52 Ancestors Week 3: Unusual Name

The prompt for Week 3 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge this year was "Unusual Name."  

The six eldest Brosius kids: Marshall, Lee, Ormond, Wayne, Searle, and Susie.
Missing are the two youngest: Lowell and Vinis.

I don't have to go very far back in my family tree to find an unusual name. Those Brosius boys had some interesting ones. Among them were an Ormond, a Searle, and a Vinis.

To look at the name Ormond, it doesn't appear all that unusual. Uncommon, yes, but not strange. It has something of the look of the hero of a Regency novel. One imagines it spoken with a posh accent, and sounding similar to Armand. But Uncle Ormond's name sounded much more folksy, with an emphasis on the first syllable.

Searle, on the other hand, appears unusual when written, but when it was spoken, sounded the same as if it were spelled "Cyril." I have met people with Searle as their surname, but Uncle Searle is the only one whose first name I have seen spelled that way.

And then there's my grandfather, Vinis. Now, that is truly an unusual name. In all my research I have never yet run across another person, related or not, named Vinis. It was not pronounced like "Venus," as one may suspect at sight, but with a long i sound, as "Vine-iss." I can't help but wonder where my great-grandparents found this name for their son. In Latin, it seems to mean something about wine, although I have a hard time imagining that my great-grandparents understood Latin. My great-grandmother was literate, but her spelling and grammar, judging by a copy of a letter she wrote, was appalling. Perhaps her husband had a more classical education. None of my research, however, has indicated that he had.

Grandpa Vinis usually went by his nickname, Red; a very common nickname for a redhead, but Grandpa was a brunette. I asked my dad once why his dad was called Red, and he said it was because he used to wear a red hat. (If that is true, there does not seem to be photographic proof in our family albums.)