Whats in a Name????

Last night while doing some research, I started thinking about meanings of names and how it has changed since our ancestors named their children. An example, that I have come across is on my husband's side of the family. In my first post I talked about all the Patrick McMahons on his side. Every Patrick had another Patrick until one Patrick stopped the tradition. Why?? Is is not an honor to be named after someone or is it because the Patrick that stopped the tradition hated his name. On the McMasters side of the family used the first name John and then with my father he did not name my brother John. I believe when I was little I asked him why and if I remember correctly he hated being called little John. (They were not juniors because they had different middle names.) Also, while doing my research I have found alot of times the kids where named after the mother's maiden name, either the middle or the first. This I found interesting. It was a way to keep a name in the family even after the wife changes hers to her husbands. I do not think my kids would have appreciated their first names being McMasters or their middle names. My kids middle names do all mean something though. My oldest's middle name is Linsey (after me), my middle child is Lynn (a shorten form of Linsey), and my youngest's is Mary (after my husband's mom). So in saying that could our ancestors be actually naming their children after their parents and siblings because they wanted those names to live on or is it because they did not have the resources that we have now. When naming all of my children, I bought books and of course looked up things on the internet. Our ancestors did not have 1,000,000 Baby Names book or babynames.com to consult when naming their children. So maybe our ancestors were not honoring anyone with the names of their children maybe they just named them names of the people that they had around them because that is all they really knew.


Just something for everyone to ponder for a little bit. :) Tomorrow or this evening I have a great post to write about how to locate birth records and how to find out if this is really your ancestor. It is very good. I am just getting ready to head out and enjoy our great sunny day here in Ohio before the SNOW comes!!!