Regency Life & Times

Category

Regency Naming Conventions

During the Regency, it was typical to recycle names, especially if you were in a high class family. Due to this, you find a lot of Elizabeth, Anne, John, and William floating through Regency history, and not a lot of variety.

Do you have a common name that runs in your family?

Regency Architecture

Columns, arches, and ironwork were some of the common themes in Regency homes.

What style of home do you love?

Pink or blue? How about white!

Pink for girls and blue for boys? Not during the Regency. All children were typically swaddled in white as babies, and as they grew up wore mostly white clothing, boys and girls alike!

Nut-Crack Night

October 31st is best known as Halloween, but in Scotland and Northern England, it was also known as Nut-Crack Night. During the Regency, you would throw two hazelnuts into a fire — one represented you and one your love. You would say the rhyme:

If you hate me spite and fly
If you love me burn away

If the nuts flew apart, you knew you weren’t meant to be, but if they burned next to each other, you knew it was true love.

Regency Pets

We have talked before about dogs being popular pets during the Regency, but what about cats? Many people did keep cats as well, but they were thought of more as useful pets to catch mice. Some people would have 5 or more cats living in their home as a natural mouse-catching service.

What types of pets do you have?