James Landreth

There are some interesting factoids regarding Loretta/o Perfectus Walsh’s names.

Loretto or Loretta: What’s in a name?  Here we have a question but perhaps with an answer.  If one does an internet search for the “o” word, “Loretto Perfectus Walsh”, one gets 132 results.  If one does a search for “Loretta Perfectus Walsh”, the “a” word, one gets 5,450 results (as of Jan 22, 2020), over a 40:1 ration. So, the popular opinion seems to be that she was called “Loretta”.  Records indicate that 171,354 girls in the United States have been named Loretta since 1880.  The greatest number of people were given this name in 1938.  It is now quite unusual.  The name “Loretto” can be used as both a first name and a last name, more commonly as a first name 75% of the time.  The popularity of the name Loretto peaked in the 1890s, at the time Loretto was born, but by 1930’s it was quite uncommon.

The name Loretto is a variant spelling of Loreto, which is the name of the location where it is said that the house of the Virgin Mary was transported to in the Middle Ages by angels. A church was built around the house in Loreto, Italy.  Loretto is typically used as a girl’s name but historically it’s a boy’s name.  The meaning of the name Loretta or Loretto is derived from the Latin word for the laurel plant.

So, which is it? A or O? 

1. James J. Walsh, author of “Woman and Patriot”, and her nephew, and the one who has done the most research on Miss Walsh (they wouldn’t have used “Ms” at that time) used the “Loretto” form.  Although he does not discuss this, it is assumed that it was based upon his research and perhaps family tradition.
2. At this time, no birth or baptismal certificate is available for Loretto/a.
3. When one looks at the newspaper articles from the time of her enlistment, as suggested above, the overwhelming majority, use the “a” spelling.  But some do use the “o”.
4. If we look at the tombstone at St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Olyphant, it says “Loretta”.  How or when that choice was made is not known and likely not by Loretto.
5. The Navy medical records from the time of her service all use Loretto.
6. Her death and marriage certificates both use “a”.  When  examining the application for marriage she made with Fred Bowman, 7 June 1922, while in several places the name was spelled with an “a” there is a key piece of evidence. There are two places on the application where it states either “we the undersigned” or “Signature of the Applicant”, there is a distinctive and different signature, with a rather idiosyncratic capital “L”, and these are signed, “Loretto Walsh”.  This is unquestionably an “O” and unquestionably Loretto’s signature. 

In summary, I believe the evidence supports the premise that Loretto should be spelled with an “o”.

Perfectus: While it might be considered as derived from or related to the word “perfect”, meaning, having been perfected, this is the nominative masculine singular of perficiō (“carry out, finish; perfect; cause”).  One would think that if the family (parents) wanted to use this form of the word, they would have used the feminine form, perfecta.  I can find no other person except Loretta/o Walsh with that name on a brief Google search.

Given the strong Catholic faith of the Walsh family, I suspect they chose a saint’s name, which was a common custom to choose such for a middle name.  There is a saint Perfectus.  Why they would choose to name Loretto with the name of such an obscure saint is unknown.  However, it might be noted that Loretto was born April 22^nd,  a Wednesday.  The following from Wikipedia:

Saint Perfectus (Santo Perfecto) (died 18 April 850) was one of the Martyrs of Córdoba whose martyrdom was recorded by Saint Eulogius in the Memoriale sanctorum.

He was born in Córdoba when the area was under the control of the Moors (the Umayyad Caliphate). Perfecto was a monk and ordained priest. He served at the basilica of St. Acisclus in Córdoba. Christians were tolerated in the area, but not uniformly. According to his legend, in 850, Perfecto was challenged by two Muslim men to say who was the greater prophet: Jesus or Mohammed.

At first he refrained from responding, so as not to provoke them; but they insisted that he give them an answer, promising to protect him from reprisals. He then told them in Arabic that Muhammed was a false prophet and that he was an immoral man for supposedly seducing his adopted son’s wife. The Muslims kept their promise and let him go, but several days later some of them changed their mind and had him arrested.  They had friends seize Perfecto (so as to not be forsworn) and tried. Perfecto was found guilty of blasphemy by the Islamic court and was executed. The legend says that Perfecto’s final words were to bless Christ and condemn Muhammad and his Qur’an.

He was beheaded on April 18, 850.   His martyrdom was one of the first in a period of Muslim persecution of the Christians in Al-Andalus, which began in 850 under Abd ar-Rahman II, continued under his successor Muhammad I, and went on intermittently until 960 [1].   His Catholic feast day is April 18.

Hence, if the family went to Mass on April 18^th, though a Saturday, they might have been told that this or the next day was the feast of St. Perfectus and remembered this for the baptism.

Walsh: While it is generally considered an Irish surname, it is deemed as derived from the word “Welsh”, that is, one from Wales. In this sense, it is not a “true” Irish name, though it does go back to 1172 (see below).  Ancient Gaelic names such as O’Briain (O’rien) or Mac Caba (McCabe) typically begin with an O’ or Mac.  This is a longer story, but first from WIki:  Walsh is the fourth most common surname in Ireland and the 265^th most common in the United States. The greates number of Walshs live in New England, New York and Pennsylvania. There are variants including “Walshe”, “Welsh”, “Brannagh”, and the Irish :”Breathnach” pronounced “Brack-nah”. Walsh is uncommon as a given name. The name is often pronounced “Welsh” in the south and west of the country.  It is most common in County Mayo (where Anthony Walsh, the paterfamilias, came from and from County Kilkenny.  (from Rootsweb) They derive from the Anglo-Saxon / Old English term ‘wælisc’, used in different parts of early Britain to denote the native Welsh or Britons. In medieval records the generic terms ‘le waleys’ and ‘walensis’ (among others) were often used to indicate ‘a Welshman,’ and occurred in various parts of the British Isles from areas of Welsh settlement). In Ireland this included some of the adventurers from Wales who arrived in the wake of the Cambro-Norman campaigns beginning in the period from 1169-1172 CE.

(from https://irelandroots.com/walsh.htm) The name originated to describe the Welsh people who came to Ireland during the Anglo-Norman invasions and simply means the ‘Welshman’, or in Irish ‘Breathnach’. The name is often pronounced ‘Welsh’ in Connaught and Munster. The first use of the surname is said to have been Haylen Brenach, alias Walsh, son of ‘Philip the Welshman’, one of the invaders of 1172. He is recorded as being with Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, in his initial invasion of Ireland in that year. The Walshes in the south-east of Ireland are mostly descended from Philip the Welshman and also from his brother David. Many of this family established themselves as landed gentry at Castlehowel (Kilkenny), Ballykileavan (Laois), at Ballyrichmore (Waterford) and also at Bray and Carrickmines near Dublin. According to Lawrence Walsh who compiled the pedigree of the Tirawley (Mayo) Walshes in 1588, the Walsh family in the west of Ireland are believed to be descended from Walynus, a Welshman who came to Ireland with Maurice Fitzgerald in 1169. This man’s brother, Barrett, was also believed to be the ancestor of the Barretts of Tirawley.

If one assumes the Walsh family/families do derive from Wales, then the question is, “What is their origin?”.  This is a much more difficult question to answer without DNA testing.  There are numerous possibilities.  See the article in Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_people.