What shall we name the baby?

Susan Doak

SW Nebraska

Genealogy Society

McCOOK, Neb. -- I've touched on this subject before, but my George Davison has brought it back to mind. How did parents determine what they were going to name the new baby?

According to tradition, Scots-Irish followed a naming pattern that destined the first son to be named after his paternal grandfather, the second son after his maternal grandfather and the third son after his father.

I have three men named George Davison in my tree: George Davison the first lived in Northern Ireland; George Davison the second immigrated as an indentured servant; George Davison the third fathered my great-great grandfather! Could it be that I have three generations of third sons? JEOPARDY final answer: Who knows? I haven't found enough basic information to confirm their relationships.

On my father's side, I have three Charles Ferdinand Smiths in four generations and I can't find a single pattern, except that the last one was the first son of William H. Smith and named after his paternal grandfather. The name ended there because Charles Ferdinand the third disappeared in Colorado after World War I.

Families were much larger in the 17, 18, and 1900s. If they strictly followed the patterns, the sons would be named as outlined above with the fourth son being named after either parent's brother and so on. The girls followed the same pattern with the fourth being named for the mother's oldest sister and on down the line.

To further complicate matters, some children received two names at the time they were baptized and it was the second name that became their legal name. In my great-great grandfather's instance, he was Charles Ferdinand Smith, but all of his legal documents as an adult are under Ferdinand Smith.

When I go down the Davison line to the first census (1850) that actually gives me the children's names, the first three sons of George Davison the third are: Lafayette, Francis, and James Knox Polk Davison (named for the Scots-Irish President James Knox Polk). He doesn't name a son after himself until son number five. So much for naming practices!

What all this does it give me a headache. If George Davison the first had five sons and five daughters, there's a good chance that they all named one of their sons George and, the way my research luck goes, all those "George" grandsons will be born within a few years of each other.

However, headache or not, similar names in families are a place to start. In fact, if you have common names in your family tree, you may be ahead of the game compared to having a Puritan-based first name which was normally picked from the Bible: Patience, Mercy, Experience, Thankful, Jabez, or Keturah as examples. I find those names repeated only within the first two generations of settlers so clues to families disappear quickly.

Two final avenues for your research: If a namesake baby did not live to adulthood, often the name would be re-used for another son or daughter and a mother's maiden name was used as a middle name for both male and female children. As an example, my great-great grandfather was Nathan Coffin Hurd. His mother was Alice (Coffin) Hurd.

Don't give up on following generational names but be very cautious, until you have a concrete birth date and basic areas where the family resided. Our ancestors were on the move, but it is rare that they moved across country or hopped back and forth between states on a yearly basis. It may seem impossible that someone would carry the same name and yet not be related, but it is!