Pattern of Names

[AnneMT]

found a site recently, which explained the pattern of names within a family e.g. first son, after father's grandfather, second son, after father's father etc.

Unfortunately, I cannot remember where it was. I am positive it was a Scottish site.

Can anyone help. It may help me break down a few brick wlls.

[JustJean]

Hi Anne

Probably there is a topic on here somewhere on TS that refers to this but this is a site I've had bookmarked before for myself:

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~scottish ... terns.html

Hope this helps!

Best wishes
Jean

[AnneMT]

Thanks for the website info.

I don't recognise the website graphics, so may not be the same site I viewed, but the info is the same.

Hope I can use this info to "guess" a few given names for possible children.

Thanks again

[DavidWW]

Hi Anne

Probably there is a topic on here somewhere on TS that refers to this but this is a site I've had bookmarked before for myself:

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~scottish ... terns.html

Hope this helps!

Best wishes
Jean

Just don't put that much credence in 7th to 10th, and 10th (meant to be 11th?) to 14th.

I've got a lorra lorra money waiting for a provable example of this.

Even the 4th, 5th 6th are unusual to find in the strict order shown.

Finally the "normal" Scottish pattern for the 3rd son and daughter is after the father and mother.......


See http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/conte ... ?r=551&561 and http://www.scottap.com/family/Lanark/na ... terns.html for better statements of the situation, but note that the pattern for the 4th and 5th is much less reliable than that for the 1st to 3rd.


David

[JustJean]

Wow....guess I better not include that website in the harvested URL list I'm working on. That is where I had found it previously posted right here on TalkingScot. Sorry to mislead you!

Best wishes
Jean

[AnneMT]

Hi Anne

http://www.scottap.com/family/Lanark/na ... terns.html for better

David

Thanks David, this was the site I previously looked at. Must have been idly browsing, forgot to bookmark it.

Thanks again

[donna petrie]

I wonder if there is a naming pattern for middle names. Unlike other nations which give forenames as middle names, Scottish people seem to have surnames. Henderson is my middle name as it was my father's and grandfather's. His mother's maiden name was Henderson. I have noticed this with most of my relatives. Is there a pattern? Donna

[Rab]

I've found that alot of the earlier middle names in my family are also surnames. Usually along with the first name they form the full name of someone from the mother's side of the family.

[StewL]

Donna

In my own case my given/middle names come from:

First name: Mothers maiden name
Second name: Paternal grandmothers mothers maiden name
Third name: Maternal Grandmothers maiden name

[DavidWW]

I wonder if there is a naming pattern for middle names. Unlike other nations which give forenames as middle names, Scottish people seem to have surnames. Henderson is my middle name as it was my father's and grandfather's. His mother's maiden name was Henderson. I have noticed this with most of my relatives. Is there a pattern? Donna

Donna

Put simply, no!!

Most usual to use the mother's maiden name first. This is sometimes the only such middle name used, often repeated.

Thereafter, the surname will most often be a maiden name from previous generations, but not necessarily in any set order. In any case, given the ages of those whose names are being used, it's quite common to find that the surname relates to a recent death, rather than a particualr pattern.

It took a cousin and me considerable research to establish eventually the basis of his mother's name of Fanny Victoria Douglas MacLENNAN, - the "Victoria" deriving from the eponymous queen's jubilee, and "Fanny DOUGLAS" turning out to have been a previously unknown greatgrandparent who died a few months before the birth.

I write most often above, as, beware!!, middle names can relate to others apart from relations, - exactly as with another thread where a number of Horatios are commented on, so you will find NELSONs, and such like.

Such links needn't involve the famous, but can also involve the minister who carried out the baptism, and the doctor/nurse involved in a difficult birth; or the less than unusual use of a rich relative's name for obvious reasons.

Inanimate objects can also come into play, witness wee John Blair Drummond CLARK, b. 1879 in Hamilton. Obviously, some of his immediate ancestors must have had the surnames BLAIR and DRUMMOND ??.........

No...... they didn't, - his father went out to New Zealand in advance of the rest of the family, a few months before wee John's birth, travelling out on the SS Blair Drummond

David