Family naming pattern?

[fionnghal]

hi folks, i've a question.  I'm wondering if in Ireland there was a traditional naming pattern which families may have followed, more or less.  i appreciate it may have varied from area to area or between faiths, &c.  In Scotland, we had one, though it gradually faded over the last couple of hundred years, remaining more common in country areas.
I have Irish folk who settled in Scotland, and i just wondered if they were any more or less likely to have named first borns after grandparents.

any suggestions?

le durachd

Fionnghal

[aghadowey]

Not sure about all parts of Ireland but the traditional Scottish naming pattern was used in Ulster especially amongst some Presbyterian families.

[fionnghal]

goodness, that was quick.    thank you.

well, some of mine were from Ulster, however, they seem mainly to have been Catholic. 

I have a theory that when a family or person moves a good distance from their roots, family traditions tended to get lost, or the family of those they marry far from home may be the ones to influence naming.  I'm sure grandparents had a lot to do with keeping such traditions going and without that influence the patterns may have become diluted.  if kids leave home in their teens - to seek those gold-covered streets, they may actually be unaware or only vaguely aware of family or naming traditions. 

thank for your input

Fionnghal

[Sinann]

Naming the first and second born sons after the grandfathers seems to have been quite common (from what I've noticed) in the northern half of the country at least. My father was still doing it in the 1950s in Kildare even to the extent that his first son born on his birthday was named after his father (child's grandfather) and the second son born on the grandfather's birthday was named after mother's grandfather and my father. (They just happened to have the same name.)

Often people did it but clearly didn't like it, my mother's mother gave all her children family names but than called them something else on a daily basis. Which can lead to a lot of confusion. My mother did the same to a certain extent.

When people went abroad it was a chance to escape forced naming but of course it's also possible they may have been even more inclined to keep the family names because of a touch of homesickness and such.

[Patricia jackson]

I wish this naming sequence did work - but alas it only seems to work in some families   both  in Ireland and England.

[clayton bradley]

My husband has an Irish line from Roscommon and John Sheehan married in Stockport, giving his father's name as Michael. He went on to have 7 sons, none of whom was called Michael, although one of the sons was called Patrick after his wife's father. My mother's mother had parents who came from County Down. They married in Cumberland and James Breen gave his father's name as Bernard. Again, they had several sons, no Bernard. Maybe some of them didn't like their fathers? claytonbradley

[taramcdsmall]

Hi there,

I have done quite a few Irish trees and with all there are exceptions to the rule ie children born near St. Patrick's Day would be named after him or children born near St. Bridget's Day would be named after her, or a death of a close family member could result in the child being named after that person, or a falling out in the family could mean that a parent's name would be dropped altogether, but besides these I have seen 2 main naming patterns as follows:

1st son named after husband's father
1st daughter after husband's mother
2nd son after wife's father
2nd daughter after wife's mother

1st son named after husband's father
1st daughter after wife's mother
2nd son after wife's father
2nd daughter after husband's mother

This seems to have waned in the mid 1900's or there abouts.

Tara

[fionnghal]

thank you, you've all been so helpful.   

le durachd

fionnghal

[Bhoy]

I've found the naming pattern to be of great benefit in my own research.   Yes, it's not always followed exactly - and I've noticed it to be less well adhered to for girls - but you should make it the initial, default assumption & that will help you in figuring out where to look to begin with.

So, if you know the names of the grandparents, you can search for children named after them.  That said, it’s actually apparent deviations from the pattern that I’ve found to be the most fruitful avenue for investigation.  The usual reasons are overlaps in names and premature deaths.  What I mean by that is best illustrated by some examples, which have turned up a few times for me.

The pattern was: 1st son after husband's father, 2nd son after mother's father, 3rd son after father, possibly 4th son after father's oldest brother and so on.  So, what does it mean if you notice that the children were not named in this order?  Here are two possibilities:

- You don't know the names of the two grandfathers, but you notice that 2nd son has the same name as his father.   That could mean either that the mother's father had the same name as the husband or as the husband's father.

- You look at a census record.  Oldest son has the same name as the mother's father, next son has the father's name and it's the 3rd son who has the husband's father's name.  What that might suggest is that there was an earlier child, named in the standard way, who died previously.  The name (that of the husband’s father) was re-used for a subsequent son.  You can now go looking for the death of a child – you have the name and some idea of when he died.

My own experience in County Down is that there was pretty strong adherence throughout the 19th Century, but it tailed off sharply once into the 20th.