Repent

Meaning

Repent is an English Puritan name taken directly from the Christian verb “repent,” meaning to feel sorrow for sin and turn from it. The excerpts show it used in baptismal records alongside other exhortational names such as Hope, Thankful, and Accepted, especially in the late Elizabethan and early Stuart period.

Origin

Fun fact

The excerpts note that Puritan naming could get so repetitive that families sometimes switched to variants like “Sorry-for-sin.”