We asked on social media for reader input on our next monthly topic, and people on Facebook were firmly in favor of masculine/feminine name pairs while people on Twitter voted for mystery names. We’ve decided to take up the former for the monthly topic, but rather than make the latter the topic for March, we’re going to start a new series: Mystery Monday!
Every Monday we will post an entry that hasn’t yet been published with a view towards harnessing the collective onomastic power of the internet. If you have any thoughts about the name’s origin, other variants it might be related to, other examples of its use, etc., please share them in the comments! If you wish to browse other Mystery Monday names, there is an index.
Our first Mystery Monday name is Ephrod. It’s a name that sure looks like some obscure Biblical name, and our single example of it from 16th C England puts it in a context where that would be likely — except we haven’t been able to find any instance of this name in the Bible, or elsewhere!
Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources 