Am I the only person named Learned?

Question:I dunno where my dad got my name. Is there some famous guy named Learned?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I dunno where my dad got my name. Is there some famous guy named Learned?

I checked the UK birth indexes, and there's no-one called Learned in the transcribed indexes 1837-1920 or 1984-2005
So looks like not in the UK anyway.
I think it's a cool name though. Very unique and makes you sound wistful and pensive.

You didn't specify if this is this your first or last name? There is a famous actress named Michael Learned (she played the mother on The Waltons).

While it would appear that Learned is more commonly used as a surname then a "given" name, surnames are ocassionally used as given names. This usually happens when the name is a "family name", such as; it is the mother's maiden name or the surname of a famous ancestor. Prehaps you are a descenant of "General Ebenezer Learned" or maybe your dad just liked the name Learned. Maybe he named you after someone he admired. Have you asked your father or mother?

It couuld be that when he went to the registration office that the name was misunderstood by the registrar and entered into the book as 'Learned' instead of 'Leonard'. Stranger things have happened in genealogy!

Chances are though that Learned will have been a surname on one of your maternal lines, probably your grandma or great grandmas maiden name. Many female maiden surnames often became christian names, though usually as a middle name, not a first one. It's certainly an unusual one though. I'm sure there's a webpage online called 'how many of me?' or something, where you can enter your name in a box and see exactly how many people share it with you. Or maybe I'm just rambling now...

Nope, you're not the only ones. Not even close. Did a quick check on the surname. In the US, there were, in the census data, it went from 802 Learneds in 1900 to 1159 in 1930.

There are also 7,000 public record index entries available on ancestry.com for Learned at the present time.

So it certainly is not common, but you are definitely not the only ones.

OOOOH - Just saw you indicated it was your FIRST name so reran the check using it as a first name. Much rarer than as a surname but there are still a few. There were only 111 people (exceptionally rare) in the public records index. And from census, there were only from 13 to 25 people with that name from 1880 to 1930. So it is exceptionally rare as a first name.

yessir, think so