Family name in use for 150 years

Thankyou JaneAinsworth

My grandmother was born in 1897 and as a lot of previous relatives were called Isabella it must have been popular for many years.It is now having a comeback along with the shortened form of Bella.
My grandma and all the Auntie Bellas I had were all strong willed women whom nobody argued with so there was also a family trait there as well!

The girls in the early 1800s Milner family were called Faith, Hope, Charity and Prudence. Definitely not after any mothers.
The boys were called Bowes, Lawer and Foster, all after women's surnames, aunt, mother and grandmother in that order.

I was named Mary, so were my aunt, my grandmother and umpteen cousins on both sides of the family. At school there were 5 other Marys in the same class. I don't dislike my name but I would have liked a middle name as well just to distinguish me from "our Mary" and "your Mary" and "young Mary" and someone always referred to as "Nick's Mary" which I heard as one word like "Rosemary"!

Giving a child a middle name is a good idea. My father in law and other relatives use their middle name for preference. So does our younger son.

GD1 is named after her great grandmothers, one from each side of the family. Her name actually appears on DH's and my family tree as far back as two hundred years.
DH's family favoured King's names, John being the favourite for eldest boys in his mother's family. DH's Grandfather John got called Jack and his surname was Frost

I think Isabella's a lovely name Pinkprincess and it's quite common in the
North-east, isn't it?
One of my friends' DGD was named Rose Isabella and it really suits her, she is a lovely little girl

I had a great-aunt who was always known as Aunty M and we were told it was short for Aunty Marge. The truth was that her real name was Emma, but she didn't like it - I think it's a much nicer name!

My maternal grandmother's name was Isabella. She had been named after both of her grandmothers. She also had a first cousin named Isabella, and my grandfather's mother and sister were also Isabella.It was also the name of my father's aunt.They were all known as Bella.I had as a consequence loads of Auntie Bellas.
Each one was distinguished by the place in which they lived; e.g. Auntie Bella at (name of place).

My mother was christened Annie after her grandmother. Throughout her life she was known as Nancy.Except by my father who always called her Anne as he did not like the name Nancy and told her so from the start.So my mother said she had three names, to God she was Annie, to her husband she was Anne, and to everyone else she was Nancy.

These names stopped being used about the time I was born.My parents argued over my name as each wanted to name me after their own mothers, so my father's mother suggested a girl's name that she liked and that one was used.One of my sisters was going to be named Isabella for her middle name but my parents thought it too old fashioned by then so gave her Isabel as a middle name instead.

My DS1 has my FIL's middle name as his first name, and my DS2 has my maternal grandfather's name as his middle name.

My youngest granddaughter has a shortened version of my name as her first name. They wanted her to have my full name but I would not allow it as I thought it too old fashioned.Her middle name is that of her other grandmother. My only grandson has my DH's name as his middle name, and that name has been in DH's family for a long time.

My GF was the youngest - I think they had run out of family names by then!

Cats chance in hell of anyone managing to unravel their family tree if a big family then!
DH's father youngest of 15 who lived plus two sets of twins and at least two others who died at or soon after birth.
DH's GF one of nine, GGF one of eleven.......

Pretty obvious why I struggled

Hope you can follow that - it didn't come out in the post quite as it should have done!

Baxter in "In Search of Your British and Irish Roots" describes a pattern that was popular in England in the 1700-1875 period:The first son was named after the father's fatherThe second son was named after the mother's fatherThe third son was named after the fatherThe fourth son was named after the father's eldest brotherThe first daughter after the mother's motherThe second daughter after the father's motherThe third daughter after the motherThe fourth daughter after the mother's eldest sister

This practice, very common in the past, is a damned nuisance in tracing a family tree. You come across four Johns alive at the same time and can't tell whether they are fathers, sons, brothers, cousins or the same chap on his second or third marriage.
I think naming your children after yourself shows too much egotism or too little imagination. My great uncle Hugh, married to Jane, had children called Hugh and Jane. He was a very dull man.

That's interesting durhamjen. I have a friend whose middle name is Kingsley, a name that has been given to male members of his family from the mid 18th century - never to females.

The name Milner has carried down my family tree from the 1750s, first as a surname, but as a middle name from the 1800s. Just the boys, not the girls.

My Mum was called Cissie by one of her brothers and his wife. She hated it. My Father called her Cicely, some of her friends called her Celia. I always presumed that she had been christened Cecilia and maybe 'encouraged' people to think her name was Cicely when Cecily Courtneidge was a star. There was a touch of the Mrs. Bucket about her.

I was well into my teens before before I thought to ask her what her real name was. She had been named after her mother and it was Agnes.
As the second child she was a little sister and the whole family called her Sis or Sissie.
She'd changed her name as soon as she went to work.

My DH and DS carry on their family name which I have traced back to 1839. It is both first and middle name. The middle name comes from a maternal grandmother's maiden surname.

My maternal grandfather's family also has a middle name passed down that was a maternal surname and traced back to 1803.

DH had an Auntie Jen who died before I met him. I had always assumed her name was Jennifer but, according to her birth certificate, she was Geni - no idea where that comes fro!

One of the other entertaining things in our family tree was finding out the actual names our elderly relatives were given, rather than the names they were known by. Was it only the girls…. Auntie Dollie - Elizabeth. Our Cissie - Mary Ellen -

I did notice that if a child died then the next child born of the same sex was given the same name as the deceased child.

My DF and his brother both had the same middle name and my great uncle's name was the same as his brother's (my grandad's) middle name.

? So am I!

It seemed when doing DH's family tree that if you had a favourite name you called all the children in that family, of the same sex, the same name.
Try unraveling a generation with 8 boys all called the same name

We gave our DSs their own names, though there was an elderly cousin of Dad's who thought we'd called DS1 after him. We didn't disillusion him. I don't know where grandmother's name - Ida - and her sister's name - Ethel - came from. They don't seem to occur anywhere else in the family tree. Two of my GGMs were Mary Ann and Sarah Ann. Another was Margaret and I'm not sure about the other - maybe Lizzie.

I sometimes wonder where some of these names came from - not the traditional ones, but the then 'fashionable ones' such as Gladys, Ivy, Edith, Gertrude, Ethel etc. Did this trend start around the turn of the 19th century?
Were they named after music hall stars?
The Kylies, Beyonces or Rihannas of their day.

Or have names always gone in waves of fashion?

My parents decided not to call me the same name as my mother, a family name for generations. They gave me a "modern" name, modern in the 40's that is. I wish I'd had the family name and gave it to one of my daughters as her middle name. She had her first baby 2 weeks ago, a son, who has my father's name as his middle name. i'm so pleased, it's also a family name that can be picked out from generations since the 17th century. My parents felt it was unfair to give children family names, they were free spirits

littleflo
Interesting that you say 'a version of it'

There were a lot of girls in DH's family with variations on the name 'Honor' (Honora, Honoria etc).
On one census it had been spelt Ona (although I think that was a spelling mistake by the person taking the census).
It seemed to have dropped out of favour by the 1900s.

My mother wanted Margaret for me, my father Patricia. They'd finally settled on Patricia, but my Godmother must have been working on a previous script and when asked to name this child went with Margaret. Nobody corrected her, so Margaret I was and remain.
I don't care for either name tbh. I'd have preferred Jane or Roberta.

My mother apparently wanted me to be called Roberta.
Dad went off to the register office and put me down as Jane, for which I've always been quite grateful.
Apologies to any Robertas reading this