Are there naming patterns for middle-names?.....

[sheilajim]

Who Knows
My mother was named Letitia Morin Macdonald and her older sister was named Agnes Boyd Macdonald. My mother told me that she had been named for her paternal grandmother and her sister had been named for her maternal grandmother. This gave me a good start in my geneological search. I found out that she was right. I also found out that my grandmother was named Mary McKinnon McLaren. Sure enough, her gramdmother was Mary Mckinnon. My mother had also mentioned that we were related to Dunns and Kennedys. I found the Kennedys but not yet the Dunns. Her paternal grandfather was named John Dunn McDonald, who also named his eldest son John Dunn McDonald. With the help of JustJean, I found the marriage register of this ggrandfather listed strangely as John Dunn. It turned out that his father was also named John Dunn McDonald. So far I haven't found where the Dunn comes from.

One of the problems of the registers and censuses is that they usually don't give the middle name.

Sheila

[Anne H]

Hi Dennis,

I haven’t come across the name Lennox in any of my searches but I noticed at some point you had downloaded a death certificate for a James Hogg Drysdale…I haven’t come across the name Drysdale either and I don’t know if this will be of any help, but IGI has the following:

Batch #M100121, dates 1820-1854
James Drysdale married to Mary Duncan 10 Jan 1824 in Dunfermline.

Batch #M100121, dates 1750-1819
George Hog married Margaret Duncan 15 Dec 1792, Dunfermline.

Could there possibly be a connection here? You may have come across this info before, but if not, it might be worth looking into.

If I come across your names in the future, I’ll let you know. Lots of luck!

Regards,
AnneH

[Jack]

Hi Dennis,

Have you found out why James' brother Henry has the middle name of DEAS?
Just hoping their middle names came about for the same reason!

I take it the parents of John LENNOX & Elisabeth DRYSDALE yield no clues?
--
There's this marriage in the IGI linking Hogg with Drysdale, but not on the face of it to Lennox.

JAMES HOGG
MARGARET DRYSDALE
Marriage: DEC 1820 Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
--
Also this birth not too far away from John Lennox & Elizabeth Drysdale in Dunfermline & Inverkeithing.

JAMES HOGG OR DRYSDALE
Birth: 11 MAR 1856 Clackmannan, Clackmannan, Scotland
Father: JAMES HOGG
Mother: MARGARET DRYSDALE
--
But very possibly all just a coincidence.

Jack

[Dennis]

Hello Jack.

I know that Henry's dad, John Lennox ( husband of Elizabeth Drysdale), was the son of Lawrence Lennox & Catherine Deas; and figured that Henry got his middle name from there.


dennis

Hello Anne H.

Yes, I had retrieved the death cert for James Hogg Drysdale in the hope that it would yield his parents; which I'd upped to the gallery as I could not make out his mom's maiden name ( its said to be Smeaton).To date I have found nothing on J.H.Drysdale's parents, so I don't know if he had any siblings, aunts, uncles, etc.

dennis

[HeatherH]

Hi Dennis,As Davie said there is no pattern as such but the maiden surnames do pop up ,sometimes even repeatedly.I even have the sister in laws maiden name as a middle name in my family.However I was stumped with one,McDowall.I have a Great gran by the name of Eleanor McDowall Queate and no sign of a McDowall untill I found that her father who was a gardener worked for a family called McDowall.So the middle
name (if there even is one) can come from anywhere.
HeatherK

[Alcluith]

We have middle names in our family tree ,prior to 1855, of those that were witnesses at the christening.
Later it would appear to be nieghbours in small community or friends (sometimes helps to look at census information close to births) and more recent it was godparents.
We do also have a lot of mother and Grandmother maiden names


So afraid no hard and fast rule

[Jinty]

It's been a while since I visited the forum and looking through what has been taking place, this one caught my eye. I've a family where there is considerable evidence of surname appearing as a middle name. The most used appears to be the mother's maiden surname. Searching for how a name came to be used, I had to trace back to gt grandmother, and found it.
I hope those with a similar dilemma are encouraged.

[emanday]

Me and my sister have surnames for middle names, but my brother has our father's name as a middle name.

Pre my grandparents, very few of my lot seem to have had middle names registered. However, one GG Grandmother suddenly revealed a middle name on her 2nd husbands DC. It is totally unrelated to any one I have got back to - yet.

Why, I wonder, did she suddenly decide to use it at that point?

I have discovered that one of my ancestors was not given a middle name till the christening. Maybe waiting to see which grandparent/auntie came up with the best gift? Ooh! I am so cynical!

Once I have got the DC, MC, DC details sorted out, I might move onto finding baptisms. Glutton for punishment, me

As to my own two offspring, my daughter has an unrelated firstname, but my mother's first name then my mother-in-law's first name as middle names. My son has dad-in-law then my dad's firstnames for middles. His first name is my maiden name

[Jinty]

I've just remember another, perhaps more up to date reason for using a family name as a middle name. Perhaps post WW2 it became a fashion for those with a common name, such as "SMITH" or "JONES", to hyphenate the name using Mother's maiden surname, such as "REES-JONES" to make it sound less common.

[joette]

Well my middle name is the name of my great-aunt-Granny's sister.
Mum was very much the traditionalist & wanted first child for her Mother & 2nd child(me) for Dad's Mum.He had a belief that children grew up like those they were named for so he as a compromise told his Mum that I was being named for her late sister-in fairness to my Dad he was very fond of this Aunt & she had probably Mothered him more than his own!.
Mum said"over my dead body"& how hurt his Mum would be.
So I got the female form of my Dad's name with a french twist as my christian name & the above as my middle.
I have found almost to a man that there is some family connection to the middle name usually Mother's maiden name.
Still looking as to why Lewis( Inkson)McKimmie,Ramsay (Wardlaw) McFarlane,John( Gordon Thompson) McKimmie& William (Trail) McKimmie.