Based on Fischer's observations, the onomastics in this Norwood family seem to represent a combined pattern, close to Quaker and Puritan naming practices. Without more information about the parentage of Francis and Elizabeth, however, it is really impossible to use this information to identify the family's likely spiritual orientation or to know exactly which pattern is being followed in the naming of the firstborn and second-born children. It appears that until the birth of Stephen in 1674, the children received paternal and maternal family names, beginning with the grandparents, not the parents, a departure from majority Puritan practice, but still unclear whether Anglican or Quaker. Stephen was the first Christian martyr in the Acts of the Apostles and had the sweetest, most serene experience of the Lord in his death. Perhaps this choice was a statement regarding the family's experiences outside the religious establishment in Gloucester or Francis's own experiences in England before he emigrated, but the name represents one who suffered and died for his faith at the hands of the religious. Hannah was a name strongly favored by the Quakers, as we have noted, but the name Abigail cannot be found among Quaker families represented in Fischer's work. Deborah and Hannah are the names of prophetesses often honored among the Puritans, and Abigail, a name also frequently given in Puritan families, that of a brave wife who defended her husband against a king's anger (1 & 2 Samuel). Fischer lists Deborah among "strong secondary favorites" for Quaker daughters (506). Joshua and Caleb were both strong Old Testament leaders, a possible indication that the family was not of humble origins, but interesting because of their absence from lists of favored names among Puritans, Quakers, and Anglicans. In Fischer, Joshua only appears in the elite Emlen family of Philadelphia(464-5).

The names of Francis and Elizabeth's children may not identify the family as Quakers, but still may trace their spiritual and temporal experiences. If Ebenezer Pool's notes are true, then Francis Norwood fled England before the wrath of Charles II, possibly prosecuted for his father's role in the Civil War or persecuted for his beliefs and practices: a martyr like Stephen, or a man in need of an Abigail, a defender from the wrath of the king, which he found in the remoteness of Massachusetts Bay.

If Francis was indeed a member of the Leckhampton Court branch of the Norwood family in England, he would have had every reason to go to Virginia where uncles and other relatives with aristocratic connections had already settled, and he would probably not have emigrated because of family involvement in the 1649 regicide. If, however, he had become a Quaker and had emigrated to Virginia with his uncles, he would have found a distinctly hostile environment, for by 1658, "authorities [in Virginia] moved quickly against [Quakers], ordering [them] to be banished. Shipmasters who brought them were required to remove them in close confinement...In 1661 other laws punished Anglicans who were merely 'loving to Quakers'" (Fischer, 234), a pattern of attitudes repeated in Massachusetts. When William Berkeley arrived in Virginia he had ordered "all nonconformists...to depart the colony with all conveniency" and more than 300 Puritans who had settled there fled to Maryland and New England (Fischer, 234). Since New England was generally equally hostile to Quakers, it may be that Francis Norwood did not arrive there a Quaker, but developed sympathies for his Quaker neighbors, possibly embracing their beliefs, during his time in Lynn. His apparent aloofness from the Congregational establishment may be explained in this way.