Traditional Family names

hollydolly

hollydolly

SF VIP
Location
London England
When I ws young it was common espeically in Celtic families like mine to pass down the name of the father or mother to the first son or first girl...and often the second children would be named after an uncle or aunt..

This is what happened in my family .. My grandfather's name was Charlie, my Father, My elder brother, and his son my nephew , and his son too .. all Charlie,

I was the first born girl..but my mother was determined that I wasn't going to be named after anyone in the family.. so I was given both my grandmothers' names ( they had the same first name).. as my middle name

My next Brother was named after our paternal Uncle and also the name of my Maternal grandfather , who shared the name ..

One of my sisters' was given the surname of my maternal grandmother as her middle name


How about you..did this happen in your family ?
 

We were supposed to use the same first letter of a lost loved one, i.e. Little Thomas was named for his deceased grandfather Timothy. The loved one must be deceased. We did not do this when our son was named, so I guess I broke the mold.
 
Pepper said:
We were supposed to use the same first letter of a lost loved one, i.e. Little Thomas was named for his deceased grandfather Timothy. The loved one must be deceased. We did not do this when our son was named, so I guess I broke the mold.
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Oh that's interesting, that your family chose only to name children after deceased family members... was that for any particular reason?

All my grandparents and uncles etc were very much alive when we were named after them ..in fact it's never occurred to me until now, but my father was the 3rd eldest of 16 kids.. 3 or 4 who died as children, none of us were given those children's names , maybe superstition being Irish/Scots..I don't know , but everyone was alive and well of whose names we were given
 

It's part of Jewish traditions on naming, must be "tribal" as not every Jew has this "rule." i.e. I've met Jews who will name children with the full first name of a relative, and (GASP) sometimes the relative is ALIVE. Shocking. Horror of horrors.

For example: I have the same first initial as my Great-Grandma, let's call her "Patricia"---when I was given a P name, my father's boss' mother had been named "Paula"---so, the boss paid my father to name me Paula instead of Patricia, as no one in his family was allowed to do so, and the boss wanted someone he knew to have his mother's exact name. So, I have 2 birth certificates: one for Patricia and one for Paula.
 
No it didn't, thankfully. Dad's name was Parciphal but he shortened it to Percy. But, amusingly, my actual name is that of a 1940's film star, a huge celebrity of his day, and that is, Robert Taylor. Thankfully, I don't share any of my namesake's actual name. I'm not surprised that he changed it, the latter being: "Spangler Arlington Bruge."
 
Pepper said:
It's part of Jewish traditions on naming, must be "tribal" as not every Jew has this "rule." i.e. I've met Jews who will name children with the full first name of a relative, and (GASP) sometimes the relative is ALIVE. Shocking. Horror of horrors.
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wow... !!

In our family there was never any confusion about who was who if we were all int eh same place..for example, one would be called Charlie, another chic. another chaz.. another Charles.. same with the females..Margaret, meg, peggy etc..
 
horseless carriage said:
No it didn't, thankfully. Dad's name was Parciphal but he shortened it to Percy. But, amusingly, my actual name is that of a 1940's film star, a huge celebrity of his day, and that is, Robert Taylor. Thankfully, I don't share any of my namesake's actual name. I'm not surprised that he changed it, the latter being: "Spangler Arlington Bruge."
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Parciphal.... wow, wasn't that the name of an Opera by Wagner.. was your dad German ?
 
No naming traditions in my family as far as I know. My dad chose our first names and mom chose our middle names, but that's just what they decided; there was no precedence. Dad chose the names of prominent statesmen for his sons. My name is actually Franklin, but I've always used the foreshortened "Frank."

But everyone in my family calls me Mick because that's what dad started calling me when I was a toddler. No one knows why, and I never asked him.
 
Pepper said:
We were supposed to use the same first letter of a lost loved one.
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Same in my family. My first and middle names begin with the first letters of my two deceased grandmothers. I don't think that applied to my two older brothers though...I think my mom just picked names she liked, not really sure.

My oldest brother didn't approve of the first name my mom picked out for me (she was a classmate who he disliked), so he got to choose my name!
 
One of my sisters was born on my maternal grandmother's birthday. There were some words exchanged when my mother didn't name the baby after her in any way.

In my late husband's family there were 11 kids. The next generation started recycling names. At family reunions, you had to ask, "Now are you talking about Chuck's John or Cathy's John. Third generation did the same thing. Now you have 3-4 Johns and at least a half dozen Cathys.

We declined to participate in the naming game.
 
Eldest sister's middle name was an aunt
Oldest brother had mom's maiden name as his first but he was called by his second
Next brother's middle name was a co-worker friend of parents
Me - I received my mothers middle name and passed it on to my daughter
Next sister's middle name was an aunt
Next sister's 2 middle names were the nurses that helped deliver him
Last son - was picked out of a book?
 
CinnamonSugar said:
No family name traditions that I know of but my parents named all four of us kids with names that started with 'J.'

As the youngest, I lost count of how many times I got called "Jimmyjoejanetjeanne"
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Now, I see that all the time.. doesn't that cause huge confusion in the house when the Mail Comes addressed to J Smith ?
 
On my father's side, instead of naming the first born son after the father with 'Jr.' added at the end of his name, the child would get the first name of his father and his mother's maiden name would become his middle name. They were Scottish.
 
My Mom named Her first child Salvatore after My Dad's father. Next my sister she named Charlotte after a book she read. When I was born she hadn't picked out a name because she lost my twin in the 2nd month of pregnancy and she thought I would never survive. I was born exactly on my due date and weighed 7 Pounds. My Dad asked the nurse her name and she said it was Barbara Jane. My Mom said she liked Barbara but it had to be Barbara Ann because she prayed to St Ann. Besides the fact that I already had cousins named after both my Grandmothers.
 
Ours just keeps recycling them ....no particular order. I'm the 5th generation of a variant of Ann on my mom's side and one of my nieces continues that tradition. On my dad's side, there are several pages of William as a given name in a genealogy directory of his surname ...by far the most common given name in that family; my dad and nephew are both named William.
 
hollydolly said:
When I ws young it was common espeically in Celtic families like mine to pass down the name of the father or mother to the first son or first girl...and often the second children would be named after an uncle or aunt..

....

How about you..did this happen in your family ?
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Have been trying to track down a ggggg-something grandfather using Scottish naming patterns. Only problem is the name is John Fraser born in Inverness-shire in the 1720s. Will probably never find that due to scant records at that time (lots of losses post Culloden) and the fact that there are a lot!!! of John Frasers through centuries in the Highlands.
 
AnnieA said:
Have been trying to track down a ggggg-something grandfather using Scottish naming patterns. Only problem is the name is John Fraser born in Inverness-shire in the 1720s. Will probably never find that due to scant records at that time (lots of losses post Culloden) and the fact that there are a lot!!! of John Frasers through centuries in the Highlands.
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there certainly is.. ..yes John Fraser a very common name indeed in my home country.....and of course Inverness-shire is the largest county in Scotland covering not only towns and cities but the outlying Islands as well... including the outer Hebrides, where parish records weren't always kept for births and deaths...
 
Funny ... I like being original, and not overusing family names.

When our first daughter was born, the first grandchild on both sides, everyone in the family thought they knew what her name would be ..... as she had one grandmother & two great grandmothers named "Mary" ....

NO WAY was that even a consideration ... I guess they got over it.
 

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