Middle names

[jimrobertson24]

Hello

I know there used to be a semi tradition used in scotland regarding naming children but I've come across what I find to be quite a strange one.

John Robertson and his wife Mary Robertson (Robertson) had a son which they called John Lowden Robertson. I thought the middle name was interesting but couldn't figure out the link. Looking into the family more,  john (the dad) had a brother who was married to an Ann Lowden . So essentially John Lowden Robertson was given the maiden name of his Aunty as a middle name? Strange no??

[alanmack]

Maybe not if the child's aunt or another member of her family were godparents. Happened a lot in my family, admittedly as Scottish ex-pats in London at both ends of the 19th century.

[MonicaL]

No, not necessarily. Scots love(d) the use of surnames as middle names. There is the recognised Scottish naming pattern for first names, such as mentioned here for example www.halmyre.abel.co.uk/Family/naming.htm Very often this also included the surname of the person with the first name used.

Aside from this, often other connections were made (not always family) and also their surnames included.

Personally, I love where possible to try to figure out the origin of a name. One of the fun/interesting things about Scottish research...of many 

Monica

[jimrobertson24]

I hadn't thought of the godparent potential so that makes sense.

[argyllshiregirl]

My great great grandfather, Dugald Campbell MCGREGOR, was born on a farm owned by CAMPBELLs where his father was manager. I get that one. His siblings, Joshua Bowden MCGREGOR and Ann Banner MCGREGOR, are puzzlers. I cannot find any BOWDEN or BANNER connections anywhere.

[jennywren001]

In one branch of the family there is a large number of children where their middle name is the surname of their father 

Another branch uses (almost exclusively) maiden names but only from the maternal side! The one that I've not worked out (yet) is Williamina Gray Fullerton Russell. No idea where the Gray comes from. In this branch everyone get a middle names unless you are called David - then you never get one.

I've heard of children being given the name of a new minister as a middle name but I've never come across that in my family.
Jen

[ruthhelen]

I've got a couple where the middle name is the surname of the spouse of a sibling of the mother/father... My grandmother was named for her aunt - the wife of her mother's eldest brother (she also got her first name too). She followed the same convention and my father was named for his uncle - the husband of my grandmother's eldest sister.

I've also got my fair share of the conventional mother's/grandmother's maiden name - and a few where I still haven't been able to work out the connection - mostly in larger families, where they clearly ran out of relatives to name their children for 

Ruth

[JMStrachan]

Nearly everyone on my Scottish family tree who has a middle name has a surname as their middle name. It only seems to be during the 1900s that they began using first names as middle names. Usually the use of a middle name was because if they were named for someone with a different surname, they got the full name. So it could well be that John Lowden Robertson was named after a John Lowden (who was probably related to Ann Lowden).

I have two ancestors who were sisters, and they both named one of their children after the son of the local doctor.

My older sister has our grandmother's maiden surname as her middle name.