Parents naming their children same as themselves

R

Rose65

Well-known Member
Location
United Kingdom
I happened to read that George Foreman named all five sons George, because he wants to ensure his name is not forgotten. I find this intriguing. Apparently they do have their own nicknames to differentiate.
I wonder if this is mainly an American tradition or do the English do this? I wonder if many women call daughters the same as themselves? I know in America sons are often known as 'second or third' but same name as dad.
 

It's a tradition in the South to name a child after a parent but I've never heard of giving all children the same name!!! I'm the 4th or 5th?? generation Anne (or variation) in my family. There are Annas, Annes, Annies and some are called by another part of their name.

My dad is William and in our surname line the name goes back to the 1670s in Maryland. When I try to find where in England he came from, I come upon several living men in England with our surname called William . Looking for a William ____ in one of our family genealogy books is just about useless since there are three and a half pages of William _____ in the index.
 
It's been a tradition in the UK for longer than I've been alive..my own grandparents named their children after themselves.

The first born son was named after my great grandfather my granny's father The first born girl was named after my grandmother..

The second son was named after my grandfather ( my father)... the 3rd son was named after my granny's brother..... and so it went on...

When my fathers; first son was born ( my eldest brother) he was named after my father... then the second son was named after my father's brother, and my paternal great grandfather... then my mother put her foot down, she didn't want any of her girls to be named after anyone.. so instead she gave me ( the first born girl).. the middle name of both grandmothers, and my oldest Paternal Aunt...My next sister was given the middle name of my paternal grandmothers' surname... the next kids after that weren't named after anyone.. ( are you still keeping up ) ? :D


Sooo my grandfather, my father, My eldest brother .. all have the same first name... and my eldest brothers' first born son, ( my nephew) also has that name....

The rest of us siblings.. have not named our children after anyone... except my second brother who named one of his daughters' the female version of his name
 
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I'm a Jr. But when we had our 1st kid I sort of kind of guided the decision on his first and middle names to not be from either my side or her side of the family.

When our second and third came along though I made no comment when she wanted to use two of her brothers' first names as these kids' middle names. She liked my suggestions for their first names, so in a sense I chose those.
 
In the case of George Foreman's sons, I wondered how confusing it would be for official documents? Very confusing indeed if full names are exactly the same.
 
On my father's side, the eldest sons were called William, but that seems to have died out. It was also common for the eldest daughter to have the mother's maiden name as a middle name. This is the case with my sister.

Ironically, my mother insisted that no grandchildren should be named after her and was annoyed when my brother gave the first daughter the middle name Margaret - my mother's name.
 
Imagine someone has male or female identical twins with the same names and dates of birth. They are indistinguishable for administrational purposes. If one of them loses the driving license, he/she could use the license of the twin.
 
I share the same first name as my father, but not wishing for me to be called “Junior,” they gave me a different middle name which I dislike. I would have been ok with being a “Junior.” After all, “Junior Mints“ are just as good as the full-sized version… 😺

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My dad didn't have a middle name and I've got his first name and they did give me a middle name....same last name of course.

My son has my first name but a different middle name from mine.

Both of his sons (my grand kids) have his first name but different middle names.

So it's five males all with the same first and last name but with different middle names.
 
When George Foreman named all his kids George my husband and I had the same first name and it’s spelled the same. So we joked we would name all our kids Terry and it wouldn’t matter if they were male or female. We didn’t do that of course because it’s weird🤣.
 
George is a good kid, but George is a handful, he's always starting fights with George. George tries to intercede, because he's the oldest. George too young to be helpful, but not as young as George who is now in potty training.
 
George1959 said:
Imagine someone has male or female identical twins with the same names and dates of birth. They are indistinguishable for administrational purposes. If one of them loses the driving license, he/she could use the license of the twin.
Click to expand...
it's that sort of reason why it's illegal here to name your children the same names.. as each other
 
In generations older than mine I saw a lot of people named for parents or grandparents. It was less prevalent when the Boomers had kids and is increasingly rare among people I know. Lately I've seen many cases where people honor a grandparent by using their first name as a child's middle name.
 
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