NAMING PATTERNS IN GENEALOGY

In England there was a convention in the order in which ancestors were named although it was not always universally adopted because of traditional regional variations. The usual British naming convention was as follows:

For male children

• The first son was named after the paternal grandfather.
• The second son was named after the maternal grandfather.
• The third son was named after the father.
• The fourth son was named after the oldest paternal uncle.
• The fifth was named after the second oldest paternal uncle or the oldest maternal uncle.
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For female children

• The first daughter was named after the maternal grandmother.
• The second daughter was named after the paternal grandmother.
• The third daughter was named after the mother.
• The fourth daughter was named after the oldest maternal aunt.
• The fifth was named after the second oldest maternal aunt or the oldest paternal aunt.
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But as always, there were some of the variations to the rules!

Children may have been named after prominent people such as royalty or national military heroes, and these names were likely to have become fashionable. Naming a child after a local wealthy landowner was also common in many rural areas.

INotwithstanding the conventional naming patterns, some families might have broken with the tradition and named a child after another family member, usually a relative that had died and so that name was used as a means of remembrance. Recognising the break and change in the family naming pattern for one child is often a clue leading to an earlier generation ancestor.

Babies were often given the same name as a sibling who had died in infancy. For example when a son named William after his paternal grandfather dies, the next male child was also named William rather than take the name of the maternal grandfather, again throwing the sequence of a traditional naming pattern.

Some of these variations on the regular traditional naming pattern were more likely in the nineteenth century in England. In some families there may be two children of the same family living, both having the same forename where for example William was the name of both the paternal and maternal grandfathers.  Families were also not very imaginative when it came to choosing forenames for their children. At this juncture they may be known commonly by a second forename or even a nickname.

Adherence to naming patterns will involve passing the same forenames down by all siblings to their own children and this could confuse unless research is carefully undertaken. If William and Ann have ten children, there are potentially sons and grandsons called William and Ann, so they are cousins of a similar age in the same locality. This means your research has to be stringent to avoid mixing up the families.

Naming patterns can in fact help you to identify which William or Ann is your direct line. It is usually straightforward enough to separate out the lines.  Variations from the traditional patterns could easily provide more information about our ancestors and what was important to them in their lives. The perpetual use of the name of a family member that doesn’t fit the traditional naming pattern suggest the importance of a close relationship with an older member of a family.

Naming patterns used in conjunction with DNA matching frequently identifies family connections. This could be very beneficial to identifying ancestral lines, especially if you have not been able to find many records about a family or if they were perhaps of ethnic origin.  Using naming patterns together with ethnicity and geographical locations to identify similarities can help identify a connection - even where records are not available or have not yet come to light.

When undertaking family history research, remember that a recorded person’s first name may be a nickname. Please bear in mind that nicknames aren't always obvious. Find out which were traditional nicknames such as Peggy for Margaret. A given name on a birth or baptism entry may have become a nickname on a marriage entry. It was not uncommon to see this on census returns... such as Nellie for Ellen or Harry for Henry. Don’t forget to consider possible regional variations as well.  Nicknames were often used to personalise a name and help differentiate between generations where living individuals from more than one generation of a family had the same forename.

When researching your family history you may discover that a family surname is used as either the main or second forename. Such usage is normally a clue to the surname of a female marrying into the family. It is quite common. My own grandfather had the name Dennis Wilding Shouler where Wilding was his mother’s maiden. An earlier ancestor was named Arnold (first forename) John Riches where Arnold was his grandmother’s surname, so various possibilities exit. Analysing given names can help you trace your earlier family history. Knowledge of your ancestor’s religious beliefs can be important too in understanding any family naming patterns. For example, where a saint's name predominates, that may be a strong clue to possible Roman Catholic ancestry.

Always consider given names with the naming patterns in mind. You may be able to dismiss the existence of a pattern and then use other research strategies, but use the assumption of naming patterns first.

If you begin to find unique names in the area, this may indicate that you are searching within the wrong family or place. You may need to carry out a bit of detective work to find out where the name is more common. Then you can continue your research.

When searching for forenames, you may have to use Latin variants, particularly if your ancestor was or could have been Roman Catholic. Doing so may result in a greater number of records, especially where an index is available and the names are not anglicised.

Forenames could easily change as a result of translation and this is particularly true where an ancestor was an immigrant. Very often names were simply anglicised, particularly around the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.