Genealogists will always find odd names and variant spellings when examining parish registers and other records. A slightly more unusual forename was found last week when one of our searches was examining the baptism records of Eggesford in Devon: Faster Mander was baptised there in 1708.
Further investigation reveals that Faster is perhaps not as unique a forename as first appears. Indeed, the 1911 census suggests that 54 people have this as a forename or middle name. In fact, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it was usually given as a middle name, and presumably was used in commemoration of a maternal surname from the family tree. Faster is by no means a rare surname.
But some children were saddled with Faster as their only forename, and it begs the question whether they were known by this name, or a knickname? Fast, perhaps.
