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Mally as a christian name??

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  • Mally as a christian name??

    The further I go back the more Mallys I find.

    It's obviously a Lancashire/Yorkshire name as there are 651 on the 1841 and about a dozen are outside Lancashie/Yorkshire.

    I hadn't seen it before, but now I've got about 15 of them all born around 1700 (haven't gone back further) to 1785.

    Seems a bit like Myles as they are all in the same families.

    Anybody know where it came from???

  • #2
    I've got a few Yorkshire Mally's too - it seems to be interchangeable with Mary, so presumably it was a nickname/pet name for that?


    Richard

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    • #3
      Hi Richard........didn't think of Mary. Mine are all baptised as Mally, rather than Mary.

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      • #4
        Libby

        Got thousands of Mally's in my Lancashire folk. I have a reference somewhere to the Vicar refusing to baptise girls with the "godless" name of Mally, so they were all dutifully baptised Mary - and used the name Mally for the rest of their lives.

        Mally is dialect for Molly, which is of course a diminutive of Mary.

        OC

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        • #5
          Thanks OC.......all the ones I've found in OH's tree are the Lancs lot, and all Mally in the PRs for their baptisms. I wondered if they didn't want to name their daughters Mary as it too Catholic, although they had no qualms with Myles, so not sure.

          This lot were all C of E (I think). Makes a change from Dorothy, Agnes and Elizabeth.

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          • #6
            Libby

            The earliest reference to the name that I have found was late 1500s, I think.

            You may be right about the RC connotation, as the variant Mally mostly crops up in Darwen, Lancs, which was a strong non-conformist bastion.

            The name Myles, although not popular with my lot, WAS used occasionally, but more through traditional naming patterns than from any RC allegiances and I doubt if they even realised it had RC origins (in my family). My earliest Myles is in the early 1300s, Myles Standish, and the name Myles at that point represented a mother's maiden name.

            It only became associated with the RC religion in the 1600s, when a Myles Gerrard was martyred in Lancashire.

            OC

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            • #7
              Ooh yes OC, my Mally's (from Slaithwaite area of W Yorks) were all non-conformists too. I never thought about it, but maybe there is a connection there between the name usage and their religion.

              Richard

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              • #8
                Bumping this up for a new member.

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