Importance of Names:

ROBERT ARCHIBALD SPURLOCK AND ELIZABETH PHOEBE LEVERTON GAVE THEIR CHILDREN VERY INTRIGUING NAMES.  WHAT PROMPTED THEM TO CHOOSE THOSE NAMES?  WHAT WERE THEY READING AT THAT TIME (1875 – 1900) THAT INSPIRED THESE HEROIC NAMES?  We know Grandpa was a student of the Holy Bible and world  and U. S. history.  Did they own a copy of the works of Josephus?  Here are guesses.  What are yours?

• David Reed - Named for both grandfathers.  David Spurlock Jr. and Bailey Reed Leverton.
  
• Mary Allie Lucretia – Named from her maternal grandmother Allie Lucretia Williams and Bet’s older sister Mary. 
  
• Franklin Webster Butner – Franklin could have been for Benjamin Franklin.  Webster for Daniel Webster? Grandma’s sister Mary  married Samuel Butner Sandefer.  
  
• George Fredrick Napoleon - Named for three great generals.  George Washington, Fredrick the Great of Prussia and Charles Louis Napoleon Bonepart (not to be confused with his dictator uncle.)
  
• Festus Columbus – Probably noble Festus from King Agrippa’s Court.  And Christopher Columbus.
  
• Flavious Theodore – Possibly Flavius Josephus the great historian of the first century AD.  Theodorus was a great Greek mathematician.
  
• John Marion – John is a good solid family name.  Marion – possibly for Francis Marion, the swamp fox, a Revolutionary War hero.
  
• Robert Fulton – His father Robert Archibald and Robert Fulton the great inventor.
  
• Quintilla – Quintilla was a prophetess briefly mentioned by Josephus.
  
• Ransom Crockett – Ransom, a type of the Savior who ransomed us.  Davy Crockett, Texas and Southern states frontiersman and hero.
  
• Richard Austin - Stephen P. Austin, father of Texas.
  
• William Houston – General Sam Houston, President of Republic of Texas.
  
• Jessie Drucilla – Drusilla was a daughter of Herod Agrippa, noted for her beauty.  Born five years after Christ's death and resurrection.
  
• Otis Edison – Thomas Edison the great inventor?  Otis or Odes, several generals both Revolutionary and Civil War?