View Message

Oh dear, one can definitely NOT use "Forever Amber" as a guide to names in Restoration England! The title character herself has a name which was probably completely nonexistent back then -- and even the explanation given in the book, that she was named Amber "because of the color of her eyes", is anachronistic, because "amber" was not used as a color term in English until 1735, while the character was supposedly born in 1644.

---

Withycombe's "Dictionary of English Christian Names" does say that C. W. Bardsley claimed he had found 100 examples of woman named Philadelphia in the reign of James I, but that is of course a couple of generations before the Restoration, his reign being 1603-1625.

This message was edited 6/26/2023, 1:36 PM