Genealogy Chat

Does anyone have an opinion or information about how common this practice really was? Or how faithfully people may have followed the custom?
The first son was named after the father's father
The second son was named after the mother's father
The third son was named after the father
The fourth son was named after the father's eldest brother
The first daughter after the mother's mother
The second daughter after the father's mother
The third daughter after the mother
The fourth daughter after the mother's eldest sister
Thanks
Monica

I don't think you are ever going to get a definitive answer to your question.

You would have to have a really massive survey to find out for sure. Some of my family did seem to have some sort of pattern to naming children after relatives but other parts of the family seemed to use random names which don't seem to follow a pattern (at least not that I can see).

For instance my husband has one older brother and another brother who was born and died as a baby just a year before hubby was born.

Eldest of the three was given two names - his maternal grandfather's first name and then his own father's first name as a middle name.

The baby who died was given his paternal grandfather's name.

My husband was given his paternal grandfather's name (same as the baby) as a first name and his own father's middle name as a second name.

I guess they really wanted a child to have his paternal grandfather's name which is why hubby was given the same first name as the baby who died.

Kath. x

Sorry this tradition was supposed to be quite popular in 1750-1875, England not currently.

Yes, I realised that you meant in the past but I still think it is unlikely that you can know for sure as some families will have gone with tradition and others will have gone their own way - just as they do now.

Kath. x

also some families named their children after the godparents, not parents.


Most of the families I've traced back for myself and OH, some to the 16th century, do not seem to follow any kind of naming pattern!



I have been told that it was more common in Scotland, but don't know how true that is.

My Scottish ancestors (and also to a lesser extent my Irish ones) followed the traditional naming pattern very conscientiously but not so my English ones. You would usually expect to see a son named after his father and/or grandfather, but that's about all.

The naming patterns are far used far more in Scotland and Ireland.

But in England is would appear to be less probable.

But saying that, I have 5 Georges (father, son etct.) but that is only in 1 branch of my family. The rest not.

But I do have alternate naming pattern occuring twice. i.e. Son named after Grandfather, so I have James, Henry, James. Henry. And Charles, James, Charles, James. And this is in 2 totally different branches.

So some families even have their own unique patterns.

I could easily be grasping at straws, my 4 X gr-grandfather George named his oldest son Joseph, and I would like to be able to assume that George's father was also named Joseph. There are no Josephs on Sarah, the mother's side of the family, actually none of George's 4 sons are named after people on the mother's side of the family.
After further studying Sarah's family none of her siblings named their kids after their parents either, maybe no one liked them, or this naming tradition concept was not really that popular.
I have been trying to track down George's family for 3 years, yes many people on this site have also looked for him, including Derek the Derbyshire expert, and a paid researcher in the UK.
I have almost decided that either he was adopted, or was an alien.

My advice would be - NEVER assume anything! :-(

Before you know it you have spent hours, and possibly pounds, following a line that is quite wrong. :-( :-(

I am speaking from bitter experience and I know I'm not the only one on here that has done the same.

You are completely correct, I have spent 3 years looking for records of his existence in Derbyshire, shown on one census as his birthplace and paying someone to research original records,
I am in Canada so nothing original here, there are many on line sources that have been useful for his descendants and original family records. Other than the possibility of his being an alien, my only other option is that the Chesterfield listed as his birthplace, is the tiny village in Staffordshire, now part of Shenstone and not in Derbyshire at all, it would make more sense.
But it has taken me all this time to realize that the census record could be incomplete or misleading.

another factor that has to be considered when you cannot find a record confirming the father's name is that the child came under one of the 2 following situations ........


1. Illegitimate, and picked a name because it looked better on tha marriage certificate for the in-laws.

In this case, the "name" picked could be a family member (eg, grandfather, uncle), a local well-known figure (estate owner, mayor), a combination of names, or just possibly the name of his birth father if told to him by other family members


2. The birth father was married to the birth mother but died so young (or left the family) that the child never knew of him. He then assumes the name of a stepfather, or common-law partner of his mother.

The only tradition that I have found quite often in my family is to give a daughter the maiden name of her mother as a middle name - in one case that one plus the maiden name of her father's mother. It can be quite useful if a girl has an odd middle name that sounds more like a surname and has helped me several times to find her mother's maiden name.

Sue

His name was George Ross, born in abt 1798, that closely matches the age given on censuses from 1841 to 1881 and the age on his death certificate. The 1861 Census says born Chesterfield, Derbyshire, 1871, says Chesterfield, Yorkshire, and the 1881 just Chesterfield. If he was born in the hamlet of Chesterfield, Staffordshire it makes much more sense as there were lots of Rosses in the area, mostly in Walsall and Bloxwich, he married someone from Pelsall, his first child was born in Pelsall, the other 11 children were all born in Bloxwich where the family lived in and where he worked as a cabinet locksmith and later employed 10 people in a stirrup making business.

ASSUME - makes an ASS of U and ME

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D <3

The only tradition we have is-the child's second name is often a relatives first name-in this case Joseph the son-doesn't have a second name-neither do any of his siblings so no help there.