Naming kids after ancestors

[suey]

Nutkin -I think using family names is a lovely idea - both my girls have their Grandmothers first names as second names..if we'd had boys they would have had their Grandpa's names.

How about suggesting a name from your hubbies family or one from each as a compromise !

[Fitty]

I,m named after my Grandmother and her Grandmother and a few aunts.  My daughter is named after me and her daughter is named after her.

Fitty is very poplular in our family you know! <chortle>

seriously tho.. my middle Name is Helena with a funnywotsit on the 2nd E..so is pronounced  Helaina.   Which i was ok with till my dad told me it's a very old fashioned Dutch name and a bit like being called Gertrude or Ethel in England   

[molar]

slightly off topic! both mine and my husbands family only have one forename, ( my grandad was even reg as Tom not Thomas). We carried on this tradition believing that our son and daughter would never have anyone giggling at their middle name. All was well until yesterday , my son informed me he had difficulty filling in an online form, it had a space for middle name! he left it blank,not accepted!! he tried using space bar,not accepted! he tried "none" o.k! he didn't continue because he wasn't sure he wanted future correspondance addressed to J**** none A******. Any suggestions what he should put? my idea was * or perhaps he could award himself more than 1!!

[Annahannah]

I,m named after my Grandmother and her Grandmother and a few aunts.  My daughter is named after me and her daughter is named after her.

Fitty is very poplular in our family you know! <chortle>

seriously tho.. my middle Name is Helena with a funnywotsit on the 2nd E..so is pronounced  Helaina.   Which i was ok with till my dad told me it's a very old fashioned Dutch name and a bit like being called Gertrude or Ethel in England   

I'm glad I wasn't named after my grandmothers: they both had very "period" names.  But my Dutch Ggrandmother was Engelina, which I like.  Her mother was Johanna Catherina, like the previous 3 generations!

Anna

[Pollynation]

When i named my sons, i named them after relatives. One living and a dead grandad. This was years before starting my family tree.

In due course i have now found several generations with the same name. It's not like calling them John or Paul.  I thought Benjamin wasn't that common.  But now have a 1901 census with Benjamin's on it!! 

Pauline

[leagen]

I wish I had been named after an ancestor because they had nice names.  Mine was "Wanda" which my mother picked 'cause it sounded like my brother's which was Juan (pronounced "Wan")  Get it? Wan and Wanda.  He ended up Always being called Sonny but I was stuck w/Wanda.  It would be nice if I was Polish as it is a Polish name but no Poles in me!.. I go by my middle name, have since I was 20, it is now my legel name even on passport.  "Wanda" has died!  My mother had a first name and three middle names!,( but none family ones).  Plus she (m) 4 times to 3 men, trying to keep up w/Liz Taylor, another good Eng. woman there.

[booger]

I think more people should give their children middle names. In fact it should be compulsory for people with names like Brown, Smith, King, Jones etc. to provide a middle name on registering the birth of the child - if they refuse, then the baby should automatically have it's mother's maiden name as a middle name. That'll sort 'em out!

[Hackstaple]

Molar and I share something - we both had grandfathers christened plain Tom [not Thomas]. This is not ideal as Tom gave his son 3 christian names.
I have the christian names of my maternal grandfather but reversed.
My granddaughter has my wife's first name as her second and my middle son has an uncle's name as his second. So - I am dead neutral in this so I don't know why I chipped in.

[booger]

Yes. And there should be tight quotas on names. Let's say that you go to register the birth of your child and you want to call it John Smith. Well, the registrar should look at his database and say 'sorry, John Smith was taken in AD 76. How about John5463453378 Smith?'. A bit like choosing a username really. Alternatively you could be given a suitable alternative like John Percival Arthur William Smith or choose a different Christian name altogether.  Just think how easy it would be to identify one of your ancestors if they had a unique name.