Taking a secod name?

[Essnell]

Hi Rootschatters,

I have recently been going through extended families and DNA matches.  I am finding that a good many individuals were registered and even Baptised / Christened without a second first name but later find they have a acquired a second first name which they used more than their birth name. 

Was it possible that this may have been connected to a Confirmation Ceremony when they took a second name?    or was it common just to decide to have a second name.

It's got me wondering .  It has also made identifying people quite awkward.
comments please  and thanks for ideas. 
Essnell

[Biggles50]

We have the opposite.

Four first names, William Francis Christopher Bell (the Bell after his Paternal Grandmother).

He lost all but the William in later documents, possible because there was not room on the documents to list them all.

You need a magnifying glass to read his Baptism entry.

[Pheno]

Hi Rootschatters,

I have recently been going through extended families and DNA matches.  I am finding that a good many individuals were registered and even Baptised / Christened without a second first name but later find they have a acquired a second first name which they used more than their birth name. 

Was it possible that this may have been connected to a Confirmation Ceremony when they took a second name?    or was it common just to decide to have a second name.

It's got me wondering .  It has also made identifying people quite awkward.
comments please  and thanks for ideas. 
Essnell

Yes it became very popular to have two first names and for those who didn't they simply either used a family name or chose something they liked and continued to use it for the rest of their lives.

Pheno

[Forfarian]

Lots of people in my tree have acquired or lost one or more given names, or shuffled the order, in the course of their lives.

I've also read somewhere, but I can't find it again now, that the churches only recognised the first given name, so many people upon whom middle names were bestowed appear in baptism registers with only one given name.

This shouldn't affect civil registration, of course.

[Zaphod99]

Having worked in an environment where SECOD means SEcure COntrol of Data, I was intrigued by the subject but ultimately disappointed.  It's an important concept in family history research, though.

Zaph

[GR2]

What sometimes happens is that a John Smith is called after, for example his maternal grandfather John MacDonald. He is baptised, registered and known as John Smith, but later in life starts using both his grandfather's names and signs himself John MacDonald Smith.

One 19th century cousin of mine was plain John Runcie until he married a lady with a middle name and had children with middle names. Being of a poetic bent, he thereafter called himself John Milton Runcie.

[Gillg]

My mother's family had an annoying habit of giving their children two forenames, but usually calling the children by their second forename, e.g. John Peter, always called Peter.  My cousin and I both suffered from this custom and are always called by our second forenames (thank goodness in my case, since my first forename is ghastly.  I was named after two of my ancient aunts.)  This naming habit goes back several generations, so with some ancestors I don't know which of their two names they used.  I hate it when my name is called out somewhere, as in a hospital waiting room, because they always use my first forename.  I have warned nurses in hospital never to try and resuscitate me by calling my first name, as I won't respond!

[KGarrad]

My maternal grandfather was proving difficult to find on the 1911 census.
Finally found him, and his siblings, all under their second names!
And in Bedminster, Bristol rather than rural Wiltshire.

[Jomot]

The only person in my tree that acquired a second name later in life was a great aunt who converted to Catholicism and then frequently switched between her birth name and her confirmation name. 

I do have several people though - all men I think - who acquired a middle initial after they emigrated to the US.  Never a full second name, just an initial!