlgren, Elon J. Farnsworth, Judson Kilpatrick, Marcus Reno, Frederick Benteen and Alfred Pleasonton.

 

[7thWisconsin]

I have actually wondered if the sound of the leaders names didn't have something to do with the development of the "Lost Cause." If Jefferson Davis had been named Melvin Shmedlap, do ya think he would have been so romanticized?

 

[AUG]

Manning Ferguson Force is one of my favorites, talk about badass. Also, Samuel Emerson Opdycke, Abner Doubleday, Horatio Gouverneur Wright, Darius Nash Couch.

For Confederates you forgot Camille Armand Jules Marie, Prince de Polignac; or, as his Texans called him, "Prince Polecat".

Also like Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, Micah Jenkins, Wade Hampton, Lafayette McLaws.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

I have actually wondered if the sound of the leaders names didn't have something to do with the development of the "Lost Cause." If Jefferson Davis had been named Melvin Shmedlap, do ya think he would have been so romanticized?

 

[diane]

William Tecumseh Sherman, who wasn't the only kid named for Tecumseh! It was a strangely popular name in Ohio. However, even Sherman wasn't sure what his name really was - William Tecumseh or just Tecumseh? According to legend, it was just Tecumseh but his foster mother insisted on a proper Christian name - the idea of a little kid without one! Sherman thought he'd always been named William. And...it appears to be hard to prove either way according to biographers! One thing he knew for sure - Tecumseh was disappearing down to a T only for West Point. He did NOT want anyone to figure out his nickname was Cump. (But he wasn't shy about figuring out a nickname for other cadets - like his future buddy Grant. What's the U S stand for? they wondered, eyeballing the list of new students. Uncle Sam! chirped Sherman. Sam Grant it is...)

 

[CSA Today]

Some well known Confederates arguably had the best names in the war. Are there any comparable UNION NAMES you might add to the list???

• States Rights Gist
  
  
• Decimus Et Ultimus Barziza
  
  
• Bushrod Johnson
  
  
• Moxley Sorrel
  
  
• Zebulon Vance
  
  
• Stand Watie
  
  
• Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard
  
  
• Jubal Early
  
  
• Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox
  
  
• Dorsey Pender
  
  
• Loreta Janeta Velázquez

We have to give Northerners credit for naming Bushrod Johnson he was born in Ohio.

 

[Biscuit]

Not one mention of Ambrose Burnside and the subsequent birth of Burnside's Sideburns? It's amazing.

 

[jackt62]

I always liked the New England names of Union officers, some of whom came from well to do "Brahmin" families in Massachusetts:

Henry Livermore Abbott
Francis Channing Barlow
Charles Francis Adams Jr.
Thomas Jonathan Coffin Amory
Benjamin Williams Crowninshield
William Francis Bartlett
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Horace Binney Sargent

 

[Burning Billy]

I just went through a list of generals and the Confederates do seem to have more odd or interesting names, from our modern perspectives, but the Union did have some of it's own doozies. Some that I believe haven't been mentioned yet...

Absalom Baird

Catharinus Putnam Buckingham

Marcellus Monroe Crocker

Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana

Gustavus Adolphus De Russy

Erasmus Darwin Keyes

Joseph King Fenno Mansfield

Green Berry Raum (Are we certain he isn't a time traveler from Haight & Ashbury, 1968? )

Sylvanus Thayer

Zealous Bates Tower

Egbert Ludovicus Viele

Samuel Kosciuszko Zook