Naming kids after ancestors

[Hackstaple]

That would be like AOL or Hotmail choosing children's names.

[Willow 4873]

I think its a nice tradition to carry on names it gives you a connection to your past ours are all carried on as middle names

My father had Samuel - named after his uncle and great uncle
my mother had Anne - named after her mother and grandmother
1 brother has William - named after our father and grandfather
2 brothers have Joseph - named after our great uncle and great great uncle
1 brother has George - named after our grandfather
my sister has Marlene - named after our aunt
my nephew has Samuel  - named after his grandad, great uncle and great great uncle
and I have Georgina named after my grandmother

I can usually look at a list of names when searching on my surname and tell if they are related just from the names to a certain extent

My great grandmother is more awkward - Annie Jones. I could definuitely use an identification number as the middle name in that one

Willow x

[TreeDigger]

My son is named James Stephen. Basically (admitting this shamefacedly  ) his first name is after....Captain James Tiberius Kirk! Ok, so I'm a Trekkie... He was named Stephen after two very good friends of mine, one of whom became his godfather.

But then I realized that James is the English variation of Jacobus, my very beloved and departed grandfather, so that was very good.

And when I starting looking into my biological (British) father's family, I discovered to my amazement that not only did my father grow up 2 streets away from where I did, in The Netherlands, but he had a brother James who was born on Dec. 7th in The Hague, while my James was born on dec. 9th in The Hague! And Stephen is the name of my greatgrandfather from Kent.

My daughter is named Samantha Heather Josephine, or Sammy-Jo for short. She was named for the character from Bewitched (knew I was going to name a daughter after her when I was in my teens ;o). Heather is the English variation for my mother's name Erica, and Josephine is English for my X mother-in-law Jozefina.

Again, when later researching my family in England, I not only found a Samantha who was the granddaughter of my grandmother's brother (it's getting confusing here...) but was born Aug. 4 1997, while Sammy-Jo was born on Aug. 8 1997.

So you see, even when not consciously following naming traditions, you still might end up doing just that!

[Jacsel]

I wasn't named for an ancestor, and I didn't have a middle name.  That wasn't a problem until I went to live in the USA for a few years.  All the paperwork that had to be filled in at 'Naturalisation & Immigration' had spaces for middle names, and when I couldn't produce one, the clerk would put "doe" in that space.  It annoyed me intensely as I was neither missing nor dead.  So I adopted my maiden name as a middle name, it goes well with my married name, and turned around -(surname/maiden name run together as one word) it also made a good housename!  And after 20 + years it is now legal as well.

[Manchester Rambler]

Naming our kids was quite a challenge, as I'm married to a Swiss guy and live in France, so lots of favourite/traditional names were unsuitable: I'm named after my grandmother, and like my name, but DON'T like the way the French pronounce it, for instance.  And once we go back a few generations in my husband's family, all the boys are called Ullrich or Christian!  Rock bottom for the girls was twins called Stini and Trini! (Christina and Katharina in local dialect.)  So we came up with a compromise between tradition and reason: my husband is Jean-Marc, son of Jean-Paul, so our eldest son is Yves (a form of Jean), while our second is Jacques - the French equivalent of my maiden name James.  The girls are Joëlle Elisabeth (both grandmothers have Elisabeth in their name) and Laurianne Hélène (Ellen and Helen both come up in my father's family).  Pretty and reasonably uncommon!

Sarah

[stevenson]

hi
When I had my kids I just picked names I liked...Well guess what...... I have only recently started this tree thing and YES ...my kids are called after the old unknown relatives........must be in the genes

[Siouxzie]

So you see, even when not consciously following naming traditions, you still might end up doing just that!

Yep,
My youngest son is Isaac, despite being a complete heathen my four children all have bibical names; Joel, Nathan, Ruth and Isaac.  I started researching family history and it turns out that Isaac has a g g g grandfather and a g g g g g grandfather called Isaac.  My daughter Ruth has the middle name Ellen and there have been a couple of those in her ancestry.  So I am working it backwards and am hoping for a Joel or a Nathan to turn up one day.

[suziet]

Hi

I would have liked to name my children after my ancestors, but at the time didn't know any of their names.

My eldest daughter was named after my nana and given a family name from her dad's side. 

But.....having got the family tree bug I discovered that I have an Charlotte Emily in my tree - my daughter is Emily Charlotte!  So sometimes it works out anyway!

Sue

Sue

[kat2004]

My brother is Harry, as is our father's name, and grandfather. I couldnt resist calling my son Harrison! It does get confusing though, one is big H and the other is little H! I should say that my partner thinks Harrison is named after Harrison Ford and George Harrison. I thought it was a nice gesture to my family.