Descriptive name?

[Pauline]

This isn't really a query but something I spotted while looking for a relative's baptism in Gloucestershire, and which I thought others might find interesting.

It is a baptism in the parish of Minchinhampton in April 1660, and reads as follows:

Whorsebratt the sonn of Margery But Baptised the 8 day

Assuming the child's name was intended to be what it sounds like, who decided on it and is someone expressing their disapproval here?

 

[jorghes]

Oh goodness...

I wonder if Whorsebratt can be traced or had their name changed rapidly?

I'm thinking that surely a woman couldn't name their own child that?

 

[Heather]

Poor child !! FMP has the baptism as a male 8 April 1660, Whoresbritt But , no fathers name, mother Margory But. Pauline did you see the original or a transcript?

 

[Pauline]

Pauline did you see the original or a transcript?

I was looking at the original register at Ancestry.

 

[Pauline]

FMP has the baptism as a male 8 April 1660, Whoresbritt But , no fathers name, mother Margory But

The FMP transcription is from FamilySearch, though I'm not sure if FamilySearch transcribed it from the BT or the register. Ancestry have transcribed it as Whorstbratt Bub with the mother Margery as a father Marjory.

I can see why someone might mistake the 'a' for an 'i' in the register. It's more clearly an 'a' in the BT but the middle bit of the name is pretty much unreadable there.

I was wondering if the vicar actually baptised the child with the name Whorsebratt, or if that was just how it was recorded.

 

[Susan]

Was it a comment by the minister on the nature of the mother? Whore's brat, ye son of Marjory.

 

[Pauline]

Was it a comment by the minister on the nature of the mother?

I would guess it might have been!