52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 6
Prompt – Favorite Name
More than a few times I have got lost
in the maze of same names in the family tree. You can't blame me
because my “consistency checker” on my program is always pointing
out my duplicate names in the same family. If you are from a German
/ Mennonite background, I think you can relate to this.
Over the years of adding names of
families and their children and their children's children, I began to
notice a pattern in my genealogy regarding names and naming practice.
These patterns got me thinking that there has to be more to this
than the random occurrence of the same name generation after
generation. I mean I was aware that naming the oldest son after a
father was quite common in my German family. But also I would notice
that the children in one family would have the same middle initial.
It took me a while but I realized that this was the first letter of
their mother's maiden name. I thought that it was brilliant. If you
were patient enough you could weave through and connect the dots.
The second pattern I noticed, and more
disturbing to me, was the re-use of baby names until it “stuck”.
What I mean is that if a child was named and died in infancy, then
that name would go on to the next same sex baby born. I read
somewhere that families over a century ago expected one third of
their babies to die in infancy.
Example B is my second
great grandmother Susana (Susanna) Klassen married to Klaas Peters.
This poor soul bore 16 children and 11 died at birth or in infancy.
Judith Peters was reused once and
neither of them survived infancy. Susanna was used three times. The
first two died in infancy. Aaron was reused once. Jacob was used
three times and none survived. I am not sure why the following males
were not name Jacob. Her last four male babies were given different
given names of which only one survived to adulthood.
The third pattern I noticed was the
naming of children after grandparents, aunts and uncles. It was
explained like this on a Internet site of German naming traditions as
follows:
1st son after the
father's father
2nd son after the mother's father
3rd son after the father
4th son after the father's father's father
5th son after the mother's father's father
6th son after the father's mother's father
7th son after the mother's mother's father
1st daughter after the mother's mother
2nd daughter after the father's mother
3rd daughter after the mother
4th daughter after the father's father's mother
5th daughter after the mother's father's mother
6th daughter after the father's mother's mother
7th daughter after the mother's mother's mother
2nd son after the mother's father
3rd son after the father
4th son after the father's father's father
5th son after the mother's father's father
6th son after the father's mother's father
7th son after the mother's mother's father
1st daughter after the mother's mother
2nd daughter after the father's mother
3rd daughter after the mother
4th daughter after the father's father's mother
5th daughter after the mother's father's mother
6th daughter after the father's mother's mother
7th daughter after the mother's mother's mother
I tried to find a good example of this
in my family tree. The Klaas and Susana example shows some of these
tradition but did not strictly follow the pattern. However I am sure
that there are more exceptions to this convention. Of course after
they immigrated to Canada there was a loss of tradition as they
wanted to assimilate to their new country.
Moral of this story is to be careful
with putting the right person in with the right family in the right
generation.
None the less my favorite names in my
ancestors is Rochus – my husband's paternal grandfather.
Wilhelmina – my husband's maternal great grandmother. And finally
Johann said like Yo-han. I have so many Johann's on both sides of
my family.
Wendy
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| Example A |
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| Example B |
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