Johanna and Julia

[Ghostwheel]

In her RC marriage record (1808) a woman was called "Johanna."  Also, in the baptism records of 6 out of 7 of her children.

Onetime, however, she was called "Julia."  Now I must qualify that: it comes from an index, and there are no images available for the parish.  At first, I thought that it has to be an error in transcription.  (It is clearly the same women, and I have positive proof of it from a later record).  But I am wondering if there is another possibility.

This was an Irish-speaking area, and I was wondering if maybe, she might have had an Irish name, and the priest was translating it usually as "Johanna" but once as "Julia."

When two of her daughters died in America, in 1901 and 1907, she was called "Johanna" on the forms.

But I was wondering if anyone knew if she might have been called Síle (Sheila) or Siobhán?  If that sort of thing was heard of.

I was also wondering what to make of the name "John."  Should I assume that it was "Sean?"  Or were there people named "John" in Irish-speaking areas?  I once saw a video of a guy who could only speak Irish, and his interviewer called him "John", but, of course, that was a lot later.

It seems to be pretty well-accepted that "Eugene" was pronounced "Owen" in Irish-speaking areas.

[shanreagh]

In many RC churches until quite recently the Christian names were Latinised.  So rather than being a difference in pronunciation the English/Irish name was entered in the Latin form. 

http://sites.rootsweb.com/~irlcar2/naming_patterns.htm

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/England_Latin_Versions_of_Given_Names_(National_Institute)

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/publications/latin-terminology-roman-catholic-church-registers

[heywood]

I was looking  for the birth of a grandmother Julia and eventually found her baptised and registered  as Johanna.
She is in the census and married and died as Julia.

In other places I have found Judy sometimes recorded for Julia/Johanna too.

[Wexflyer]

With respect to Shanreagh, use of Latin in parish registers does not explain this.

Instead, Johanna and Julia seemed to be used interchangeably in the 19th century and early 20th century records. Like a wave-particle duality in physics! 

I have many, many Julia/Johannas in one of my Brennan and descendant families in Wexford.  Every single one of them appears under both forms at some point. And not just in parish registers, but also births versus marriages, headstones versus death registrations. No pattern as to which one would be used, as far as I can tell. 

And not just in my own families, I also noticed this in others. So, I would say this was common, but I don't understand it.

[dublin1850]

In Tipperary, Johanna, Judith and Julia seem to be interchangeable.

[shanreagh]

I am not sure why some routine suggestions as to the interchangeability of baptismal names and day to day names needs to be discounted.  Many, many posters have not heard of this and it is standard practice to alert them to it. 

As for wave-particle duality...really who would have thought it - physics on a genealogy MB? 

And yet the Johannas in my family tree have had this name as a 'church'  name.  They were called Jane, Joan, Hannah (mainly Hannah) in day to day parlance.  For instance the William in my family has William on his gravestone and in the civil register.  Gullielmus in baptism. The Irish I descend from do not pronounce Owen as Eugene.  Eugene is the church name for a child  that parents want to baptise Owen.  If the parents want to address the child they can either say Eugene or Owen. 


I have not seen the church names on gravestones or civil registers, unless they were known by that day to day,  but in church documents BDM.   No Julias anywhere in my family. Lots of Isaacs, Johns, Benjamins,  Williams, Joseph, Ross and overrun with Catherines, also Ann, Jane, Hannah.  These were from the North.

I have not seen Judith as Johanna I have seen it as 'something' that I cannot remember, I remember thinking it was prettier than the name Judith.  As Judith means 'woman from Judea' then this will possibly  explain Judea to Julia or vice versa.  Possibly it was the name Judea that I saw as a church name for Judith?

[Ghostwheel]

I forgot to mention that the books on the Blasket Islands, Co. Kerry (written by Peg Sayers, Tomas O'Crohan, Maurice Sullivan) seem to all use Irish forms of names.

Once, I had the interesting idea to use IrishGenealogy.ie to try to look at the church records for that parish and to try to find the individuals mentioned in one of the books, just to test what forms of the names were used.  But I am afraid that I forgot to do it, and have long since given the books away.

That parish was called Ballyferriter.

Peg Sayers (Máiréad Sayers) was baptized in 1873 as Margaret Sears.  I actually find that pretty interesting - I recall once seeing a record of a Margaret written as "Mary."  (one record out of many) Though, I thought it was definitely an error at the time.  Though, I am still not sure if it is significant or not, she was born around 1799 in NW Kildare to people with the name Duggan.  I would have thought that they would not have spoken Irish, by that time.  But Wikipedia interestingly has this to say: Down to the early 19th century and even later, Irish was spoken in all twelve counties of Leinster.

Tomas O'Crohan's (Tomás Ó Criomhthain) wife Máire Ní Chatháin was Mary Keane in the church records.  But I guess that isn't really a surprise.  I was hoping to test more names, but that is about all I can come up with using Wikipedia.  I wish I still had the books to make a more detailed study.