names and traditions

[plumbercarl]

as i seem to have now come to a full stop in with my family tree,,,i would like to ask your advice ,, on how a child may have been given its name? So to start i have a samuel bennett died 1839 manchester aged 34,,, he had 3 sons,,, William B1835 samuel B1837 and george B1839,,,, so as he gave is second son is own name,,, who may he have named the first child William after?? when looking at the date the child was born the location etc,,,, what would you say was the most popular way to name the child in this era,,,,, and a little bit different samuel had died befour the birth of his last son george so it would be the mother who named the child any guises how the child may have been given the name

[Jan1954]

The traditional naming pattern in England was as follows:

1st Son: Father's Father
2nd Son: Mother's Father
3rd Son: Father
4th Son: Father's Eldest Brother
1st Daughter: Mother's Mother
2nd Daughter: Father's Mother
3rd Daughter: Mother
4th Daughter: Mother's Eldest Sister
...and so on

However, that was not always the case but does go part way to explaining why it is so easy to confuse families if common names were used.

Mind you, I am still struggling to work out why my great, great grandfather John Smith named his eldest son Pharaoh....

[Zen Rabbit]

Very useful Jan. Though in reply to the original poster William was a very popular name possibly due to it being the name of the monarch who preceded Victoria.

[Zen Rabbit]

Was your GGGrandfather a Methodist? They seem to have gone in for Biblical names over traditional names, which is how I managed to get a Moses out of a long line of Thomases

[Jan1954]

Was your GGGrandfather a Methodist?

Nope, but my great, great grandfather John Smith's 4th son (also John Smith so completely out of the traditional naming pattern) became a Baptist in later life and many Biblical names are certainly in evidence then.

[Nicolina]

Maybe my family has always gone against "tradition" apart from several generations of the eldest child being, William son of William, my father was christened George Thomas Alfred after three of his paternal uncles. William was given to a younger brother as a middle name. However when it came to us dad insisted that we only be given one name that could not be shortened, my brother Malcolm being the odd one out because Dad, was overseas at the time and, had no say in the matter. All my cousins were also given "different" names.
I've also found that mother's tended to name the kids.
(I have the distinction of being the first ever member of our large families (paternal & maternal) to be given the name Elaine.At the last count there are now seven of us worldwide. )

[pwholt]

In some lists of names that I have for historical period, William comes first in 1800 and 1850 and second in 1700. In fact, for much of the period, John and William interchange in first and second place. George comes from 10th in 1700 to 5th in 1800, 3rd in 1850 & 1875; Samuel is 11th in 1700, 1800 and 10th in 1850. Penguin Dictionary of First Names by David Pickering, 1999 is not the source of the above but has the same information for William and George. As it only considers the top 10 names, Samuel doesn't figure in the list. My own experience is that the locale of the name can change the concentration of names. For example, Moses will be more used in some parishes than others, despite its popularity overall. (38th in 1700, 31 in 1800 and joint 47th in 1850. pwholt

[Zen Rabbit]

Jan's naming pattern has been a bit of an eye opener for me.
Looking at my family records their are curious divergencies but ones which seem to have explanations. My first ancestor had but one son, who was named after his father. However there was then a bit of a falling out and his son (who left for lichfield) named his first son (who died) Christien, a name not recorded in the family previously. His first surviving son is named after his elder brother and he doesn't name a son after his father until many years (and many children) later until after his father dies in fact and names him in his will. This seems to kick start a tradition of naming the first born son after the father rather than the father's father which persists until 1730 and the early death of both a father and his son leave an orphaned ancestor who uses the names of his wifes familuy for the male line, where upon ti reverts afterwards to the tradition Jan posted

[Mutley]

I am sure that many fathers named the first son with their own name.
Just in case they did not manage to achieve 3 sons.

However, if their father was the stronger personality perhaps they had to hope for two sons to get a look in.