Irish/English Naming Conventions for Children

It seems that tradition was not faithfully followed by our Irish ancestors and relatives.

There was a tradition, supposedly established long ago, for families to follow in naming their offspring.  If followed faithfully, and that is the big question, if and when it was applied, then it would be possible to loosely construct a family tree going farther back than current documented knowledge would allow.

It was interesting to come across this bit of possible family practice with those of Irish and English descent some years back but until now I never really made a study of our ancestry to see if it was applied in our lines.  The answer to that question, is no, not really, at least not using information that we know to be reasonably correct.

Irish Naming Patterns for Children:

The 1st son was usually named after the father's father
  The 2nd son was usually named after the mother's father
   The 3rd son was usually named after the father
    The 4th son was usually named after the father's eldest brother
     The 5th son was usually named after the mother's eldest brother
 

The 1st daughter was usually named after the mother's mother
  The 2nd daughter was usually named after the father's mother
   The 3rd daughter was usually named after the mother
    The 4th daughter was usually named after the mother's eldest sister 
     The 5th daughter  was usually named after the father's eldest sister 

We only have any degree of confidence in those descendants of our Irish beginnings starting with John McGinnis (1811-1861) and Thomas Donahue (1816-1898).  Coming forth into present times a reasonably accurate accounting for all the offspring of these two and their wives, Margaret McCarron and Mary McKeough, has been established and documented by a few of their descendants.  It becomes rather obvious when looking at a current family tree that after two or three generations coming forward from these ancestors that any possibility of descendants following traditional naming practices for children really went by the wayside by the time of our mother’s generation.  Simply stated it appears there was little or no effort made to follow tradition beginning in the early 1900’s when the younger and modern generations began their families.


Beginning with the Donahue line we have a fairly accurate guess at the names of the parents of our Thomas Sr.  For now I have accepted them to be Patrick Donahue and Mary Connelly.  Nothing to date has been found regarding the names of the parents of his wife, Mary McKeough. So in counting all possible descendants for two succeeding generations a reasonably accurate count of 70 possible descendants can be established.  This includes surnames that previously were never known to be related in any way, many of which lived their lives out in Wisconsin, and were never known to our branch of the family.  The children of John Shimunok, Robert Puls and William Scherer are surnames included in my count of seventy for they too are direct descendants.  All three of these men married a Donahue daughter of the first generation on American soil.


To repeat, coming forward but two additional generations, out of those seventy possible names only 37 have reliable documentation of names of great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts in order to clearly see if a naming convention of a child was actually followed.  When looking at the spouses of the progeny of Thomas and Mary, as well as the son and daughter in laws established by marriage, not enough of their ancestors has been found to really determine any naming pattern for those that married into the family.  Thus the list dwindles by at least half to use to study the possibility of tradition being followed at all.


The result is that out of the 37 names where relatives names are known only 6 seem to have followed the supposed actual system of naming children.  That small amount is enough to state that the system of naming really was not followed at all and if it was it very well may have been by accident and not really meant to be following tradition in any way.


The list of possible descendants in the McGinnis line is far fewer.  A known list of 25 names can be established coming forward two generations from John McGinnis and his wife Margaret McCarron.  However the possibility of following tradition increases in this family line.  Using all known ancestors, uncles and aunts of this group, 14, possibly 18, of these descendants may have been named using the old traditional naming patterns.  That is clearly a larger proportion than the Donahue line.


This is only an exercise of no great importance currently, only something that needed looking at to see if more names might be logically assumed, i.e. the given names of the parents and other close relatives of Thomas Donahue and John McGinnis.  If one has a reasonably accurate guess of the given or Christian name of earlier Irish ancestors that never immigrated it could be a definite help if and when anyone is able to establish the home parishes of both these lines in Ireland.  Looking at old records knowing only a surname is a broad brush approach, however, if all the given names were known in these lines going back to perhaps the mid to late 1700’s, then the process of elimination of unlikely ancestors in old records would be much easier.


But the obvious answer to all this is that in our lines it is rather doubtful that the traditional system can be relied on to aid in making educated guesses of the names of unknown ancestors.  The system should be kept in mind though because one should never say never.