I don't have any New England names in my ancestry, but my earliest recorded ancestors in my direct patriarchal line are also names mentioned on DS: Philippe and Catherine (they lived in the Duchy of Lorraine in the 1600s). I only recently realized that these are also the names of the two main characters in the movie "Eye of the Devil," a happy coincidence since this movie struck such a chord with me, but then these names are quite common in France. (What becomes more surprising is that I also have an ancestor named Odile, though she didn't have a brother named Christian - Odile was not an uncommon name in NE France.) I've searched hard for an Angelique and did find a cousin of some ancestors by that name, so while she could be said to be in an extended family tree, she isn't my ancestor, disappointingly. The name Angelique isn't quite as rare as I had originally thought since I came across it a number of times in 17th century records. Other ancestor's names that are also on DS include: Elisabeth (minor spelling variation), Claude (my oldest recorded ancestor on the maternal side of this line), and Gabriel.
Lately I've switched to my Nordic ancestry, but the names here are quite different for the most part, not likely to be found among any DS characters, though I have found a very early Catherine, in Sƒ¸nderjylland. There was a Carl later in the 1700s, though as a military man he probably was not much like Carl Collins (on of my favorite John Karlen portrayals). And a Scandinavian great-grandmother of mine Americanized her name to Carrie in the 1800s (as in the 1840 storyline's "Tad and Carrie").
After writing this, I started consulting a list of DS characters and realize my list is paltry in terms of percentage of hits ... no Jebez, Judah, Gerard, Bramwell or Ezras, no Minerva, Charity, or Dorcas. What great names the DS writers came up with - and all of them historically accurate for the time periods, as far as I can tell. I have no surnames in common - no Stokes or Collins or Braithwaites or Hawkes in my family ... I suppose I could add first names of current relatives: Victoria, Sarah, David, etc. But no Maggie, Carolyn, Cassandra - except, as I type that, I remember that my sister's name is "Sandra" and that when we were kids growing up watching DS, I really wished she could change it to "Cassandra" because of Cassandra Blair, and I was thrilled when my mother said that Sandra was a form of "Cassandra." At the time, I would have said both my sister and Cassandra were about equally evil ... My sister goes by "Sandy" today, which was the name of Victoria Winters' roommate at the foundling homeÂ
