Old Lady Names

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am writing a story and I’m trying to think of some good names for old ladies

Some real stereotypical names that whenever you hear them you think “Old lady.”

Like

[ul]
[li]Clara[/li][li]Ester[/li][li]Hester[/li][li]Mabel [/li][li]Agnes[/li][li]Hazel[/li][li]Harriet[/li][li]Drusilla[/li][li]Edith[/li][li]Irene[/li][/ul]

Some of them I think that would be old lady names could be modern if shortened.
Like I would think Matilda could be OK if it was shortened to Tilly. And I guess Claire is OK while Clara is old.

Any more ideas

Thanks

2

My ‘ladies’ (writing group where I’m the baby) are all between 70 -90. They include an Elinore and a Ngaire.

I’d also add

Honore
Prudence
Faith
Charity (the virtues were popular Victorian names)
Or you could plug in some dates on thissite and see what pops up.

3

Lula Belle (my American grandmother)

Q

4

Gloria, Gladys, Henrietta, Nellie. Mehitabel?

5

How do you pronounce Ngaire? And thanks for the website I’ll check it out

6

“Ny-ree”, I believe, but it’s a Maori name so Your Pronunciation May Vary.

7

What time period do you have in mind? The names of old ladies change just as popular names for the young change.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman actually named Drusilla. And I believe the most common spelling is Esther. How could you forget Gladys?

Some old lady names are making a comeback! Isabell, Isabella, Rose and Ella are popular again. Sarah went away for a while and made a well-deserved comeback in the 1970s and 1980s. Grace and Anna are good. For a while the name Samantha was big. When I was a kid, only old country women were named that.

Hortense (not very common)
Edna
Florence
Molly
Flora
Beatrice

8

Martini Enfield has it right, “the end is NIGH, REpent your sins!”

It sure is a Maori name, which I hadn’t twigged to as I’ve heard it so often. My Ngaire is a very well bred lady whose family owned the land that both branches of my family would later emigrate to and own (very very small) sections of. But it was (apparently) a bit of a fashion in the early part of the last century - two local sisters of the same vintage and pure Euro bloodstock were called Tui & Huia (Too-ee & Hoo-ee-uh).

9

Maude
Eleanor
Ruth

10

June
Helen
Mid
Lyn (all of these are grandmothers’ names, so they are sort of ingrained into my mind as such)
Dottie/Dorothy
Betty
Norma
Eleanor
Marianne (these are all ladies who went to our church)

Perhaps these aren’t stereotypical, but, for me, they say “old lady.” Mid, especially, says “old lady with a bowl of Jolly Ranchers.”

11

Lenore (maternal GM)
Lottie Ellen (paternal GM)
Cora
Agnes
Cloris
Beryl
Ruby
Opal
Pearl
Beatrice
Ida
Dolores
May

12

Florence
Etta
Lilian
Bess

(My grandmothers and two of my great-aunts).

13

My Great-Grandmother had the best old lady name ever- Myrtle Stern. It doesn’t get better than that.

14

Both my Grandma’s (born 190something) were called Jane - and both preferred Jean, the Scots variant.

15

Eunice
Claudette
Mildred
Linnie
Victoria
Louise
Bernice
Lillian
Betsy
Evelyn
Peggy
Minnie
Norma Jean
Ida
Bonnie
Layne
Lynn
Ruth
Wanda
Charlotte
Georgia
Lorene
Alva
Alma

16

Bertha
Sylvia
Rosemary
Frieda
Caroline
Mabel
Mavis
Eleanor
Edith
Ethel

17

Assuming you’re talking about old ladies NOW:

Gladys
Phyllis
Doris
Eileen
Estelle

18

Checking out that website - I can’t believe how popular Mary was for so long. It’s either number 1 or 2 from when records began clear through to 1965 (then it takes a dive and never stops diving).

So: Mary. Classic Old Lady Name for almost any era…

19

I am surprised nobody has mentioned Fanny. My G.G. Grandmother (born in 1844) had the wonderful name of Fanny Innocent. Another of my female ancestors, who was born in 1693, was called Temperance.

20

I knew of an old lady whose name was Clorene. Obviously her parents thought it sounded nice but had never done Chemistry at school.

My late lamented aunts were Evelyn, Edith, Agatha, Ruth, Gladys and Laura. My still living aunts are Merle and Heather. Other elderly relatives were Shirley and Sophie.

It’s nice that these things come in cycles. Heather, Laura and Sophie are entirely feasible modern names. The rest, not so much (even though I loved them all dearly).