04 March 2024

Australian Given Names

From In For The Long Haul: First Fleet Voyage & Colonial Australia: The Convicts' Perspective, by Annegret Hall (ESH Publication, 2018), Kindle p. 401:

The [1814] muster record also reveals the most popular first names in the colony. The most common male first name was ‘John’ (1 in 5 males), followed by ‘William’, ‘Thomas’ and ‘James’. These four names accounted for almost half the male population, whereas the name of ‘Anthony’ was rare – only seven men had this name (0.2%). One in five adult females were called ‘Mary’, followed by ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘Ann’. Every second female had one of these three names. When combined with the names ‘Sarah’, ‘Jane’, ‘Catherine’ and ‘Margaret’, almost three quarters of the female population were accounted for.

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