Armar, the name I got from my father

Armar was the middle name of my father, Leslie Armar Brown (1910 - 2001). Both myself and my brother were given this as our second names when we were baptized. My son Justin has this as his second name and he has passed this onto his son, Ivan. The name has thus appeared in four generations of our family.

However, my father did not know the origin of the name but understood that his mother had named him 'Armar' because she had come across or read about a clergyman with the Christian name 'Armar' and liked the name. Both his parents had died before I was born, so I was never able to ask her; but family tradition did support this claim.

The name (like several more commonly used first-names such as Clive, Keith, Graham, Lee, Leigh, Kelly etc.) was originally a surname. It is a variant of one variously spelled 'Armer', 'Armor', 'Armour' and was a trade name (like, e.g. Baker, Butcher, Weller etc.), namely "arm-er" = 'one who makes, repairs or keeps arms'.

Its use as a Christian name came about like this. In 1736 a certain Margetson Armar married his cousin Mary Corry of Castle Coole, near Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. He had managed the Castle Coole estate for Mary's brother Leslie Corry during his minority. Margetson Armar made his will on the 5th of May 1768 and left his Fermanagh lands to his wife Mary and her issue or, if no issue, to Mary's second sister, Sarah Corry and her male heirs .

In 1733, Sarah had married Galbraith Lowry, the second son of Robert Lowry of Finagh (or Sixmilecross) and Aghenis, near Caledon in County Tyrone. Sarah and Galbraith used the surname Lowry-Corry. They had two children Anne (who later married William Willoughby Cole, Earl of Enniskillen) and Armar Lowry-Corry, who was raised to the peerage as Baron Belmore in 1781; he was subsequently promoted to a viscountcy in 1789 and then to an earldom in 1797, becoming the 1st Earl of Belmore. He died in 1802.

The name has subsequently been used by other members of the Lowry-Corry family, for example:

Armar Lowry-Corry 1801 - 1845 (3rd Earl of Belmore)

Armar Lowry-Corry 1832 - 1919

Armar Henry Lowry-Corry 1836 - 1893

Noel Armar Lowry-Corry 1867 1935

Armar Lowry-Corry 1869 - 1946

Armar Lowry-Corry 1870 - 1948 (5th Earl of Belmore)

Hubert Armar Lowry-Corry 1881 - 1927

Armar Valentine Lowry-Corry 1896 - 1916

Armar Douglas Lowry-Corry 1929 -

Galbraith Armar Lowry-Corry 1913 - 1960

Charles Frederick Armar Lowry-Corry 1951 -

John Armar Lowry-Corry 1951 - (8th Earl of Belmore)

It has also been used in the Lowry family, for example:

Armar Lowry 1791 - 1876

Armar Lowry 1821 - 1894

James Armar Lowry 1832 - 1861

Armar Graham Lowry 1836 - 1900

I have found other instances of Armar as a Christian name, e.g. Denis Armar O'Conor (1912 - 2000) and Andrew Wyndham Armar Cameron (1965 - ). But both these gentlemen had connexions with the Lowry-Corry family. Denis Armar O'Connor was the son of Charles William O'Connor and Evelyn Lowry-Corry; Andrew Wyndham Armar Cameron is a grandson of Arthur Wyndham Louis Paget and Rosemary Victoria Lowry-Corry whose daughter, Rosaline Louise Paget, had married Clive Bremner Cameron.

I can claim no connexions by affinity or consanguinity with the Lowry-Corry family. But my grandmother must have come across the name somewhere, which suggests the 'clergyman' story is likely to be true. It is probable, of course, that the clergyman who bore the name was either a member of that family or was related to that family.