To ask your thoughts on naming children after the parents/ grandparents

[Bearbehind]

Just that really?

I have never really understood the desire to name a child David, after his father and grandfather David (a la Royle family) as there are so many names to choose from but lots of people seem to do it.

Isn't it confusing?

All our kids have middle names after relatives and DC1's first name too. Altogether (3 kids) they have been named after both our Dads, MIL, my grandmother and some ancient relative of DH's (his choice!)

It's only on the birth certificate though. In daily life two of the kids have unique names in the family and the relative DC1 is named after is now dead so there's no active overlap. I've always liked the idea of names having meaning and providing a link back to your roots.

Have researched my family tree back to 1600's and there is one continuous name. Its the name of my GGGF, GGF, GF and DF and also my eldest brother. It's an old fashioned name that has made a comeback in the last few years and each of my family have used different shortenings in everyday life so it was not confusing. Unfortunately my DBro has had no children to continue the tradition. If i had had a boy I would have used it but had 2 DD's.

But I do think it's odd having dad and son etc with the same name and a pain in the bottom from when I use to do telephone work asking for a particular person when more than one person in the household had the same name.

My son has my dad's name as a middle Name. My dd gas my mum's mum's name as a middle name because it is a lovely timeless name and goes lovely with her first Name. Turns out my dad's mum was also delighted as it is a family name on her side too.

Tbh thinking of how potentially annoying it might be to cold callers was the least of my worries when we named our son the same first name as his father!!

All the first born sons in my family are called the same name, first and middle. For about 20 generations they alternated what they were known as so dad was James John, then son is John James, etc. My parents broke the tradition of alternating but still gave my brother the same name. They were always big John and little John, but that's faintly ridiculous now as my brother is 6'2" and 40 years old. It's looking likely that tradition is dying with my brother as he is unlikely to have any sons now.

My dds both have family middle names but their first names are their own. I struck lucky with dd2, her middle name honours my mum, mil, my aunt (dad's sister) and dhs aunt (fils sister). It's a bit of a coincidence that so many branches of the family have the same name, but it's a traditional catholic name so not that surprising.

It's a tradition in my husband's culture so I went along with it. DD is named after her grandmother, who incidentally has a beautiful name that I really like. Lucky we didn't have a boy, as the same cannot be said for her grandads name She also got my mother's middle name. Next time we will have to balance things out by using a name from my side, but my parents don't have nice first names so we'll have to go further back.

I get that people think it's lacking in imagination, but I also think it makes sense to have a name that says something about where you come from and who your family is. Seems like a better basis for naming your child than just picking something that 'sounds good' especially if it's a foreign name from a country you've never even visited.

Of course, it goes without saying that everyone should just do as they wish, however.

It's a nice tradition in many families and our dd has two 'family' middle names - we'd only chosen one, but then she was born on the anniversary of someone's death so she got given their name too in commemoration. She's very proud of her middle names.

I have a friend from a family whose eldest daughter was always named the same thing back for 300 years. Quite cool, especially as it's a nice name. She has stayed childfree so the tradition stops with her.

Ds has my dad's name and my dh's uncle's name as middle names.

I was always told that is "not the done thing" to name a child after someone living, and that it should only be used as a way to honour the dead. I'm not sure why, but it seems weird to me when people do it. My DC has names with no family earning that we just liked!

My DS first name is the same as his dad's and late grandads. But neither my DS or OH use it in daily life they both go by their middle names.
I wasn't overly keen on it at first but it's grown on me a lot in 7months

*meaning

I have boy cousins and uncles with the same name I dont understand same family first names either my aunts have their grandmothers aunts and mothers nsmes 8 including my mum all second generation names some of the 3rd and 4th generation girls have the same middle name though , i guess it is a traditional thing

DS has the same name as DH and another sixteen or so of the buggers before him. I have a lovely photograph of him as a new born with his DF, DGF and GDGF, four generations of [first name] [surname].

Is it the name I would have picked if I hadn't had children with DH? No, not really. But having skimmed the frankly ridiculous suggestions over in Baby Names I don't think DS got too raw of a deal in the name stakes. Plus he goes by his full name whereas DH uses an abbreviation so there's no confusion.

I don't think such an old tradition really warrants my family being referred to as having no imagination but if a baby name choice is the only thing you have to climb onto your high horse about then crack on.

Magimedi that's lovely

I think if it's for a beloved relative or for something meaningful then it's fine

Just for the sake of it, no I wouldn't

My fathers name isn't one I've heard on a child for decades, his middle name is worse. My mothers name is actually currently relatively popular but I don't think I'd use it. Her middle name is one that was extremely common as a middle name of her generation.

I'm not close with any of my grandparents, nor do I have particular connection to their names, although one grandmother has a lovely nn but I'm not a big fan of her actual name.

I think the problem is that unless you go back 3 generations which seems to be the cycle they come back round in generally then you get children with very old fashioned sounding names. My middle name is my grandmothers and it was hideously old fashioned when I was a child in the 70s. I got teased a lot at school and never use it now as a result. However no one would bat an eyelid at a child with that name now.

My ds has my Dads name as a middle name. Dh wanted my Dads name as ds's first name but I wanted him to have his own (non family) name.

I do love my Dads name and I think ds suits it, he died several years before ds was born, and I thought it would have been weird/upsetting for my sister. When I later told her after ds was born she did say she might have found that strange calling him that which I totally understand.

Dh called my Dad by his first name, my sister and I never, so I can see why she thought it would have been something to get used to.

Different things work for different families I suppose.

I called my DS after my dad. I like the name - and my dad was delighted. I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't liked the name

I was going to use my maternal gran maiden name for a boys name my cousin used it which was nice i thought

I liked the idea that my DD would have a family name. I wanted her to have the same name as one of her DGM's, I had 4 lovely Victorian names to choose from. When she was born it was not popular, it is now.

In Scotland the tradition is to name the first son after the fathers father, second son after mothers father, first daughter after mothers mother etc. So we followed that with my kids. DD's middle name is my mothers. I like it that the names connect them with their grandparents and heritage.

BlueStars in Judiasm you never name a baby after someone living in case when it's time for the older one to die, there's some confusion and they (I'm not sure who they, exactly) take the wrong one. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the jist of it. I do get that obviously that couldn't really happen, but I still wouldn't name a child after a living relative.

My DD has DH gran's name as a middle name. Any future DC will have my grandad's name and/or my great aunt's name as middle names.

It just happens that my DF and FIL had the same middle name, so DS has that as his middle name. We chose DS first name as it is Welsh, easy to spell and easy to pronounce. Went to a rare meetup of scattered rellies, to find 3 other cousins had had the exact same thought process and result!

When I first read the title of this thread I thought 'that's so sad' and then thinking objectively realised that myself and my siblings are all named after relatives. Indeed my middle name is a particularly obscure name that provokes much hilarity- thanks gran!
My first boyfriend had the same name as his dad-(which was also the male version of mums name!!)
My exDP has the same name as his dad which they also gave as a second name to his brother which is possibly the oddest permutation of this tradition!!
My own DC has a name which is nothing to do with previous generations

Oh that's interesting soundsystem, I never heard any reasoning behind it before. I do have some Jewish relatives so guess it must stem from there!

I think calling children after grandparents is nice and having middle names after parents/grandparents is also nice but having a child's named after a parent is chavvy and lacking imagination!