Naming Patterns of Children (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, September 28, 2012, 15:02 (4512 days ago) @ m p griffiths

Yes MPG you are, of course, correct.
Apologies to all for my perhaps oversimplified or even glib statement, again my own "enthusiastic amateur" label prevails !.

As I'm sure you understand I wasn't trying to rewrite the text books, I was just trying to give the benefit of my short albeit quite intensive FH experience researching many family names across the whole of the UK, trying to help some perhaps less experienced researchers. I believe it's desirable for both those researchers and the forum's future growth if, as well as answering queries with straight "names & dates" replies, such posters are also guided towards performing their own independent research so they will hopefully become more interested in FH as a longterm hobby and ideally want to return to the forum to help others. Before I reply I always try to gauge the knowledge/experience of the poster first.

In my experience (and I think that of others ?) it very much appears that in past times it was indeed relatively common, altho' NOT obligatory as my post maybe implies, for children to be named after one of their parents, maybe as a middle name. If not their parents certainly a close relative - sorry for not making this clearer. This apparent "fact" was something I wasn't aware of at all until I started my FH researches and realised it based on my own experiences, if I had known in advance it would certainly have made my researches easier.

I wrote the above post while trying to guide a poster thro' their veritable "minefield" of pre 1800 Ruardean PRs, which seemed to show such a large if not bewildering number of Thomas Yemms to try and pick from. I've learnt that in those days there were clearly a far smaller variety of forenames than we are used to nowadays, and it does seem that certain names were favoured within particular families. Yes, maybe I should have learnt this from reading a reference book or attending a FH course before attacking the PRs, but like I imagine a majority of us when starting our FH research, I didnt. Perhaps this is naming system is a reflection locally of the "Welsh" systems as you have quite correctly stated, but I think in a very general sense my post was along the correct lines altho of course not literally correct. Sorry again for any misleading confusion, this wasn't my intention.

http://www.familytreeforum.com/content.php/368-Naming-Patterns

atb Jeff.