Question of the Week: Who were you named after?

Question

And if you weren't named after anyone, is anyone else in your family? Do you have a name that has been carried through the generations?

(This question comes to us courtesy of Liz Shifflet!)

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Comments

My middle name is Ashley, my father chose it. It was the name of a little girl who passed away. The daughter of his close friend.
My husband believes he has a recurring name theme of Patrick & Thomas on his fathers side.

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Me and my brother named after my dad, Donald=Donna and Donnie

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I was named after my Uncle William Howard Wightman and my father Charles Edward Thompson.

-William Charles Thompson

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I was named after my dad (Joseph) and my dad's mom family name (Bryan) -- Joseph Bryan McConnell.  Although was born almost the exact moment that Astronaut John Glenn was first American to orbit the earth - so they almost named me John Glenn.

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My birth  name is Evelyn Jean Murray.  I was the 5th child and my mother was short on names, however, the fact that I was born with a full head of snow white hair was a help. It was 1934 and the nurses named me "little Jean Harlow" so my Mother used that for my middle name.   My first name came from the current bestseller book that she was reading.  "The girl on the Red Velvet Swing",  which was the story of Evelyn Nesbit who was the hot topic of the day in the murder trial of Stanford White. (White-23281)...    Being named after two such famous women gave me a big pair of shoes to fill.

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I was named after 2 songs. "I get Misty Holding Your Hand" by Frank Sinatra and "Míchelle My Belle" by the Beatles. Thank goodness because originally I was supposed to be Pansy Asher. You would have thought my mom was a hippie. Although she has long hair to her rear and sometimes wears headbands, she has never touch a drug in her life and was very much a military supporter. Lol

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Let's hear the cheer for the unpredictable Moms!!!!!

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GO UNPREDICTABLE MOMS!!!!!

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My mother knew she would only have one child because she had married so late in life. Her father had died when she was 6 yrs old and his brother, Henry, became the father figure in her life. She was very fond him and when he asked her to name her baby after him, she agreed. He died just before I was born and she kept her word, calling me Henrietta. When my eldest grandson was born, my son and his wife asked if I would mind the baby having Henry as a middle name. I was delighted and only wished my mother had still been around to see the name being bestowed on a boy instead of a girl!

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I was named after my father's step (adoptive) father. He was Robert Gustav Hilse, and I'm so glad my parents didn't choose Gustave instead of Robert.  

I could have been an Anna (Robert's wife and my direct line relative) but my father was not going to do that. My suspicion is that she ( his mother) was very strict/stern in that German way (it was the early 1900s), and though I never met her till very late in her life, I'm pretty sure he didn't want me to become like her.  (I didn't.)

Answer 1

I was named after my uncle Bernice Cockram who passed away shortly after

or at his birth.

Answer 2

My first name is not connected to any other family member. However, my middle name, Robert, was my father's name, and was shared by six other men in the Warner line: his grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great grandfather, 4th great-grandfather, uncle, and a 3rd cousin twice removed.

My only son does not carry on the tradition, but his middle name, Benjamin, was that of his great-grandfather.

Answer 3

My first name is after County Music singer Marty Robbins, as my mother had promised him, and my principal middle name, Cole, is in memory of Nat King Cole, her favorite performer. Another middle name, Bigelow, is in honour of my paternal grandfather, Henry Bigelow Gardiner Mulford, named after his paternal grandfather, Russell Bigelow Gardiner Mulford (our family hero of the American Civil War) who was named after a then famous Methodist Episcopal minister, the Rev Russell Bigelow, who had been the pastor of his parents' Ohio congregation.

Answer 4

I SAMUEL LEE RADER was born on Grandfather JAMES SAMUEL ADAMSON'S birthday, Oct.-7-1881. Mine Oct.-7-1935. Samuel came from him and LEE came from Renick LEE Rader, my other Grandfather.

Answer 5

I was born on 7-Oct-1935, Grandfather James Samuel Adamson was born on 7-Oct-1881. Grandfather Renick Lee Rader was born 24-Oct-1865. so naturally I was named Samuel Lee Rader after both of them. Grandfather Renick died in 1937, so I didn't remember him. I do remember Grandfather Adamson for the many visits as a child, sitting on his lap. Thanks Mom and Dad. Samuel Lee Rader-282

Answer 6

I was named after my dad's uncle Lee; and that is my middle name.

Answer 7

I was named after my maternal grandfather Alexander Ritchie, and two of my paternal great great grandmothers Mary Soby & Ellen Seccombe.

Answer 8

Virgil Maynard Kester III.  The simple answer is after my father and grandfather.  All of my name(s) is from surnames that married into the Kester family over the generations, the Virgil family, and the Maynard family.  My grandfather was called Virgil, my father was called Pete, I was called Don/Donald, and my son was called Addison.  My fathers mother called him Peter, a name she picked out of the bible, so as no confusion in the household.  My mother liked Donald.  My son, Virgil IV, was called Addison ... my wife, Kitty picked that, she liked the TV show Moonlighting, Bruce Willis charactor on the show was named Addison.

Answer 9

I was named after my grandpa, my father's adoptive dad: Alva Leroy Crom

Answer 10

I was named after my father Charles Jennings Bryant and grandfather Charles Oscar Neil. Other ancestors are also named Charles and my middle name Edward under the Brant lineage.

Answer 11

I don't know, but I wish I knew. My great great grandmother was Susan Ellis Butler, daughter of Lorenzo Dow Butler. She had 3 sons. But one of her sons, my great grandfather named his daughter Flora Ellis. The Ellis didn't get passed to me, but the Susan did. And my brother gave his daughter the middle name Ellis and her plan is to give Ellis as middle name to her child, Susan Ellis if a girl.  So the name has history, but I have no idea where Ellis originated from.

Answer 12

I was told I was named for my paternal gr-grandmother, Mary Carolyn, my name switched up to Marilynne Carol. When I was named, my father was in the antarctic with Adm Byrd and my mother did the naming.  

Later in life, when I started to do genealogy, I noted said gr-grandmother's name was Mary Caroline.  And my father, prior to his marriage to my mother, had a beautiful ex-girlfriend named Marilynne - with the same odd spelling as my name.

Coincidence? My father was quite a philanderer. I think my father pulled the wool over my mother's eyes. What do you think?

Answer 13

I was named after my grandmother on my father's side EILEEN. I then named my daughter and she named her daughter the same. I do tell my grandmother who is 13 her first born daughter needs to be Eileen as well lol.

Answer 14

I was the first girl after three boys and four miscarriages. My folks named me after my grandmothers, Helen and Gertrude. They modernized Helen to Ellen. Gertrude used to get teased about her name when she was young, so she went by her middle name, Louise.

Answer 15

Named after my Aunt Maggie--my mother's oldest sister Margaret--and my maternal grandfather Linley

Answer 16

My names, Warren Sandham Gilbert, have the same initials as my father, William Seddon Gilbert, although he was christened William Sullivan Seddon Gilbert, he never used the Sullivan part.

I have not yet found a connection to the famous William Schwenck Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame (he does not have a WikiTree profile), but maybe connected.

I think Warren was so that I had matching initials, but not a frequently used name.

My middle name, Sandham, was also the middle name of my maternal grandfather and his mother, Jane Sandham Wood. She was born in 1859, and according to the 1861 census, the people living next door to them at the time had the surname Sandham. Maybe they were good friends - maybe more!

Answer 17

Donna-Lee

It was fairly common name in the 1950s, so mom gave me this name that was not so popular when I was born nearly 15 years later.  My paternal grandfather's name is Donald, he is also my godfather, I would like to think that I was name after my grandpa!  My godmother, a maternal aunt, gave me the -Lee part!

Answer 18

I was named after Two of my Uncles

Answer 19

I was named for my G-grandfather, Francis Hoobler of Baltic, Tuscarawas Co., OH. Baltic is a Swiss/German community and my 3rd G-grandfather, William Berkey bough the first town lot that was sold and built the 1st house in the town. 3 doors away from Francis lived the Steiner family who had a Swiss Cheese factory behind the house that was the first in Ohio and one of the first in the country. It is still there and still in continuous operation in the same family. My grandpa took me there to visit many times when I was young when on a Sunday drive from Orrville where we lived. (Home of Smuckers. more Germans) FEB

Answer 20

My Grandfather, Francis Albert Victor Ward was born on 24th May 1890, Queen Victoria's birthday. So he was given the names of Prince Albert & Queen Victoria (changed to Victor for a boy)