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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Coolbreeze on Wednesday 09 November 11 22:20 GMT (UK)
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I have always wondered why for example a mother and father would have a son or daughter, then it unfortunately died at a young age and then a few years later the mother and father would have another child and would name it with the same name... This has happened at least three times in my family tree... Has it happened in your tree and if "yes" do you know why?... Or is there simply no reason for this... emmmmm?
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It seems to have been very common. I have a number of families with this in both my tree and hubbies. One family had 3 Roberts (2 died as infants and the 3rd at ~13 :( ), named after dad, and 2 Margarets. It doesn't seem to be restricted to area or religion. The family with all the Roberts were in Dundee and the others spread through Lanarkshire, both Catholic and CofS.
It seems to be partly connected to the Scottish naming traditions and to have reduced in frequency around the same time as the names start to vary from the old patterns.
Hope that helps and maybe someone else has more of a clue as to what was behind the idea. It certainly doesn't make sorting out who is who any easier :)
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Not just in Scotland- my Danish uncle had 3 aunts named Olga, 3 uncles named Hans, 2 uncles named Christen in the same family.
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My gg Grandmother was named Mary, her daughter Mary aged eight, died at sea on the way to NZ, so the next daughter born was named Mary. (Scottish)
On another note, On one of my husbands sides, all the males have Joseph for a middle name ::) Why? I have no idea, but slowly driving me mad with all the James Joseph's, John Joseph's which were even carried down to the next generation.
Suzy W
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Hi,
It is not unique to Scotland. It was a very common practice throughout the whole of the British isles as it was with other western countries.
It is a very common occurrence in my tree too as like most people's trees
Did you know Ludwig van Beethoven was given his dead siblings name? His older brother lived only 6 days ( they were named after the paternal grandfather) Vincent van Gogh was also named after his dead brother too ,the list goes on.
Below is an intersting read on google books, which you maybe interested in
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0grf/
Kind regards
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In the Middle Ages people who rented messuages did so under a system whereby you paid a sum of money on taking up the messuage then a smaller sum each year, known as your fine. You rented for a period of three named lives. Therefore, if you were called John, you might call two children John, in hope that at least one would survive and himself have a son John. By the time of the English Civil War it became much less common to have two live children with the same name. claytonbradley
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Thank You all above for your comments... I find it very interesting... I also have a past relative George who had a wife Maria... George and Maria had 8 children betwen 1846 - 1869... I have a birth certificate and death certificate for Louisa born 1846 and then an Emma passing away 1854. I am almost 100% sure that this is the same person... I have cross-checked with the certifcate(s) in the sense that George and Maria are mentioned on both Certifcates and the date tally up... I have also checked many times to see if this may be a situation regarding twins... But. have never found a Mrriage or Death for louisa and a Birth for Emma... I have found Emma's headstone and this also has Emma on it... The family must of dropped the name Louisa during them eight years of her life. Or prehaps renamed her upon Death... Strange!!!... Emma died in 1854 and in 1860 George and Maria also named their 6th child Emma....
I also have a Montague William he died before his first Birthday and then later his brother William (As Certifcate) was born, But on his Gravestone his name was William Montaugue - Could of known about a brother passing young and took the name out of respect maybe...
Also it seemed common in the family for all the relatives in my Grandfathers generation to use there middle names as there forenames... For Example my Grandad was Edgar James... But... He was known as James also Jimmy etc..
Richard
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Not unique to cetain areas. I 've seen it happen,when they another after the dead child,also if when the child has been named after a father or grandfather and it dies.
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My Irish catholic grandfather had Joseph in his name as did his three brothers - his four sisters all had Mary!!
Fairlane
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It's not so much the naming of children after deceased ones that gets me; back in the 1600's, and occasionally later, couples tended to have several children of the same name.
Now THAT'S frustrating!
Darren
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My 3x gt grandfather and his brother were both called Thomas!! Thomas the brother was born c1817 and died in 1886 and my Thomas was born 1819 and died in 1899..
Jules..
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My Great Grandparents, seemed to have been grimly determined to have a William Herbert. Two or three Babies died, before my grandfather,was born. He survived of course.
He had been difficult to find, because the names were all William Herbert, then he was called Herbert or 'Bert for short! The strangest bit is that there are no other children or people in that line with those names. that is even more confusing.
But wait, I have one that is better still, two John same surname, living in the same pub, that was on the search, then I looked at the census closely, they were separate families at different addresses in a small Village of not more that 250 souls.
Another Rootschatter contacted me, because one lot were her family, the others were mine, but despite all the similarity in the names. I have been informed that they are not related at all!
How unlikely is that I wonder. I think they are related, so does my pal, finding the connection is the hard bit though.
Rabbit B ;D
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My grt grt grandparents had twins in 1830 called William and Samuel. There was a three year discrepancy in the age of them on the census and it was only last week when FindMyPast put on the Cheshire Parish Registers, that I discovered that they died the following year, and in 1834 they had another set of twins and named them William and Samuel.
Their youngest son Jeremiah b.1850 (my grt grandfather) had two Walter's. The first one died, and the second one born a few years after several other children was also named Walter, he was my Grandfather.
I always puzzled over age discrepancies until I discovered that was what they used to do, re-name children after deceased children.
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It's very common in my family. I suppose we still do it now, I know many youngsters who have a middle name in honour of a dead relation - and my own son does! It does mean that despite the traditional naming patterns disappearing, names still somehow manage to pass down through the generations, so it's nice in that respect.
What puzzles me is when parents gave two children names that were effectively the same - e.g. in my tree there are siblings named Mary/Maria and Harold/Harry.
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Some time ago I came across two brothers named Charles Henry and Harry Charles
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Yes, in the Netherlands it was pretty common to give 2 or 3 (all surviving) children the same first names, but just different middle names.
eg, three sisters: Maria Hendrika, Maria Willemina and Maria Catharina. All lived into old age.
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I have ancestors whose surname has been spelled variously Agate, Aggett, Eggett and Eggot, fortunately the couple concened John and Lydia were determind to call their children John and Lydia so it has been relatively easy to trace the births through Freereg and the Norfolk transcription archive, despite the varied spellings of the surname.
After they successfullly managed a John and Lydia they tried for a James -after Lydia's brother, James Winn. (And probably their father as well.)
It's sad to read the lists of baptisms, ten in total, with the same name repeated and quite a relief when a new name is added to the list.
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My dad and 3 of cousins are all called Edward Rittman - different surnames though. They were all named after my dads aunties husband - if that makes sense - :) I'd love to know what was so special about him that 4 children were named after him (my dads sister also has the middle name of Rittman)
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When our son was born, I tried very hard to convince my wife that he should be Thomas Dowdeswell Pine, which would have made him TD Pine the 4th; very grand sounding. She wouldn't have a bar of it, so he ended up Thomas Oliver instead.
Now he's older, he often stirs her up by saying he wanyed to be TD Pine the 4th!
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I have some more recent examples, although these aren't children named after deceased siblings.
My great-grandmother wasn't very creative when it came to naming three of her sons:
John Bill
William Floyd
Glenn Boyd
They all lived to rip old ages and none of them were twins.
Another great-grandmother, among her several children had two sons:
James Larry, who went by Larry and
James Edward, who went by (or goes by) Bob.
I have no idea why both are named James, or how in the world they got "Bob" out of James Edward.
My (half) sister and I have the same middle name, but that's because we have the same father (with the male version of the name) and our mothers named us. I think it's kind of neat, but we weren't raised together, so it's a bit different for us.
My father's side seems to be obsessed with my grandpa's name, Thomas.
We have:
my uncle: Thomas Joseph
My aunts sons: Alexander Thomas and Ryan Thomas
My little brother: Thomas Charles
My grandfather was named after his father Thomas S, and he his and he his father Thomas J, and he his.
I think it's safe to say that if I ever have a son, his name won't be Thomas. Enough is enough. :P
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Hi Tariana,
Welcome to Rootschat, I felt the same as you do, re the naming of children.
So when my son was born I refused to use any family names for him at all. The same thing with my daughter, despite family pressure.
Then I started my research. Guess what! I have turned up all their names, in the family tree, so there is nothing new under the sun after all
Rabbit B ;D
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In those days they had little imagination at picking sibling first names, more with the first few sibling names after a family member of the past maybe, and as had large families maybe one reason they kept to the same name
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Quite often I have found the eldest daughter and eldest son named after the fathers or mothers parents. Ie eldest son named after the fathers father and eldest daughter after the mothers mother etc. Especially 1700s and 1800s.
I have an ancestor who had two children Edwin Auber in 1840 and Edwin Gore Auber in 1843. Both lived to adulthood.
My 2xgreat grandmother Mary Ann Kate had a sister Maria. Almost the same firstname.
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I think the whole approach to name choosing has changed over the years.
It was the normal to name a child after its parents, or grandparents. People would be thought unusual if they came up with a name that wasnt already in the family.
I guess some people took this trend to more of an extreme than others - in the same way as the trend these days to think of something more unusual or unique can be taken to various degrees!
Many of the nicknames and shortened names (that these days are often given as a name in its own right) came about because so many people within a family had the same name. If you have three or many four generations of Benjamin Bloggs in the same village, or often the same house, one will become Ben and one Benjy etc just to distinguish. Thus some John's became Jacks, Henrys HArry, and ELizabeths Betty or ELiza etc etc.
So when I wonder why someone called John Henry in my tree is often reffered to as Henry, I only have to look and see that he was brought up by his Uncle John, who already had a son John, so he was the third John is the household, and therefore that is probably why he often used the name Henry, I guess he was called it at home to avoid confusion!
It is all very interesting!
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The Guy Who Wrote The Book, Mark Herber (he wrote Ancestral Trails) tells of a family in his own tree who was so determined to have a son named James, in the days of such awful infant mortality, that they named five successive boys James.
However, every one of them survived infancy, childhood and adolescence, and went on to marry and have children of their own. He had the devil's own time sorting them and their progeny out :P ;D
Cheers,
China
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At times name patterns can be a tool in helping go back further on family lines.
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It's a very useful tool -especially when the names are unusual -less so when you have generations of Johns and Marys marrying Marys and Johns. :-\
I agree with Lizdb that it was customary to name a child after a parent or grandparent- I suppose that was particularly important when lives -even for those who survived into adulthood- were short. The living children were a memorial to their dead grandparents or even parents.
On a lighter note, my mother's name Rosamond was chosen by my grandfather so that the initials of the family spelled DEAR. My practical Grandmother preferred Margaret, so Mother's given name was never used, she was always Peg!
We were never tempted to spell out anything, starting out with a J and a B didn't offer much scope -JOBS---, JABS----JIBS ?? ::)
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Yes its true, naming patterns can be very helpful when tracing ancestors.
I have 2 instances in my family. The surname Dowdeswell is fairly uncommon, but surprisingly there are a lot of (as yet) unconnected branches, so it has been handy to find Jonathan's and Benjamin's; so far they have all tied into my line. Similarly with my Pine's, any combination of Luke Hogard Henry Pine is guaranteed to be a match.
Even now, tackling my wife's family lines, I am finding certain lines easier with distinctive names passed down through the generations.
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A schoolfriend's father thought he would have trouble in remembering the ages of his children, so named them John, David, Monica and Elizabeth (get it? 1, 2, 3 & 4 syllables in order of birth). I wonder what a fifth child would have been called? :-\
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Anastasia?
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He'd have to learn to fight early on, then, wouldn't he ;D ;D ;D
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How about Epaminondas for the fifth child, if a boy, though it doesn't match well with the other four very British, biblical/saint names. Their father was a clergyman, I should have said. (I used to love the children's book about Epaminondas (now very un-P.C., of course).
Six syllables, anyone?
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Well done with 5 for a boy - I struggled there!
My only attempt for a six is Marieantoinetta
I did come across someone years ago who called their daughter that, but it may have been hyphenated I guess!
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Try,
O r e a n a = Oreanea in Spanish/Portugese, not quite sure which.
A d ri a nn a = Adrianna
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No need to go too exotic for 5 syllables - how about Alexandria for a girl, or Maximilian for a boy? Though they'd probably end up as Alex and Max, so not much help for remembering the order.
And variations on the above, for the sixth child (if you wanted to be pretentious) - Alexandriana or Maximilianus. In fact...if you wanted to have more than six kids you could just add suffixes like 'na' or 'us' to the end of the names indefinitely... ;)