Genealogy Chat

Is ZILLAH a real name or is it short for something?

Definitely a real name. I'd imagine that it's biblical.

Definitely real. I have a cousin once removed called Zillah !! :0) Joan

Thanks for that !

Now that I think about it... God's truth became 'strewth' ... and I think that there's other phrase like that... ... so is it short for 'Godzilla'? ;-)

In my book of first Names Zillah f. (Zil'e) a line under the e From the Hebrew for shade. the name occurs in the Old Testament and was used occasionally after the reformation to day it survives among gypsies Jeanette

My mother's sister, born around 1905 was named Zillah. She died young so I never knew her. Interestingly, however, an incident that shows that the name is not well known now - when my mother aged 89 went into hospital with confusion and early altzheimers, the nurses started calling me Pricilla - they had mistaken my mother's calling for her sister - mother's mind was well back in the past - and thought that she was calling for me. My name is not Pricilla, or anything like it, but that was the nearest the young nurses could get to a well known name.

I believe the name Zillah features in the book Wuthering Heights. I think she may have been the housekeeper there. Cheers, Horatia

If you google you will find ZILLAH Gender: Feminine Usage: Biblical, English Pronounced: ZIL-a [key] Means 'shade' in Hebrew. In the Old Testament Zillah was the second wife of Lamech. Googling will often find you what you want to know. And yes, she is a servant in Wuthering Heights. nell

I recently read that there was a fashion for Non-conformist families to call their children obscure old testament names to differentiate them from the catholic Mary's and Elizabeths. One of my relatives was Selina. Boys got names like Enoch and Ebeneezer. I once had a grocer called Meshack.

I had a person with a wife called Zillah so thought it would have been easy to find her on an earlier census and therefore get her maiden name, would you believe it but there were a number of girls in that small town with the same name and a similar age, it was obviously trendy at that time Christine (still looking for the correct one!) in NZ

Zillah's one of those wonderful old names that adds character to your research. I find it fascinating how marked the difference is between different generations as to how they named their children. Zillah, Absalom, Ezekiel, and so on. Great stuff! Funny names can be handy, as you said. Discovering that my great grandfather married an 'Omelia', rather than an 'Amelia' helped give me a more immediate certainty when I found a couple of other people. And a cousin being named Avila meant that I discovered a couple of other records, too, as well as giving me a new lead for a branch of the family. Mind you, I'd probably hate to actually be called 'Zillah'!!

One of my gg-grandfathers was christened ''Jabez''. By the time he got married though he'd changed it to George. Can't say that I blame him really!

I have a line of Zillah's which carried on for a few generations. All the other children in the family seem to have had much more conventional names like Ann and Charlotte!!!

I have come across what looks Like Zilpah in one of my searches. I am wondering if it is, in fact, Zillah, or if Zilpah is another, similar name.

I'm the same as Angela. Got one Zillah in 1850's amongst Marys, Anns, Sarahs, Elizabeths. and one Zillah. perhaps her Dad had had a drink Linda