Naming Children

[pinefamily]

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

[Flora1966]

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..

[Rabbit B]

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 

[Su]

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.

[Lal]

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.

[Guyana]

Some time ago I came across two brothers named Charles Henry and Harry Charles

[CV-S]

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.

[Duodecem]

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.

[Floss]

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)