At what point in time did people in Europe start using middle names?

Question

I am told that people in the 16th century did not have middle names. Nowadays some people in Europe and/or of European descent have two or more middle names. At what point did the transition occur and for which countries?

Comments

Wikipedia has a long article on middle names. The terminology concerning multiple forenames varies considerably from one culture to another, and by social status within those culture.

From the English perspective, it says middle names among the aristocracy or nobility began in the early 17th century, or possibly earlier, citing as an example, James Frances Edward Stuart, aka the “Old Pretender,” 1688-1766.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_name

I do not use the middle name field. There is a WikiTree setting to hide that field. The middle name field is not a standard gedcom field and it’s presence causes problems when exporting a gedcom.

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The literal-minded answer to your question as phrased in the title is that most of them haven't yet. The category simply doesn't exist on most of the continent.

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J.

I like your comment!

George

Answer 1

That depends but I think it's a pretty anglo-centric concept actually. In France we just have several given names and they all have the same legal value (and as such, should all be entered into the "First name at birth" field on Wikitree!)

Comments

I think so too. No middle names for all German speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein) and also not for Italy. There can be several first names (I found up to 6 first names) that are all equal, but usually one of them will be the "calling name". The calling name doesn't have to be the first of those names.

Also, in Italy there are some first names that are actually two names used together as "calling name", such as Giovanni Battista or Maria Grazia.

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I agree with Léa, same here in Canada on the Francophone side.  And I know Spanish people are also given numerous names, none of them considered a ''middle'' name.

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+1 with Léa. This question has already been discussed at nauseam. Middle Name does not translate in French, so when/if you create/edit profiles in France, please check the "no middle name" option, even if there are up to half a dozen given names (like some aristo families had fun doing). This will avoid France project people the burden to correct after you, thanks for them. 

Same rule applies in Germany, Italy, Spain, French Canada ... see other answers above and below, and actually certainly in most countries outside USA.

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So to rephrase Marion's question for this context: when did people start using more than one given name? (I don't see how there can be more than one "first" name :-)

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Jim, I know it should be "given name" (that's what I use myself) but sadly the WikiTree fields are very anglo-centric so they are named "first name" (and "middle name", which is very culture-specific and shouldn't exist, imo.)

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@Jim, if one wants to nitpick on "first", one could argue that you can have several "first" is they have equal semantics.

But I agree with Léa. The name fields as they stand do not let us many choices. The naming scheme, and the data model at large is hard wired upon US language and culture. And the rest of the world struggles to put round screws in square holes.

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But on the actual topic of Marion's post: what is the answer to the question of when did people start having more than one given name? Post Old Testament, at any rate.

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Okay, probably in English "given names" would be more specific. In (Swiss?) German we call it "Vorname" and "Nachname", so the names at the beginning of all names and the last name.

Anyway, here is what my genealogy software tells me:
Italy:
- paternal line: ancestor born about 1687 has only 1 known given name, but I don't have his baptism record yet. His wife born in 1695 has 2 given names. Their children have 2-3 given names. Next generation: 2-4 given names. Next generation: 1-3 given names, then 1-2 given names, then next generation (1861-1885) followed a new trend with 1-4 given names (if I remember correctly, the maximum of 6 given names was from around that time in another family). Next generation - my grandfather - still had 4 given names and his siblings 2-4.
What I found interesting in Italy (just speaking for the place where my grandparents were born): the child mortality in 19th and early 20th century was huge, and in some times in some families, the first few children ony got 1-2 given names. When they died, the nextborn got their given names (as children still are named after their grandparents, the given names were repeated until a child survived) plus additional given names, often the names of saints. I assume this should give them more luck and protection.

Switzerland:
- maternal-paternal-paternal line: 2 given names on a female ancestor born in 1810, from their children 3 girls have 2 given names, but all boy have just 1. From their son (my ancestor, born in 1838), his wife has 2 given names and from their children (born 1859-1877), two sons have 2 names and one daughter has 3 given names, all other children just 1. Edit: This line goes back to about 1469.
- maternal-paternal-maternal line: just 1 given name before my female ancestor born in 1843. One of their male children (born 1863) has 2 given names, all other ten children just 1. Their son (my ancestor), again all children have 1 given name, despite my female ancestor who has 2 given names (born in 1904). Edit: this line goes back to around 1550.
- maternal-maternal-paternal line: only one given name in the generations before, then of the children (1857-1870) of my ancestors, all boys have 2 given names and three of five girls have 2 given names and the others just 1. From those children, two males are my ancestors. The one had children (1879-1900) with 2 given names or only 1. The other had children (1882-1909) all with 2 given names and one girl with 3 given names (1897). Edit: this line goes back to 1695.

Germany: earliest known ancestor, father of ancestor born in 1781 has 2 given names, also all his descandants in my direct line.

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Thanks I! For further background, this 2016 Time Magazine article by Merrill Fabry gives some useful chronology:

Now You Know: Why Do We Have Middle Names?

It does use the "middle name" terminology, but I hope people will look past that to the history. It says that after the Romans, the custom of more than one given name did not re-start until the late 13th century, in Italy, first among elites but then spreading to other classes. It gives various statistics, and suggests some reasons why multiple names became popular.

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To add to those examples I just went through my known ancestors (all from France)

I don't have them all obviously, but the ones I have from 1612 to 1686 have only one given name. My earliest known ancestors (for now) with 2 ones are Marie Anne Hache (born 1688), Marie Anne Yon (born about 1692), then Marie Jeanne Pouilly (born 1696.) The first male one is Jean Anthoine Cadet (born 1709.) 

So based on my own (obviously biased and very incomplete) sample, giving more than one name became "a thing" around 1700 in France...

Editing to add: those are all commoners too, usage was probably different. For instance Louis XIV (born 1638) was actually named Louis Dieudonné.

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Yes, aristocrats at large tend to have more given names, as far as the 1600s, and even small nobility I have in my ancestors of Bretagne had more often two given names than commoners. Although in Bretagne, "Marie" was very often added to girls and boys as well, in all social classes.

See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kerenor-1#Descendants to see quite a lot of double-given-name profiles around 1700  : Thérèse Olive, Charles Claude, Alexise Josèphe, Françoise Gillette, Marie Corentine ... and of course the traditional lot of Marie-Anne and Anne-Marie

Answer 2

I think it varies a lot in different countries and cultures. In England most people started getting middle names around the 18th century. Welsh names are often patronymic and can look like middle names. John ap Thomas ap Richard is often recorded in the 16th century as John Thomas Richard.

Comments

I obviously don't qualify as "most people". In my English family it's the very end of the 19th century.

Answer 3

It differs pretty much from culture to culture. In Germany there exists no "middle name" in the sense they use it in the US for example. People had christian names from one to up to six (I even once saw a birth certificate from 19th century that still had eight given names) with equal value, and parents chose which one was the one in daily use. People sometimes even changed the use of their given names during their lives - a Carl August Georg may come as a Georg for his parents and as an adult he called himself Carl. Maybe that was one of the reasons that the number of given names was sometimes and in some regions limited in the 19th century. I think, if you are not researching in anglo-american countries, it seems to be helpful to forget the concept of a fixed "middle name"

Answer 4

Realize that the very terminology is faulty, it's specific to English language.  In French, the word is prénom (s) ie correctly translated, that would be forename.  With the family name being the actual name.  If you fill out forms in French, they ask for Nom, prénom (s).... of which last there can be more than one.

Various items show up on Google Search, here's one:

When did middle names start to be used?

Middle names spread through Europe and to the U.S.
Historian Stephen Wilson, author of The Means of Naming: A Social History, says that this practice probably began among the elite class in Italy as early as the 1200s, and eventually spread to Spain and France as well as the lower classes.

Answer 5

"In Europe"? Never, I should think, except in English-speaking countries. There are no "middle names" in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands....

Comments

Isabelle, the page display does not seem happy with your embedded search result.

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I didn't embed anything, it's the answer above mine :-(

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So can you copy-paste your answer, which is just illisible?

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It said:

"In Europe"? Never, I should think, except in English-speaking countries. There are no "middle names" in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands....

And now I'm hiding it.

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And of course, I can't hide it. Going away now because I'm fuming.

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Indeed, but the question has been rewritten in above answers to by-pass the vocabulary issues. New form : "When did multiple given names appear?" (whatever they are called)

Put that way, the question does make sense.Maybe at some point Marion will tell us if that was indeed the question she had in mind.

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Hello Bernard, to answer your question, what I had in mind was exactly the question that I asked, However, I am pleased to have my knowledge increased by the related questions that have been offered as well. A few points:

1. When you fill out government forms in the USA, the fields include first name, middle name, and last name, regardless of which name is your “calling” name. This format is most restrictive as it doesn’t accommodate patronymic names in which case the “son of” or “daughter of“ has no place to go except in the middle name field. This is the quintessential stuffing of a square peg into a round hole.

2.  Some people prefer to use their middle names for “calling.”

3. I am aware that some people in Italy and Spain have multiple “given “ names. Usually, one of them is written first, and then the others follow in a specific order. Whether or not you think of the names that you write after that first one as “middle” names or as being of equal value to the first name is not obvious because writing is sequential and we can’t write everything of equal value simultaneously.

4. One thought I had in mind when asking the question was if it might be reasonable to use the presence of multiple given names as a way to rule out that the individual could have lived before a certain time. This is tricky and it may have to be considered along with other factors.

“Thank you” to everyone who responded.

Answer 6

For me, it would be helpful to have middle names to distinguish between 5 Peters in a single family!

Comments

Would rephrase it in : helpful to have more than one given name (first, second, midlle, fore, last ... whatever you call them) - to have a larger scope of application.

That said, I recently stumbled upon twins called Anne Marie and Marie Anne. Could not believe it! That did NOT help.

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Bernard, and everyone actually, have you noticed how given names have been selected seemingly to confuse genealogists?

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Oh of course! New parents sit around wondering how they can cause trouble for their family tree…

My ex-husband’s family did it with knowing what they were doing. They use nicknames.

One example, Franklin Eugene was called Pat. Almost nobody knew his real name!