Naming children after dead sibling.

[carol8353]

My husband was born in 1950 in England to an Irish family and given the same name as his brother who had died (age 9 months) 18 months before. He was given a different middle name,that of his dad actually.

[JMStrachan]

Very common on my tree too. Lots of my ancestors are Scottish and used the Scottish naming pattern for their children. So if a child died, the next one of that gender was given that name, which meant the naming pattern was still adhered to. But it happened with my English ancestors too.

I wonder if in both Scotland and England it was done to make sure family names were passed on, rather than as an act of remembrance or respect for the lost child. Less macabre when you look at it that way.

[carol8353]

I wonder if in both Scotland and England it was done to make sure family names were passed on, rather than as an act of remembrance or respect for the lost child. Less macabre when you look at it that way.

That's true,hubby and his older brother who died, were given the same name as their paternal great grandad.Oldest brother was given his paternal grandad's name and the next one his maternal grandad's name.

[mabeljessie]

Just another tip that has tripped up some old hands too....

Names that we think would not be used in the same family as they are too similar were used in older times. Maybe it is because they used different abbreviations or nicknames or used the middle name as the first name.

What caused a lot of trouble in my tree was two daughters an Eliza and an Elizabeth. Most people entered them as the same person -they weren't, two separate girls both baptized, married and had their own families. Eliza may have been Lizzie and Elizabeth may have been Beth - who knows, they were 3 years apart.

Regarding naming after dead siblings, some cultures, like the Scottish and some families had particular naming patterns which also reinforced the using of names in a certain order. ie First Male named after father's father, then father, then mother's father (but more complicated than this) Also similar for females. So you were pretty much locked into using a name.
The patterns can be well worth researching if you find them in your tree, as once you work it out it makes it much easier to find your family members.

Hope this helps
mabeljessie

[pinefamily]

Yes it was very common, partly because of the high mortality rate, and partly to continue the use of a name through the family. Mind you, I guess the number of names to choose from was smaller, with no Dweezle's or Apple Blossom"s! I feel for the genealogists of the future.
Just to confuse the matter even more, as Mabeljessie touched on, some families had more than one surviving child with the same or similar name. This practice was quite common in the 17th and 18th centuries. Confused me for quite some time.

[aelfric]

What caused a lot of trouble in my tree was two daughters an Eliza and an Elizabeth. Most people entered them as the same person -they weren't, two

Another case I've come across is Mary and Maria.  By the end of the 18th century my ancestors often used both names for sisters in the same family, though a hundred years earlier all church records were in Latin, theoretically at least.

As for re-using the name of a dead child, I wonder whether sometimes a community may have had a very limited number of names which were considered "proper" for a child.  I believe there has been a tendency until very recently for unusual boy's names to be avoided. 

[iluleah]

Yes it happened a lot and in some cases you will find two children in the family group with the same name, as the first was very sick and the parents 'expected' them to die, had another baby and baptised the new baby with the same name, then the first child got better, so they then had two of the same name 
I have several family groups who have two John's or two William's and when you look at baptism/burial records  several children died that they had. However at times you will also see the same child baptised twice and i do have a couple of those too, one baptised a few days old and then again as a joint burial and baptism after death and another who was baptised by the vicar in the family home written up in the parish day book and then baptised a few weeks later in the church.

[jbml]

Lots of examples of this in my family, too

[dsm77]

I am just one more adding to the group.

There is a common renaming of the deceased children on both my mother and father's sides of the family. It is the name James. Don't know why but there have been four (4) different re-uses of the name since 1901.

Not one of the 4 survived 2 years of age.