Common Names

[LucasKernan]

I've been doing my family tree since 2018. I have common names in my family tree which are:
MALE
·John
·Robert
·James
·Michael
·David
FEMALE
·Jane
·Mary
·Anna
·Elizabeth
·Sarah

[Girl Guide]

Common names can make it difficult to research your family.    In one of mine I have five generations of the first name George.

Quite often the name is that of a parent, grandparent or other relative.  A nightmare if they have common surnames like Jones, Smith, White etc.  Only too easy to find that you have been following the wrong line.

I hope you have been enjoying your research over the years.  It can be quite fascinating finding information that you didn't know about. 

[Nanna52]

The problem I found with repeated names is you can confuse the generation.  I had one line where the oldest son was named Samuel.  My interest was my 5X great grandfather.  I found the baptism of one of his children, Samuel.  When I checked he would have 117 years when said child was born.  Whoops.

[GrahamSimons]

I've been studying the registers in our parish. Some names are very popular indeed - here are the figures as a percentage of names in the burial register....and if I were to look at 16th-18th century only, there would be even less variety:

female:
Mary 13%
Margaret 11%
Elizabeth 11%
Jane 9%
Agnes 7%

male:
John 32%
Thomas 18%
William 17%
Joseph 7%
Robert 5%

[andrewalston]

I have one branch where all the males seem to be called John, and they all married females called Mary.

Being in Wales, I wonder whether they just called themselves such to confuse the English-speaking clergy.   

[Top-of-the-hill]

  It would be interesting to know where Lucas' ancestors are mainly from, and what time period. I have checked my FH programme, which only lists names alphabetically, so this is a bit of guesswork. The male names in Lucas' list are very different to mine with few Michael, David or even Robert. The female names are similar.
    William
     John
     George
     Edward
    Thomas

    Ann
    Mary
    Sarah
    Elizabeth
    Jane/Margaret

[Erato]

I have nine Benjamin Chapmans.

[GrahamSimons]

I found three baptisms of William son of William and Margaret with the same surname in the same church in one year. Our ancestors didn't plan to make research easy for us.

[Old Bristolian]

Before my father and grandfather who received names popular at the time, I descend from five successive Stephen Bumsteads. On the other hand, tracing my direct maternal line back six generations back to someone born c1780, every person has different first names,

Steve