Middle Names

[GrahamSimons]

Had a situation at work with two colleagues with the same name. The more junior one "adopted" a middle initial to differentiate him from the other. Not sure whether he ended up using his bonus name/initial in private life.....

[don_niagara]

One of my Grandfather's brothers, Donald Ross, died in the 1906 disaster of the shipwreck of the S.S. Valencia on the coast of Vancouver Island, Dad was named to honour him (and me later for Dad), but there was also a first cousin named using both the name of the victim, and the ship; "Valencia Donald Ross Smart", born 1909 at Inverness, died there 1983.

[jaybelnz]

I named my own children with my own choice of Christian name, so no clues there for any future researcher, although my son's middle name is my maiden name, he's also carried that into his first son.   My daughter's middle name is Jane, also by choice, although it also just happens to be my paternal grandmother's christian name, and an alternative version of my own.

She was Jane Dreghorn Douglas, and I'm still looking for the Dreghorn connection 16 years on. The only clue is the Village of Dreghorn in Ayrshire, and I believe that it wasn't uncommon to name a child after the place that she was born, or a Minister.  But she wasn't born in Dreghorn.

A Kilmarnock census entry for her and her parents gives a William Dreghorn listed as grandson! 

[jennywren001]

Many thanks for all the responses you have got me thinking along other lines. I have three people (all women) with unidentified middle names. Spookily, Fordyce one of them has a connection with The Rev Robert Inglis of Edzell. Never thought about children being named after a ship. Dreghorn - that would have me demented a child with a parish as a middle name. My uncle had 'Woolfe' as a middle name, my gran said she had no idea where the name came from as supposedly my grandfather was three sheets to the wind when he went and registered the birth!
Jen

[jaybelnz]

I guess we also have to consider "fashionable" names, and the trends of the day! 

Just having a wee giggle here, when I think of some of the really crazy names that are being given to children in the last 40 years or so! 😃

[anne_p]

I have a howler in my tree  from a North of Scotland OPR but I seriously doubt that the clerk who entered this understood the dialect

A child is being named for her paternal grandmother and given her full maiden name.

Child's name on OPR  actually reads: Merry Broon ( plus last name)
Yes! Her grandmother's maiden name was Mary Brown !

[don_niagara]

A few years ago I came across "Caroline" as a middle or forename in certain Canadian MacKenzies a generation away from Scotland, beginning in the 1820s. I failed to find a Caroline family member they could have been named for, and it occured to me it was an uncommon forename in late 18th century generally. Freecen had just completed their transcription of the 1841 census, so I did a search to try to see if I could see what year bracket it came in to common use.

Pretty certain it was a name to honour the "Princess Diana" of her day, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, see http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Queen-Caroline/

Ages over 15 were rounded down to the nearest five year multiple, but allowing for +/-2 years 1838, 1833, and 1828 it was possible to extract them all. Some small error as a few enumerators ignored the rounding down rule, but should not be more than a handful each year.

Historically there always were a few Carolines in U.K, but for the most part looks to have been a name that came with the infamous princess. I stopped with ones born 1791 or earlie, as older than that deaths would throw it off...

1792-1796    124
1797-1801    201
1802-1806    313
1807-1811    482
1812-1816    780
1817-1821    1597
1822-1826    2534
1827-1831    2342
1832-1836    2459
1837-1841    2345

[anne_p]

I found something similar about a name from my own family .
A child was born in New Zealand to Scottish parents in 1887.
His given name was: Jubilee.

I later realised that 1887 was Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee year.
I did some searches to discover that there were hundreds of children born all over the Empire during this year who were also given Jubilee as a first or middle name

On checking, sure enough, hundreds of wee Jubilees were born around 1862 ( Silver) and again in 1897 ( Diamond)

[buckhyne]

I have a howler in my tree  from a North of Scotland OPR but I seriously doubt that the clerk who entered this understood the dialect

A child is being named for her paternal grandmother and given her full maiden name.

Child's name on OPR  actually reads: Merry Broon ( plus last name)
Yes! Her grandmother's maiden name was Mary Brown !