Do you have any interesting patterns in your family names?

Question

My great grandmother was Leafy Agnes Conrad.  One of her sons was Forest Maple Miller.  His oldest daughter, my mother, has the monogram, ELM and I have no children so I'm DED.  Has anyone out there noticed any similar patterns in their families?

Answer 1

My family is so boring with names.  I call it the family naming convention.  First son named after maternal grandfather, second son named after paternal grandfather.  This leads to ridiculous strings where the same name repeats over and over and over.  For example, the name Nathan Dane has repeated so many times that there is an almost unbroken string that has gone for over 200 years.  My father is Francis Dane, a name that has its origins in the middle 1600's, and his full name is exactly the same as his father's and his grandfather's.  Luckily, they broke the chain with me.... although I might have liked being Leighton Dane.

Comments

This sort of naming was quite common in earlier times.  One of my 5ggrandfathers was David Evans, Sr.  just about every generation since then has had one or more David Evans.  I'm surprised that it's the maternal grandfather first in your family.  More often it seems to be paternal grandfather first.  If you search for "naming conventions" you can probably find much of the subject.

Answer 2

My fifth great grandparents were distant cousins who married. He was Silvanus Conant and she was Silvia Conant. They married at Plymouth, MA in 1784 and had two children. Silvanus and Silvia. Daughter, Silvia is my ancestor.

My great grandmother was Sylvia Jane Thomas and her daughter, Sylvia Conant Hemenway was by grandmother.

Answer 3

the pattern in my family first name is they seemed to recycle them every family with a male has at least one johann sometimes several of them u can only tell them apart by their middle names, there's also a number of michels and the American version Michael my family was nuts

Comments

Many times, especially for Catholics, the first name is a generic saints name and the "middle" name is the actual given name.  I suppose I ought to go see how you're supposed to deal with such situations on WikiTree.

---

I had the same issue in my family three brothers all first name John I found that this was something common in Germany also (not sure time frame my family with this was from 1700)  any way I had brothers John Adam, John Peter and John John. I don't know if it was the correct way to do it but put both names in first name wasn't sure how to handle the middle name is what they went . This family was Mennonite

---

my family was german as well and also in the 1700s I guess it was the custom at that time if u found a first name u liked give it to all your boys

Answer 4

My children were born on the same date - 5 years apart.

Their father and his sister were also born on the same date but only 1 year apart.

They were all natural births.

Answer 5

Dad died 20 Aug 1978 at 4 o'clock pm and

Mom died 20 Aug 2001 at 3:45 pm. Same day 15 minutes of exactly 23 years. 

Little Brother initials JEW and little sister SEW. 

of the 10 of us all names chosen from saint, family names one of the brothers named after mom got hooked on 'Irish Rovers' and one song in particular 'The awful color problem of the Orange and the Green' is named William Patrick West. If you have not heard the song listen for the naming problem of the character being sung about. During the time I was mother's caregiver she admitted the song was the source of his name.

For those not wanting to listen to the song to hear the source of his name

" I was christened David Anthony but still in spite of that to me father I was William while me mother called me Pat"

 

Answer 6

My grandmother (maternal) died in 1972 when my mother was 22. My grandfather died 22 years later in 1994 almost to the day when I was 22,

Answer 7

My son was born the day before my sister's birthday. Her daughter was born the day before my birthday . Their initials are the same but reversed. This has happened on a few occasions in my upline. Then for five generations every son names the sons family names.  Cousin John , cousin John and cousin John in one generation.  So on with Cousin Robert and William. And every tree out there shuffles the little hummers.

Answer 8

I have patterns of traits: 

Edmonston / Edmonstone / Edmonson / De Edmundiston: Twins & Red Haired Gingers. Duseler / Dussler / Dußler: Twins & Twins. :)