RADICAL VIEWPOINT ABOUT NAMING BABIES?

A new friend told me that he thinks that children who are named after someone exactly but with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. after the name are abused by the naming.  He feels that naming this way automatically puts too much expectation on the child, usually a boy, to follow in some ancestors footsteps.  He says it's usually rich and influential families who name their sons this way, leaving little room for fulfilling one's own interests and talents; if the ancestor was a tycoon so should the child.  He feels family pride is a detriment.

He was so sure of this opinion of his that I had to think about it.

I see what he means, I'm just not sure that he's right most of the time. That's because while naming this way is about class and culture - you could say tribal - I've found such children usually have nicknames that are rather cute and don't carry the burden of the descendant's name except on official forms in adulthood Some of their own friends don't even know that they are a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th.  Also sometimes they choose to go through life with a second or third given name.

Then there's that there are families who are warm, loving, nurturing, and caring for their children and families who are not of all classes and cultures.

However, I did once know a man who was burdened by an authoritarian dad who was a star in the insurance business and disappointed in him because he got a Masters degree and became an English teacher!  Though making a comparatively paltry salary, all his friends growing up who "had" still accepted him because they all figured he didn't really have to work and lived off inheritance.

For the genealogist, while a father's son is a Jr.  And when the father dies, the son is no longer a Jr.  But if he has a son named after him that son is Jr.  A numbered name does not imply direct descent.  A nephew can easily become a second.  A grandchild a third.  Some of the families with this tendency seem to recycle given names!

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SURNAMES - THE SMALLER AMERICAN FAMILY SOMETIMES OPTS FOR A FAMILIAL SURNAME ABOUT TO BECOME EXTINCT.

The typical American family today has an extended

family tree that is more of an inverted pyramid

as fewer children are born to couples.

In some families, the surname is becoming extinct because of the

historically low birth rate.

But, in most places, it is perfectly OK to name a child, even to a

married couple, without using the father's surname.

Some couples are opting to use the rarer surname to preserve it.

WHAT ABOUT THAT NAME POLLY? IS SHE REALLY MARY?

Everyone knows of people who don't go by the name on their birth certificate at all. Maybe it's as simple as turning their birth certificate name Karen into Caryn.

Maybe from the day they were brought home from the hospital everyone called the baby "Dinky" and it stuck, even though "Dinky" is really Angelica and 56 years old.

And then there is the fact that some people changed their names as simple as that; in the days before your social security number was really a citizenship enrollment number and you could be found through it and your credit you really could arrive in a new town, give yourself a new name, and start a new life.


When you're looking for genealogical records, it's important to know something about naming patterns by ethnicity, by family (once you have the chart together you may notice that a certain name has been passed from grandfather to grandson for generations), and through translation (so she was named Zsa Zsa Now she goes by Susan.)

Some Germans, for instance seem to have given their children up to 4 names, based on pattern, but then called the child by the second name.

In some families children are on census by their nicknames which seem to have no relationship to their birth names. In one family I researched the census taker assumed that a girl named Salley was really Sarah and listed her that way, which was incorrect. (The same census taker turned a girl named Toni into a boy named Anthony.)

Years ago someone who was stuck in their research could not find their Polish ancestor who they said was named Walenty in the New York census. The temptation is first to try various misspellings - or change the W to V (common), or to think maybe the man got called Wally. I found Walenty by researching to find that the English translation of this name is Valentine.

In colonial times a great many girls named Mary got called Polly. I have no idea why. I've just found it to be true many times. Patsy was really Martha...

So, if you can't find them by the name you expect, by all means try to find the name in translation, or by nickname!


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