One thing that’s really fun about baptismal registers is seeing the incidence of twins being baptised, and what their names are. (A friend once did a study of a number of Welsh registers, and found that male twins were disproportionately baptised Thomas, which is an interesting comment on the transparency of the meaning to ordinary people at that time.) Because readers of this blog are likely to also be iterested in what twinsets are being named, we thought we’d do a short post on the names of twins found in the Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, parish register.
Between 1558 and 1600, 26 pairs of twins were baptised: 7 were both girls, 7 were both boys, and 12 were mixed. The pairs were named:
| Girl 1 | Girl 2 | Boy 1 | Boy 2 | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ales | John | 1573 | ||
| Alicia | Margeria | 1565 | ||
| Anna | Richardus | 1561 | ||
| Anna | Thomas | 1561 | ||
| Anne | Ales | 1582/3 | ||
| Anne | ffrancis | 1584/3 | ||
| Christopher | Thomas | 1579 | ||
| ffrancis | Jone | 1573 | ||
| ffrancis | John | 1576 | ||
| Elizabeth | Margret | 1578 | ||
| Isabell | Mary | 1575/6 | ||
| Jana | ffranciscus | 1563 | ||
| Johannes | Richardus | 1594/5 | ||
| Johannes | Robertus | 1561 | ||
| Johannes | Thomas | 1564 | ||
| Jone | John | 1589 | ||
| Jone | Mary | 1584/5 | ||
| Judith | Hamnet | 1584/5 | ||
| Katerina | Johannes | 1566 | ||
| Katherine | William | 1585 | ||
| Katherine | Anthony | 1575 | ||
| Margareta | Maria | 1568 | ||
| Margret | Thomas | 1574 | ||
| Maria | Henricus | 1591 | ||
| Peter | Thomas | 1577 | ||
| Richardus | Thomas | 1595 |
Those who know their literary history will spot a famous pair of twins in the list…
Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources 
Jone and John–I see overly matchy twinsets are not a new invention!
What’s up with some of them getting Latin names as their official name and some not?
Just a change in the times — the early entries in this register are all in Latin, and at some point in the 1570s it switches to English (this is pretty common amongst 16th C English parish registers). What’s unusual about this one is that for a few years in the 1590s, they go back to Latin again!