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Elza - is it a real name?

Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 24 Jul 2013 9:58AM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 24 Jul 2013 9:58AM GMT
I had an aunt, now dead, who had the first name of Elza on her birth certificate. She was called that all her life. Surely, her mother meant to call her Eliza - or is Elza a proper name? Curious to know if any other Elza's have been noticed....

Re: Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 24 Jul 2013 7:28PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 24 Jul 2013 7:31PM GMT

Re: Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 24 Jul 2013 9:38PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 19 Sep 2013 1:40PM GMT
It is interesting that Eleazar or El'azar means "My God has helped." My grandmother, Evelyn Holmes, went through great hardship, and it was she who named one of her children Elza.

She was very religious and read the Bible all the time, and I just wonder now if the Bible was where she found that name. Family tradition says that she made up the name Elza.

She had nine children, losing four of them in infancy. She belonged to the Episopal Church.

Thanks for that,
Brian


Re: Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 19 Sep 2013 9:06AM GMT
Classification: Query
There is a good chance the Elza was wrongly transcribed for Eliza or Elsa. Was the record handwritten? Eliza is an abbreviation for Elizabeth, which was widely used in the historical obits and census reports.

Danielle

Re: Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 3:11AM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 20 Sep 2013 3:13AM GMT
Why would you assume they meant Eliza, just because you had never heard of the name Elza? Unless you know they used something different their whole life, I would assume the birth name was reported correctly. People choose names for their own personal reasons, I have seen some very strange historic names, and some spelled differently than what I would expect. It could be the parents didn't know how to spell the name, or that was a regional way of spelling it.
My great grandmother was named Bessie, it was not short for Elizabeth, but many people assumed it was.

Re: Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 7:55AM GMT
Classification: Query
Barbdale_1, Excuse me...I didn't assume anything! I was merely giving the guy another avenue to venture down if the name Elza didn't pan out!.
Have you not come across any documentation on your family where the names were not transcribed correctly? It's not an uncommon occurrence.By the way did you miss the part where I also said the name maybe Elsa. But I do have 2 GG Grandmothers from Ireland born in the late 1790's- very early 1800's whom went by Betsy or Bessie and were Elizabeth. I didn't make the nickname up I never even knew of a correlation between Betsy,Bessie and Eliza to Elizabeth until I started this 4 years ago.

Re: Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 4:13PM GMT
Classification: Query
Yes, I have seen names transcribed incorrectly. However, he is talking about a birth certificate, which is a primary document, not a transcription. I think of a transcription as someone copying down information from a primary record, such as when they create an index. If the person creating the primary document spelled the name wrong, or their handwriting was illegible, the name may appear different than the parents intended. However, the parents would not call a child something just because of what the birth certificate erroneously stated. In this case, since the primary document said her name was Elza, and that is the name she used throughout her life, I would assume that is what her parents intended to name her.

Re: Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 4:57PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 20 Sep 2013 4:59PM GMT
Surnames: Widdop
Eveline Widdop had 9 children, and all the others had straight-forward ordinary British names....
Edith, Ada,(my mother) Frank, Florence, Lilian etc. Therefore, it seems that to suddenly name one Elza is very unusual. Anyway, the attachment is the actual birth certificate for Elza Hunter Widdop.

I prefer to think that Eveline Widdop knew exactly what she was doing - but it is a mystery how she dreamed up the name Elza. I have never seen the name Elza anywhere else in my life.
Attachments:

Re: Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 5:17PM GMT
Classification: Query
If I just saw the certificate, I could see it as being Eliza, unless I knew as you did, that she was Elza. I recently helped another person who wondered if an ancestor was adopted because the child had a Spanish sounding name, when the family was Irish. I googled the name, and found there was a famous explorer of a same name, and the child was born the same year a book was published about the explorer, which led to a possible explanation. We never know what motivates a parent to name their child a certain name.

Re: Elza - is it a real name?

Posted: 22 Sep 2013 1:24AM GMT
Classification: Query
In by no means am I trying to be nasty about this.. Are you a professional Genealogist or a very knowledgable researcher ? Either way, I need you to explain to me how the information on a vital record is not transcribed? Another person, albeit a doctor, parent, spouse or other close relation typically gave the information on record. You should also know that especially on historical handwritten documents the process left even primary documents littered with incorrect and misspelt information!
Again,I never said Elza's name was not Elza. Brian asked if it could be wrong or stand for another name.If you would like a reason as to why her family may have called her "Elza" and her actual name be something else? A large family that used a naming pattern. They could end up with several cousins all with the same name, a nickname was implemented for individuality. If you have never come across this, I am extremely jealous!
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