Following on our festive names theme, our searchers have found the use of "New Year" as a forename exists from at least the seventeenth century.
For example, New Year Carlile was baptised in Cumberland in 1690. New Year Studlin married in Gosport, Hampshire, in 1746, whilst a New Year Maw lived in Yorkshire in the later eighteenth century.
It was perhaps more common as a middle name in later years: John New Year Holley is just one doubly festive example, baptised in Norfolk in 1814.
What festive names will you find in your family tree?
