ould Oprah have become a famous talk show host if her name had been Mabel? Would Elvis be the King of Rock and Roll if his name had been Bob? Our names are the cornerstone of our personality. From creative spellings to family tributes, our names say a lot about us, and they help us become who we are. So what about you-what does your name mean, and what does it say about you?

What's in a name?  And what does your name mean to you?  Family names, hippie names, wildly creative names-what does your name mean for your sense of identity?  Social science research has found that the names we are given at birth carry substantial psychological weight.  We learn to define ourselves by the names we are given.

But how can a name mean so much?  Your name can lay the foundation for your personality.  For instance, one may find that a young girl endowed with a birth name that is considered to be particularly feminine may appear to develop a personality based on her sense of femininity.  This may be traced to the simple fact that her parents, by giving her such a name, may be establishing an environment where those aspects of her personality are encouraged and nurtured.  Giving a child any kind of name, whether it be popular, creative, regal-sounding, or based on family or ethnic heritage, can have substantial influence on how they form their identity.

Some individuals live their entire lives saddled with names they despise.  Can a name mean a lifetime of resent?  Maybe not, but the effect of a name should not be underestimated. Although most people eventually come to terms with their given names, the option of changing your name legally is a viable one exercised by those who simply can't live comfortable with their given moniker.  In fact, the practice of legally changing one's name has become so acceptable that many states have made the procedure much simpler than it used to be.

Since a names meaning can carry so much weight, it comes as no surprise that they are usually chosen with great care.  Expecting parents who want to find the most suitable name for their child commonly research names meanings.  With dozens of books about the meaning of names in print, names meanings are easier than ever to research.  The Internet is perhaps best place to research a names meaning. Exhaustive name databases are archived on the Internet, allowing you to research online the meaning of almost every imaginable name.
 
When choosing a name for a child, make sure to consider not just what the name will mean for you.  What will the name mean for the child?  Ask yourself the following questions:

- Do I want to impart a sense of my child's ethnic heritage or family history?  Many people are named after beloved family members. But children should never be named out of a sense of duty.  Only choose a family name if you genuinely like the name and truly want to honor the family member who currently carries the name.

- Is the name currently popular?  Does it matter to you if the name may eventually go out of favor?  Never name a child simply because the name is currently popular.  Names go in and out of favor all the time.  If you truly like a name that happens to be quite popular, be aware that your child may grow up and go to school with other children who share the same moniker.
 
- What kind of influence might the name have on my child's sense of self?
 
Remember that their name is the first inkling most people have of their personality.  Many people attribute aspects of their personality to their name, so be aware of how your child's name may be received by your child and everyone she encounters throughout life.

Source: www.syl.com

 

 

The Importance of Given Names

by Donna Przecha

n genealogy we usually concentrate on surnames since they are the most important way of identifying people who are related. A surname is usually inherited and, while it may be changed, some form of it is usually retained. Given names are more important in a way because they represent a voluntary choice by the parents or, sometimes, by an individual. A name is usually not given lightly. It represents thought and feelings and can be significant to the researcher.

Naming Patterns

You will often see the same names used over and over again in families. While certain names are popular in different areas in different times in history, the repetition could represent a pattern. Many cultures believe in honoring their elders and do so by naming children after them. Angus Baxter in "In Search of Your British and Irish Roots" describes a pattern that was popular in England in the 1700-1875 period:

If this pattern would result in a duplication of names — i.e., both grandfathers had the same name — then they would skip to the next one on the list. Similar patterns have been suggested for other nationalities. This could be a very helpful formula, but many genealogists warn against giving it too much credence. Given human nature, it would be very difficult to follow exactly. It would be pretty hard to convince a new mother of her first-born son to name him after a drunken, abusive father-in-law rather than her own beloved father who had just died.

You will probably see names of parents and grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles repeated, but not in any strict order. It is difficult to know whom a child called Ann or Mary was actually named after. While over half of the names in a family will probably appear to be repeats, there always seems to be a few totally different ones. A child might be named after a good friend or a popular hero of the times. Of the 12 names given to my grandparents' six children born between 1881 and 1896, I can identify the family namesake of 10. Of the other two, Urquhart is somehow associated with the family because an aunt's will mentions the Urquhart coat of arms and a bequest to a person with the middle name Urquhart.

Frequency

Even if the family did not follow this strict pattern, the repetition of names can be significant, especially if there is an unusual name. Let us say you are researching a family group that went west. The family had children named Benjamin, Obadiah and Catherine. When these children married, they tended to carry on these same names. You know they came from New England, but have no proof as to where. If you find a family of that surname in Rhode Island with children named George, John, William and Ann and another family in Vermont with children Benjamin, Obadiah and Catherine, you will probably want to put your first effort into the Vermont family. It is not any proof in itself, but goes towards the preponderance of the evidence.

Some families may show an extreme fondness for one name. In one family, Samuel and William, both with the same surname, came to America. Twenty years later William signed a power of attorney to settle the estate of Robert who had died in Ireland. Most researchers have assumed, as a working theory, that these men were brothers and Robert was their father. A partial list of 77 descendants shows that in four generations of descendants of Robert the name William occurs 10 times. By contrast, Robert only occurs four times. This makes me a bit skeptical that Robert is really the progenitor of the family. He may have been an uncle or childless relative.

Names as a Virtue

Some of the most fascinating names come from early New England where parents sometimes named their children after virtues they hoped they would possess: Patience, Charity, Prudence, Thankful. Some names appear quite strange to modern ears. In view of 20th century meanings, "Freelove" does not seem to be an appropriate name for a daughter! Other names had special meaning. In early New England it is believed that the name Benoni was associated with sorrow and was used when the mother was not married or died in childbirth or if the circumstances were in some way unfortunate.

Recycled Names

Up until this century, parents could usually count on one third of their children not surviving. If a child died, the name was often used again. If a baby died, the next child of the same sex would often be given the same name. When checking birth records, you should never stop when you find the name you are looking for. You should continue for a few more years, because the first child could have died and your ancestor could have been the second child in the family with that name. If an older child died, a younger one would often be named for him or her. If you see George in the 1850 census as a six year old and then in the 1860 census as an eight year old, it may mean the first one died shortly after the 1850 census was taken.

Surnames as Given Names

Always note carefully a surname that is a given name, even a middle name. The mother's side will often be revealed through the use of family names for her children. One woman named her first son Henry and a later son John Henry. Since Henry is a first name, that did not seem unusual, but it was very significant because the woman's maiden name turned out to be Henry.

Consider the following: Thomas Simpson married Mary. After his death, Mary married John Wiswall in 1808. Thomas and Mary had one child, Ann Simpson, who married Francis Ullathorne. Sons of Ann and Francis:

I didn't know Mary's maiden name and I thought finding a Catholic marriage in London for the right Simpson would be impossible. However, I found a record of Thomas Simpson marrying Mary Stephenson about a year before the birth of Ann. The fact that Stevenson appears in family names makes me look very closely at this Mary Stevenson and I would look doubly closely at any Mary who had a father named Samuel Stevenson. Again, this is not proof but a very helpful directional indicator when trying to navigate through Stevenson records in a city like London.

In one family, a woman whose maiden name was not known had a grandson, 2 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild with the given names Joel Horton. Her maiden name turned out to be Horton, but her father was Ebenezer, not Joel. She did have a younger brother named Joel. In a case like this, the significance of the frequency was not as obvious because the later generations could have been named after the first man with that name rather than all going back to honor the maiden name.

A surname as a given name does not always mean it was a family name. The numbers of "George Washingtons" and "Lincolns" as given names in the U.S. do not indicate any family connection. A couple might also name a child after a respected friend.

Nicknames

You may think you have a relationship all figured out only to come upon a completely different name for the wife. Nicknames that were common in earlier times, especially for girls, may not be known nicknames at all today. I thought I never would figure out all the wives one man had. He was married to Ann, Margaret Agnes, Hannah and Nancy in different records. Fortunately, my life was simplified when I found out that Ann, Hannah, Nan and Nancy were all variations of the same name. Some even say that Agnes is a variation of Ann so his four wives became two at the most. Here are some others you may encounter:

Most male nicknames are more straightforward, although Hal and Harry for Henry or Neil for Cornelius are a little less obvious. What frequently happens with men is they decide to go by their middle name. Everyone will know them by the middle name and they will be written up in county histories under this name. John William may be called Bill most of the time. But when it comes to some official documents, he will trot out his full legal name. You may pore over the census looking for Bill or Wm. and completely overlook John. Your best piece of luck is when you encounter a document where he uses both names together.

Baptismal Names

In Catholic churches especially, but also found in others, the Latin name will be used at the time of baptism. Most genealogists maintain that a person should be entered in the database under his baptismal name. Since this is often the only time the Latin name is used, I do not think using this name as the primary name is helpful for people trying to look up information on that individual. One person was christened Bonafacius but not one of his descendants would ever know to look under that name. All his life he went by "Bonaparte." Carolus is Latin for Charles, but not a name most people would use. I personally believe the primary name should be the name the person was known by for most of his life.

Translated Names

When foreigners came to the U.S. they often modified the spelling of their last name or even translated the name. Thus Schneider became Taylor. This happened even more frequently with given names because most names in European languages have an English equivalent. A German named Franz, a Pole called Franciszek, and an Italian named Francesco could all easily become "Frank." John is such a widely used name that it has many forms: Jan (Belgian, Czech, Danish, Gaelic, Polish), Hanna (Arabic), Ivan (Bulgarian, Russian), Hans (Danish, German), Hannes (Finnish), Jean (French), Johannes (German), Ioannes (Greek), Yohanan (Hebrew), Sean (Irish), Giovanni (Italian), Joao (Portuguese), Ian (Scotch), Juan (Spanish), Jonam, Jens (Swedish), Yochanan (Yiddish).

On the other hand a Spaniard named Diego, a Scotsman named Hamish or an Irishman called Seamus probably wouldn't change to James. What you have to do is keep an eye out for is switching between the two names — in the Polish paper he may be Wojciech but in the city directory would be listed under Albert.

German Names

In some German areas you will find that all of the sons had the same first name, frequently Johann, and all of the daughters also, often Anna. You might find a family with Johann Georg, Johann Jacob and Johann Michael. Usually they went by their second name. But when an official record was involved, they might revert to their full name. Hans is a nickname for Johann so you might also find records for Hans Michael or Hans Jacob. In the Alsace area of France, the administration of the area went back and forth between France and Germany so you may find some records in German and some in French. Johann Jacob or Hans Jacob would become Jean Jacques. Of course, he might also just be Jean (the original Johann given to the whole family) so it is hard to tell which son it could be. Occasionally, names would be reversed so that Michael Georg became Georg Michael, probably because Georg was the name he went by and Michael was only secondary.

"Sounds Like"

Some foreign languages do not have equivalent names so a direct translation is not possible. Asian names usually cannot be translated directly, but may be too awkward to use when dealing with Americans on a casual basis. In this case a similar sounding American name may be adopted. The Japanese Tamio became Tommy for everyday usage. Again, you have to be aware of the two names and keep an eye out for both.

Patronymics

Given names become even more significant in the patronymic system, as in Scandinavia, where the given name of the father becomes the surname of the son. If Eric Larson has a son, he will be John Ericson and his son will be Sven Johnson.

While given names do not have the importance of surnames, they should still be carefully studied because they can give valuable hints about your family history.

I wrote a short post earlier today regarding names and I thought that this would be an interesting topic to delve into and talk about.

A rose by any other name

"Names are easy to understand, right? Forename, Surname; what's so difficult about that? OK, so sometimes, there's a middle name in there but that's about it, right?"

The fun starts when you consider that there are a variety of cultural naming conventions. Lets start with the basic western naming construct.

Personal Name, Family Name

The dominance of English as the dominant form of communication has also indirectly meant that the above construct is familiar to most. However, looking beyond the anglicised form, it's easy to see various divergences. Firstly, in China and other eastern countries, the order would generally be family name, given name1 i.e. Ly Phu Cuong, Wong Fei Hong.

Even the two phased construct isn't a given as the Arabic system follows a more sophisticated naming in which an individual would be addressed as a chain of names2. An example of such would be Osama bin Laden; an expanded form of his name would be Usamah bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Ladin. This would allow you to trace back an individuals family history; the bin (also spelt as ibn) means 'son of'. Hence you can, for example, work out that he's the son of Muhammad Awad bin Ladin. A similar construct is also used countries in Irish speaking countries e.g. John Michael Patrick Reilly; John son of Michael son of Patrick Reilly.

Family Name

"So, maybe I was a bit hasty there but at least I can't go wrong with saying that everyone has a Family Name, right?"
Well, step back a couple of years and you'd be wrong. Until 2004, most people in Mongolia were identified strictly on a firstname basis. This lead to a lot of confusion and severely pushed back many forms of census analysis. Upon attaining power, the communist government had abolished the use and record of family name, fearing that tribal loyalty would provide a power challenge.

The results of the 2004 election swung the seat of power away from the communist party and one of the more progressive legislations was to reinstigate the use of Family Names.3

Moving westwards, Russian surnames generally differ depending on the individual's gender; compare Boris Yeltsin with his wife, Naina Yeltsina. The use of grammatical gender is repeated across many other Eastern Slavic countries, though often each with their own regional variations; for example, whilst Russian names generally end with the masculine ov or the feminine ova, the suffix enko is generally restricted to Ukraine. In Iceland, the last name is usually a patrynomic. I'll talk a bit more about what patronymic are in the next section.

The etymology of family names.

Before we move on, lets have a look at the etymology of family names. With English names, the derivation of the name can be broadly sorted into five categories:

Ancestry is an interesting one; generally, this would take the form of a Patronymic. A patronymic is component based on the name of one's father; for example, thtere is Richardson (son of Richard), and Wilson (son of William). Patronymics are a popular cultural construct and arise all over the world. In Netherlands, you'd have Pietersen; in Iceland, you'd have Karlsson. There are patronymics such as di Marco (son of Mark) in Italy, and the Hiberno-Norman prefix fitz manifests itself in FitzGerald and Fitzroy4. Mac, the common surname prefix is also a patronymic (Mac being gaelic for son of).

In East Slavic countries, the patronymic would generally be used as the 'middle name'; for example, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, who is the son of Sergey.

The other form of derivation through ancestry is the direct use of an ancestors name as the surname. For example, the Chinese family name of Yuan is believed to be descended from Yuan Taotu's use of his grandfather's name, Boyuan, as his surname.

Given name

"OK, you've beaten me over the head with your talk of family names. But I bet you can't do the same with first names. I mean, people just choose a name for their kid that they think sounds nice."

Popular opinion does have a big impact on the choice of first names. Names fall in and out of favour as time goes by. The big screen often plays a large role with many children being named after the current big star. For example, in recent times, names such as Keira and Leo rose up the charts; even Prime Ministers aren't immune.

The choice of name for a child is rarely an easy one. Chinese names are often chosen by consulting other family members (esp. Paternal Grandparents) and with extensive research. An interesting aside is that many Chinese also take up a western name as well e.g. Tony Leung Chiu Wai. I use my Chinese name as my forename (there's an interesting aside which I'll talk about later) whilst my kid brother uses his western name Michael as his forename.

The etymology of given names

"What, etymology again?!?"

OK, I'll try to be brief but personally, I find this interesting. However, we cannot reasonably summarise or encapsulate this in a tiny paragraph5, so I'll just give a quick introduction to this.

The popularity of many names stem from their roots in Religious texts; Michael (Hebrew, Old Testament), Muhammad (Arabic, Qur'an), Luke (Latin, New Testament). The origins of the words however, are often found everyday language. Many names derive from desirable titles or properties such as Sophia (Sofia, Wisdom). This can sometimes be in the form of multiple words or expressions such as Alexander ("Protector of men": Alex, protect; Andros, men) or Albert (Bright nobility). The decision to name the child in this manner was, perhaps, an attempt to shape the life of the child; that is, via a name, the child would be bound to a virtue or destiny. The other reason, which follows on from this, is that a name can provide legitimacy or purpose. There are certainly names that derive from titles/occupation such as Sarah (Sara, Princess) or George (Georgios, farmer).

Another popular source of names are Objects; for example, we have Peter (Petra, rock) or Steven (Stephanos, Crown). Another common example of such is in the popularity of flowers as female names e.g. Lily. Other origins include Locations e.g. Britney (Brittany) and Paris or Weather e.g. Fong (Cloud).

Another interesting thing to note about names is how they can evolve so as to jump across barriers. For example, the popular name Michael can be seen in other forms as Mikel, Mikael, Miguel as well as in the feminine name Michelle. There are always transliterations, of course. My western name is a Romanisation of my Chinese name. This also works the other way, and often with humourous consequence; for example, Charlie would be transcribed as Tea Pot (Char Lae).

Middle Names

"That's the unimportant part of your name, isn't it?"

Not always so. We've spoken about the use of patronymic6 but in Chinese names, the 'middle name'7 is often a generation name. As far as I can tell, there's no analogy to this in Western languages. The generation name, is as the term suggests, a name shared by all those in the same generation. For example, all my brothers share the same generation name8. The generation name is usually derived from a family's generation poem9.

My name

OK, enough. Let's wrap this up with your name?

Everyone knows me as Phu; using the western convention of Forename, Family name, it's Phu Ly. No surprises there; it's emblazoned all over my site.

In Chinese, I'd announce myself using the eastern system of Family name, Generation name, Given name as Ly Phu Cuong (pronounced Li Fu Keung). Phu means 'fortune' or 'prosperity' in chinese; Cuong means 'Strong' or 'Strength'. The transliteration of my name chosen by my Grandfather gives it a Vietnamese slant (which is not surprising as my Grandfather worked in Vietnam and is fluent in Vietnamese).

A rose by any other name

Since, in Chinese, my given name is Cuong, why Phu as my forename10? Well, I've already given away the answer. If you write my name in the eastern style, it'd be Ly Phu Cuong. Ly's my family name so Phu-Cuong must be my given name. And what happens when you write that on a form? Cuong is abstracted away as the middle name (as per western convention).11

My family all call me Cuong (pronounced Keung) and when I speak Chinese, that's the name I give. However, in English, I'm Phu and that's the name I use in public.

Wrapping things up

So, this was a brief walk into the world of names. What's your name? How was it chosen? Do you have any information on the origin of your name or any interesting rules/information of your own? :)