Naming a child after a deceased older sibling

[andrewalston]

I have one family where four children were named John. All died in infancy, as did their next boy, John William.

[Jebber]

You often find trees where the compiler has not realised that a child died and a later one was given the same name, and it is the life of the second one that they have charted. It is an easy mistake to make, but shows the importance of checking the burial records along side the baptisms.

I have found that one lot in my family made it easier for me, they always gave the children two names, if a child died the next one was given the same names but reversed.

[Nanna52]

I was fortunate that my grandfather was the last born in his family and Victorian birth certificates are so good.  It gave me the names and ages of his siblings and the fact that James Thomas was born and died before he was born and was named James Arthur.  James was his grandfathers name, but it took a while for it to be used.
Similar stories are in other parts of my tree.

[sarah]

Hi Landje,

I had a couple in my family from as recent as the 1920's.

There are a few other topics on RootsChat, here are a few for you. (I found them by searching "dead sibling" you can spot the ones of interest from the description)

Naming children after a dead sibling
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=642197.0


Sibling with the same Christian name
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=705314.msg5482849#msg5482849

Sarah

[scotmum]

You are also likely to find instances, at least I have on more than one occasion, of a man marrying after the death of his first wife, and giving forenames to children born to the second marriage, that are the same forenames of living children from the first marriage.

I assume, despite some obvious confusion it might cause, it is done because the name is of particular importance to the 2nd wife's family line.

[groom]

I had my great great grandfather's birth and baptism but couldn't understand why, on later censuses and on his death certificate and headstone, the date was out by 4 years. When I went back and checked I discovered that the birth I had was for his older brother who died when he was a few months old and that my greatx2 grandfather had been given his names.

Like an earlier poster I've also found families where several children have been given the same name as older siblings who died and they in turn have died.  I think after a couple I might have considered that name unlucky and called them something else.

[landej]

Oh! I didn't think to check if this had been asked before, I'll remember that for next time. I'm new to RootsChat but have to say I'm loving it so far. Lots of very helpful people on here. I think there's a lot of truth in the need to keep a name going. I guess if the sibling with that name had no children then the next in line with children would feel duty-bound to use that name....... or may have used it anyway with the amount of name repetition that went on! 

[ThrelfallYorky]

What Jebber says is quite true - sometimes I've even seen the situation in online trees attached to  relatives where they seem to have the older bearer of the name going on and having children etc. - common sense would suggest that with two years between them, look for the death of the earlier one, as he was unlikely to have survived if a younger brother was given the same name, as Groom notes.
Where I've found two children with the same name, it was the result of two second marriages, where both partners had a "John" of almost exactly the same age, born in the same village. As the bride's children immediately, by the next census, adopted the groom's surname, it resulted in confusion, I'm sure, as time went on. In another branch, they seemed to have anticipated this, when a similar thing happened, as after a similar marriage one boy got the middle name of his own mother in addition to the family surname he'd always had, and the other boy used his original surname as a middle name, and both seemed to be punctilious over using the appropriate initials at least on every occasion. Very helpful.

[Rosinish]

I also have families naming siblings the same....... simply because they were named after different people who happened to have the same forenames (not through deaths in infancy)

I have a family with 3 male siblings (out of 5 children with 1 female)..............
Donald, Donald Allan & Donald 

I have my Grandmother Maggy-Jane (sic) with siblings (out of 7) Margaret & Margaret with 2 brothers thankfully with middle names Donald John & Donald Alexander

Another with 2 Catherine's but why not give the subsequent ones middle names 

This was done a lot on the Scottish islands.


Anne Marie