why would thee be no child name or sex on a birth certificate

[cornishwalker]

Hi
basically they title is the question
I have a birth certificate which the parents are the same as my Great Grandfather's. the birth is a few years after his.
But there are no details of the child only the mothers name, maiden name and the father, the address is the same as where they were living in the previous census
I just wondered why name and sex were not recorded

[Gan Yam]

Not sure why the sex wouldn't be recorded, but my grandparents had a child who died at 2 days old and they didn't give her a name, she's just recorded as "female" on her birth, death and burial records.

[cornishwalker]

Thank you for your help, the child did die young I will get the death record and see what I can find

[Jon_ni]

look at any copy of a GRO birth cert you have.
Column 2 Name, if any.
Column 10, Name entered after registration.

10) required the parents to go back after baptism with a baptism cert from the church and there was a fee as the local GRO had to forward modified details to GRO London who had to update/annotate the quarterly indices. The majority of parents did not bother adding the forname retrospectively.

Fairly common in Ireland but plenty of Female and Male + Surname in England eg search just 1901 on FreeBMD or Ancestry using those as fornames + a few Unknown + Surname and Unknown Unknowns (foundlings).
Sex would normally be recorded. Who was the informant?

[Andrew Tarr]

Not sure why the sex wouldn't be recorded, but my grandparents had a child who died at 2 days old and they didn't give her a name, she's just recorded as "female" on her birth, death and burial records.

One of my gt-grandfathers' siblings was a twin born in 1844, registered and named two days later.  He died just 3 days afterwards but was not named, presumably because he had not been baptised.

I also know of a child on my wife's tree, registered as male but female at every subsequent appearance.  So maybe not all details can be trusted ?