'Twas Ever Thus

In the late 18th and 19th century  talk about names often bandied the phrase "romantic names" around. From all I can glean, it was used generally as a euphemism for any name considered slightly fanciful or outlandish, in much the same way "creative names" or "unique names" are used today.

The phrase appears in 1776 in Oliver Goldsmith's popular novel The Vicar of Wakefield. 

Our eldest son was named George, after his uncle, who left us ten thousand pounds. Our second child, a girl, I intended to call after her aunt Grissel; but my wife, who during her pregnancy had been reading romances, insisted upon her being called Olivia. In less than another year we had a daughter again, and now I was determined that Grissel should be her name; but a rich relation taking a fancy to stand godmother, the girl was, by her directions, called Sophia; so that we had two romantic names in the family; but I solemnly protest I had no hand in it.

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Several other works of fiction over the years have contained much the same idea:

Hyacinth! It’s the silliest name I ever heard of; but it’s hers, and I must call her by it.[...]‘And the worst is, she’s gone and perpetuated her own affected name by having her daughter called after her. Cynthia! One thinks of the moon, and the man in the moon with his bundle of faggots. I’m thankful you’re plain Molly, child.’  Elizabeth Gaskell       Wives and Daughters (1864)

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'Euphemia; it isn't a name common people would give a girl, is it?' 'It isn't the name any decent people would give to a girl,' said Buggins, 'common or not.' 'Lor!' said Kipps. 'Why?' 'It's giving girls names like that,' said Buggins, 'that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than that. Euphemia, indeed! What next?...Good Lord!... H. G. Wells     Kipps (1905)

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'It's Lucia.' How could he have forgotten the absurd pretentious name? She had confided to him in the corner of a warehouse that she had a brother named Roderick. Her father was responsible. He was a great reader of the obscurer classics. Graham Greene       England Made Me (1935)

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The idea was, of course, also then picked up in essays and newspapers. Strangely, although we now tend to associate fanciful names with the aristocracy, it is the working classes who get the brunt of critism in much of the commentary.

The practice of romantic names among persons, even of the lowest orders of society, has become a very general evil: and doubtless many unfortunate beauties, of the names of Clarissa and Eloisa, might have escaped under the less dangerous appellatives of Elizabeth or Deborah. Isaac Disraeli   Influence of a Name in Curiosities of Literature Vol 2 (1791—1823)

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[...]Apropos of romantic names, I have it from a registrar of great experience that these are enormously affected by the lower orders, who get them from the romances in the penny papers. Their taste in this way, however, generally receives two checks. In the first place, they can seldom pronounce the names they admire; and in the second, they nine times out of ten fail in their efforts to set them down on paper with anything like an approximation to correct spelling.  The name of the Empress of the French has an enormous fascination for young mothers of romantic views and restricted means. They think Eugénie delicious; nor do they appear conscious that it loses anything of its delicate sweetness when pronounced "You Jenny!"                                           The Bradford Observer                                                     May 6, 1869

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[...]Ben Jonson brought the pretty classical name Earine into English use. But this name loses its beauty when it is mispronounced, as it often is by those unaquainted with the classics. It should be in four syllables, with the accent on on the second. But that it has turned into two syllables by uneducated people is evident. [...]    The female novelists of the present day have exhausted almost every form of female appellation; and the worse the writer, the more far-fetched and high-flown are the names.                                                  The Graphic                                       (London), November 16, 1878

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There was at least one supporter, however, from the Woman's Page in the Great Eastern Railway Magazine in November 1912.

Are we naming our daughters too fancifully? I am inclined to sympathise with the feeling that makes poor parents who have perforce to live in some soulless slum, seek for something sweet and wholesome, even if it be only a name, and I have given up moralising when I hear such a one called Doris or Ivy. It is ever so much better than condemning them to the hackneyed Mary Ann which seem to rob them of all chance. I like the flowers and gems, but I do not care about the mythological names such as Diana, Psyche and the like — they seem too heathenish.

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