Colonial Name Generator

For men, John, William, Thomas, Samuel, Joseph, Benjamin and James dominated everywhere, with Old Testament names such as Ebenezer, Josiah, Nathaniel, Ezekiel and Jonathan especially common in New England. For women, Mary, Elizabeth, Sarah, Hannah, Abigail, Martha and Rebecca were the most frequent, joined in Puritan families by Mehitable, Thankful, Patience, Mercy and Lydia.

Puritans and other Protestant dissenters rejected saints' names as Catholic and chose from scripture instead, favoring the Old Testament because those names had no church tradition attached. This is why obscure biblical figures (Jabez, Peleg, Keturah, Achsah, Shearjashub) turn up in New England records but almost never in England at the same time.

It is a mix. Many entries are genuine colonists whose names are well documented: Mayflower passengers, Puritan ministers, Dutch patroons, Pennsylvania German settlers and Huguenot families of Charleston, all of whom died well over two centuries ago. The rest are composites built from given names and surnames found in colonial records, so they read as authentic without belonging to anyone in particular.

For British North America, roughly 1607 (Jamestown) to 1776, sometimes stretched to 1783. Names from the 1600s lean heavily Puritan and Dutch; by the mid-1700s the virtue names were fading and classical and fashionable English names (Horatio, Lucretia, Clarissa) were creeping in. The 1700s and Puritan generators linked above narrow the range if you need one end of it.