I seem to have been on holiday quite often when twitterchats occurred this first half of the year.

What naming patterns have you found in your family tree? What country or culture were these from?

I have 9 Daniel, 8 Thomas and 6 John all with Horgan surname and only a few with second names in my database

And Duncan1, Duncan 2 etc etc. Mind you, an early death of Patrick Callaghan and his wife taking over after the father led me to the grandfather’s name and DNA nailed it down.

Lots of naming babies after siblings who had died amongst my Buckinghamshire families

The Scottish naming pattern was followed for many generations. I have used it extensively to find missing family members. I found my paternal 3xg grandparents that way.

These Scottish traditions continued in various forms even to me. I have my grandmother’s first name and my great grandmother’s maiden name. And now my great niece is named for me

given my heritage – Traditional Irish naming pattern although it was present in Europe pre 19C, the more rural the family the more likely it was to persist into early 20C. In English branch, use of maternal ancestors’ surname as given name particularly helpful

there has been a son named George born in my mothers family every generation since 1784, the current George in the family is now aged 30

Parents who name a child after a deceased sibling. In my paternal line I have one family who named three sons Isaac – the first died at 2 months, the second at 5 years, the third lived to 89!

Had to remind myself re Scottish pattern: 1st son named after father’s father, 2nd son named after mother’s father, 3rd son named after father, 1st daughter named after mother’s mother, 2nd daughter named after father’s mother, 3rd daughter named after mother

Lots of William, Edward, John, George on one side, and Rose, George, John on the other! (These ancestors are from England.) Catherine/Kathleen were also popular names (great grandmothers – Australian born).

Another interesting pattern is that some babies were called the same name as a previous baby in the family who died (infant death). Saw examples of this on both sides of the family in particular generations.

A third pattern I’ve seen is that several ancestors (particularly the women) were known by their middle name, rather than their first name, to such an extent that no-one seemed to know their actual first name!

Or by a nickname that doesn’t seem to correlate to the baptism name. Of course with all those repeated names it’s not surprising really. I think the Irish used names that reflected hair colour, height etc

Yes, I’ve seen that too. An Amelia known as Martha (or a Martha known as Amelia). And there are lots of examples of this among the males too. I’m extremely fortunate that both of my parents are alive and have been able to tell me some of these nicknames.

 

then on my father’s mother’s side of the family – the CARRETTs, all the eldest sons were called George Henry Charles. Here is a photo of my uncle, his father, his grandfather and great grandfather…all called George Henry Charles CARRETT. #bricklayers pic.twitter.com/nC006vFnds

— alex daw (@luvviealex) May 11, 2021

Are family names a tradition in your immediate family? Do you, parents, grandparents or children have inherited family names?

A2 (with a dash of A4) my middle name is a Scottish ancestral surname, albeit one whose spelling was changed three or four generations ago to match that of an apparently unrelated famous person – an explorer

In my family we have all the Williams and all the Davids!! Hubby’s family have an unusual middle name which one of them adopted to scam their way into an inheritance. He hoped it would make him seem more connected to someone with pots of money. It didn’t work.

Also, in my father’s family they are all called Patrick, Thomas, Michael or John. That’s it. The girls have a huge variety of names, but the boys… take your pick of the four, and lump it.

We have lots of Williams in the family. if it’s not a first name its a second name. My husband is David William and my grandson is Digby William. A cousin is William and another Nicholas William…..

I named my daughter after my mother’s mother Kit and her twin sister Belle. Belle was named by her mother Kate Amelia ELLIS after her grandmother Isabella SINCLAIR who was named after her mother Isabella BIRRELL who was named after her mother Isabella MENZIES.

my children not named after grandparents etc. had great difficulty agreeing on boys name after teaching the odd few ratbags! Didn’t know about naming patterns at that stage 😅

I love finding connections between names. One of my granddaughters aged 16 months is named Clementine and I found I have a 6th g grandmother named Clementine born 1722 in Polstead, Suffolk.

have you found ancestors whose second marriages are to partners who have the same first name as wife#1?

yes! And how about wives who have the same name as mothers or sisters. I guess that is somewhat predictable with names like John or Mary but sometimes I do wonder if there is a psychological element to it.

Don’t need to go back far. My younger brother has had two wives with the same first name. My 2xg grandfather had two wives called Janet

I am still trying to find missing family members based on the naming pattern. If a name is missing, then what happened to that child?

My father was named for his grandparents, his grandfather’s first name and grandmother’s maiden name.

I find it interesting to discover who people were named after. often it is someone who died in infancy a generation earlier. My maternal grandmother I found was named after an aunt who died aged 7 years of Scarlet fever

My mother was named Jean after Robert Burns’ wife and Annesley as a variation of Ansley, her 2xgreat grandmother’s maiden name.

I wish I had know more about family naming traditions when trying to think of a name for our son. My Father and Uncle have Scott middle names however I did not know its relevance to previous people.  My Mum’s middle name is after my grandfathers sister and my Aunt’s middle name is after one of my Nana’s sisters. Their 2 brother, my uncles follow many of the Dawson male names so they have a kind of a system.

In my father’s Bos family, through the centuries, the unusual name Cent was inherited. My aunt married someone from another branch of the family, and he still had a brother named Cent. The name is probably short for VinCent. The first one was a woman Centje.

Do you have family surnames that are occupational, place or geographic feature names, patronymic/matronymic or unusual names?

No occupational or place that I can see in my direct line – mainly Scottish names in my pedigree, lots of Macs and others.

The worse surname is Farish which I have found in about a dozen different variations. Now descendants have different names.

My generation 12 ancestor was named after the Hoitink (then spelled Hooijckijnck) farm in the Winterswijk, Netherlands where he lived. In that area, people named themselves after the farm and often changed names when they moved.

Most of my Irish lines have surnames that are ma/patronymic, (Mac – son of, O’ – daughter of), some are Norse origin e.g., Ballesty, and are occupational. In English branch, locational e.g. Melhuish, Quance, or Skey, and occupational e.g. Gardener, Baker

One of my ancestral surnames is Tunnecliffe (and variants thereof), which is a locational name.  It’s useful to look at spelling variants of your surname when researching.

forgot to mention husband has CULLINGTON THIRTLE and CAMPLING in Norfolk not sure of origins

I have a few names that are not so much unusual as odd. BUGG. DITTY and SPRICKS

Occupational: There’s a “Farmer” family…that’s the only one I can think of at the moment. ‘Soady’ is a fairly unusual name. That family came from Cornwall originally.

Have an Irish Smyth and a son became a blacksmith in early 20thC in SA

The English surnames in consider most unusual in my family are Ollerensha and Glayahorne (later Gleghorn) (Northumberland) and Gotobed (Bedfordshire)

Those are wonderful surnames Sharn. Have you found much about their origins? Are they dialectical for places or events, or for physical attributes like Moylan (bald) and Maguire (son of the dark coloured one)? irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/new…

Tara I am not yet certain of their origins. Glayahorn was a surname in Northumberland so I’m wondering if it is Norse. Ollerensha is an old Leicestershire name only recently discovered so I am still looking into that one.

That will be half the fun Sharn – what delicious names for research!

My great grandfather’s middle name, Welfare is a mystery. It isn’t a family surname. He was born in 1878. This name hasn’t appeared anywhere else in the family either before his birth or since

Unusual surnames TUDGEY GINGELL CROWSON not sure of origins first 2 probably Wiltshire

while a couple of surnames have derivative meanings, I treat these with a large grains of salt and believe they go back many, many generations…unless my Partridge ancestors were birds…lol.

Names which reflect geographic and nature features in my family include Ash, Berry, Birch, Bird, Brook. Bullock, Ferns, Field, Finch, Fox, Marsh, Woods

I’ve noticed over the years when trawling parish registers that abandoned babies are sometimes given the surname of the place where they were born/found.

My mc and mac patronymic surnames from Scotland and Ireland include McDade, McCleary, McGonigal, McClusky, McCulloch, McDeraid, McAdams, McKenzies, McIver, McMurray, McAllister, McDonald, McEwan, McGourlay, McGowan, McIndoe, O’Brien

I have McEwans @SharnWhite also known as McQueen/McQuien/McQuinn/McQuane Had a terrible time following them through the spelling variants

Occupational names in my family include Turner, Baillie (Scotland meaning a Bailiff) Baker, Beedle, Binder, Miller, Carter, Cook/Cooke, Cooper, Farmer, Gardener, Smith

pretty sure the FORFARs in my family tree are named after FORFAR in Scotland. Most unusual name award goes to my husband’s family tree which contains a family with the surname PROVERBS. #Barbados.His GRIEVES were also farmers.Grieve means overseer on a farm.

The English surnames in consider most unusual in my family are Ollerensha and Glayahorne (later Gleghorn) (Northumberland) and Gotobed (Bedfordshire)

Have you found instances where your family have changed a surname due to war, immigration, political or for other reasons?

My 2nd husband’s great grandparents changed their names when they went from Tasmania to New Zealand – forced emigrants from the UK!

Dickson has been changed to Dixon at times so that I have to look for DNA matches and records with other spellings

on a distant branch of my Bone family from Cornwall who moved to Lancashire, they then emigrated to Australia and changed their surname to Bowen, I wonder whether it may of been the accent that caused the change, got fed up repeating its Bone not Bowen

In Hubby’s family one Byrnes sibling changed his name to Burns after a family feud.

Besides the great-great-grandfather who changed his surname to evade the collapse of Caroline Chisholm’s loan scheme, the Hornery/Honnery family name turned out to be an over-anglicised Huguenot “Honoré”

Surname change? Apart from the reattachment of “O’…” not for those reasons, at least as far as I know right now. Most of my surname variations are due to language issues, listener/scribe recording phonetically what they hear and that’s influenced by accent.

The first one that comes to mind is O’Regan (in Ireland) changing to Regan (in Australia). James Regan, who found gold at Ballarat, was my ancestor. eurekapedia.org/James_Regan

I have not found name changes except for spelling variation. Or name changes for step children. Even then they sometimes reverted to their biological fathers name later in life.

My g uncle by marriage was from Lithuania. When his family travelled through Scotland on route to the US they changed their name from Utella to Smith. but passed the original surname down as a middle name

I had ancestors who changed their surnames to hide from deserted wives, police or MI5. These were hard to track down just as they had intended!

Tons of examples of their surnames being given different spellings at different times…down to accents, illiteracy etc.

But I suspect that my husband’s ancestor Robert James DAW changed his name after his 2nd spell in the big house for failing to pay maintenance on his children in an orphanage after their mother Jane Daw nee SILCOCK died in 1901

My name-changers are my Irish family who arrived in Australia with the surname SHERRY (consistent with their Irish records). After arrival, parents & accompanying “children” changed the surname to McSHARRY. Eldest son & family, a year later, to McSHERRY

My McCorquodale name has a bazillion different spellings incl Macquorquodale. I search using M*or*dale which gets most of them. It has Norse background.

No surname changes other than due to the recorder not knowing how to spell before any standard spelling especially the unusual my ONS has alternative spellings

My Kunkel name has remained unchanged across the generations despite wars and immigration. Not even a missing umlaut over the u. I’m quite proud of them for not succumbing to pressure of wartime mania.

My German g g grandfather changed his surname from NERGER to NARGAR in the later 1890’s in Qld. I believe given that an E in German sounds like A in English, that the name was incorrectly written and he adopted the English spelling

 

Blog posts and books:

Maggie and the surname Tunnicliffe

Alex and did her ancestor change his surname from Daw?

Carmel wonders how some people got their names.

#ANZAncestryTime Did we talk about surname books last night? Here’s one for Ireland. https://t.co/zEg1rrZSRH

— Brooke Wooldridge (@BrookeWooldy) May 11, 2021