Maridadi sana

Swahili -
maridadi (noun) - smartness
maridadi (adjective) - stylish, modern, elegant

sana (adverb) - very, very much, extremely, a great deal
sana (verb) - forge (metal)

I was brought up in Kenya and the idea of using a Swahili name for the site appealed to me. To describe something as maridadi-sana means that it is very stylish or pretty and can often be used tongue in cheek to mean over-decorated or in bad taste. Since sana also means a forge or foundry, the name is a swahili pun.

Carefull

Carefull is an extremely rare surname with only perhaps a few dozen people using it, all of whom are related. It is an English medieval surname with very few references in dictionaries of English surnames and few recordings in church registers before the 18th century although there is one in St Mary le Bone church in the City of London, where Thomas Carefull married Margery Waring on 4th June 1672.

For nearly 300 years our family lived in the Isle of Man, where records there show that an English family of that name arrived in 1511 and their name was quickly translated to Manx Gaelic as Caralagh.

Around the middle of the 18th Century one family Richard Caralagh and his wife Jane (nee Key) changed their name back to Carefull. I have no idea why, but it may have been in preparation for a move back to England and in 1798 James Carefull, Richard's son, my five greats grandfather, married Mary Maguire in Liverpool.

Changing their name to Carefull appears odd today but at that time, the name had a slightly different meaning -full of care -and was sometimes used as a christian name like prudence for example. There is a 16th century will in the National Archives of a Kent yeoman called Carefull Smeasedale (no relation). So I suppose the name wasn't as unusual as it seems today.

For some time after that the family can be traced living in the Liverpool and Cheshire area although they are more scattered now I believe.

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