to think it is odd to call your children your name

[CheeseEloise1]

Found it very strange when my brother and his wife named their daughter after wife's name. She is Mexican so put it down to tradition. They are about to have a second child and are going to call it my brother's name.
I can't say anything to them but find it very odd that daughter has mother's name and so has father's name. What would a third child be called? AIBU to find the whole thing a bit odd?

[Nataleejah]

YANBU. Children are not gravestones -- they deserve their own names, not "in memory of..."

[YouAndMeAreGoingToFallOut]

My maternal grandparents had two children, a boy and a girl, and named them after themselves. They didn't even manage to stretch to a middle name for my mum. I've always thought it seemed massively unoriginal, maybe because there was no third child to break the pattern up a bit. My dad was named after his father, but he also had two brothers, so it seems a bit less weird somehow.

I'm pregnant with my first child now, and we have names chosen for a boy and for a girl. The first names won't be after anyone, but middle names will be.

[Slarti]

Another very old Scots tradition was to give the first son the mothers maiden name as a first name dropping the Mac / Son hence so many Scottish names can be first or surnames, Stewart, Gregor (MacGregor) etc.

I'd have thought that was the other way round, vis, that Scottish surnames are often first names because Mac means "son of".

[LadyReuleaux]

Yes I think it's weird, never mind if it's traditional! To me it smacks of wanting your DC to be a mini-me - I realise that may not be the reason, but if I was the DC I wouldn't like it and I'd want to use a nickname.

I had a friemnd at school whose dad had been desperate to have a son who he could name after himself (Barry). But he had a daughter so cald her Baree. Actually, she suited it and made it quite cool, but still at the dad.

[LadyReuleaux]

called

[Afreshstartplease]

Our three DC and the one we are now expecting all have middle names named so after a relative, most of who have passed away, but they all have their own first name.

[SellFridges]

I think it's odd. Why would you want two people in the same house with the same name?

[Cuppaand2biscuits]

I think it's strange to have siblings named after mum and dad. its narcissistic and impractical.
I do know a man called Phillip (not his real name) who has 5 children all named after the letters of his name ,so Phillippa, Harry, Isobel, Lee, Luke (again not real names) He has been married 3 times.
I also know people who have named their children very similar names to their own and I find that strange too. Emma and Ella, Chloe and Cleo.

[Caffeinator]

I'm with SellFridges.

[kitchenunit]

It's always been normal in the past.

Plus many countries take a parents name as the child's surname. Iceland still does it (ie Jonsdottir as a surname) and both England and Wales used to in the past. In England the "Fitz"'prefix was used eg John Fitzpatrick.

[LunaLoveg00d]

There used to be "rules" about naming children, especially in Scotland:

1st son named after father's father
2nd son named after mother's father
3rd son named after father
1st daughter named after mother's mother
2nd daughter named after father's mother
3rd daughter named after mother

Very useful to remember if you're doing your family tree. When it comes to more than 3 sons or 3 daughters, or in this case another child, the parents choose a name from the extended family which hasn't been used already.

I think it only sounds odd nowadays as we have a much wider pool of names to choose from, back in the 19th century there were far fewer and everyone on my tree appears to be called John, James, William, Robert, Richard, Thomas, Mary, Jane/Jean, ELizabeth, Sarah or Ann.

[flukeshot]

I'm named after my mum. Yes it's odd and annoying!

[revealall]

Odd. Not very sophisticated.

[BertieBotts]

DH is called

Father Uncle Cousin Uncle Grandfather Grandfather's name modernised Surname.

He goes by the Grandfather's modernised name but uses Father in a work context.

Replaced with actual names of course.

I had to recite all of them when we got married and he is dyslexic and can never remember the official spelling of one of the middle names

[BertieBotts]

Also, most of the names are Scottish so I reckon there is Scottish heritage in his family. When he grows a beard it comes out ginger.

[Footle]

I knew an Eric with daughters named Heather and Erica.

[Athrawes]

My son has the same name as his father, his grandfather and my grandfather. His middle name is my brothers name.

[corythatwas]

Can't know if somebody is striking out as egotistical and narcissistic or is simply being traditional. You could also argue that choosing an unusual and "special" name that appeals to you is about being egotistical, because there is no knowing if the child is actually going to like their name or if it was more about you feeling special and unique.

Or then again- you could just shrug your shoulders and say "well, it's just a name".

For the record, both my dcs have two middle names, one from each side of the family; it's how we do things in my family. Dd also has my middle name as her first: nothing to do with narcissism; just happens to be a name I really like- and an old family name.

[TheHiphopopotamus]

I don't like and I did it!

Only reason was because it was an unusual name and it can be traced back through DH's family for at least seven generations. I like that it's a link with family ancestors through history.

Wouldn't have done it if DH was called Dave or something and it was just naming him after his dad. That would be egotistical. I do wonder if DS will call his son (if he has one) the same and carry on the tradition though.

[lalalalyra]

It's pretty traditional. Doing the family tree you don't have to go back far to find families where all of the children are named after someone.

It was really helpful because if you know that Mary father-in-law was called James, her father Michael and her husband John then you knew the names of her first three sons. It also meant if you found that she had five sons called James, John, Peter, William and Michael then you knew that before Peter had been born she'd had a son called Michael who had died after William had been born because it was tradition to reuse the name, often with a different middle name, with the next child.

The only time you had to be careful was with a Joseph as often the first daughter would be called Josephine if she was the first child and that tweaked the order of names for both boys and girls.

Mine don't have my first name (because my original first name is ridiculous), but they all have my maiden name as a middle name.

[marcopront]

It is perfectly normal in Mexico. In fact it would be seen as odd not to do so.

Where DD's dad is from they use the tradition of first son after Father's dad etc. And as he explained to me it is the first daughter in each relationship who is named after the father's mother so DD and her half sister and her cousin should both have the same name. As we only used the middle name for DD they are not exactly the same.

[Ameliablue]

It's less common now than in the past but certainly not odd.

[trafalgargal]

I rather like traditional names -that mean something and aren't just a refelction of what soap characters are currently popular.

It also tends not to date a person - names go in fashions the Apples and Fifi-trixabelles and their clones will find this out later in life.

I've found quite a few names repeat in my family tree- which can be quite useful when researching.

[Mari50]

My parents indulged in this, brother has my dads name, sister has aunts name and I have aunts name and grans name as a middle name- it's a horrific middle name which was also not her name after all, a fact only discovered after my dads death, although her actual name was worse!! My ex partner is named after his dad and hilariously his brother was also given this name as a middle name.
Personally I think it's weirder calling your kid a variant of your surname i.e fergus ferguson, David Davidson, etc lots of those about.

[CordeliaFrost]

My cousin's husband (back in the States) is the sixth 'first born' son in his family line, to be given the exact same name, something along the lines of James Augustus Smith VI (the sixth). His father is the V, grandfather IV and so on. (Obviously I haven't used the same name, but style wise, it's very similar).

When I learnt that my cousin was expecting a son in May, I thought she'd be the one to say it was time for the tradition to come to an end, but I was wrong. Two weeks ago, the birth announcement was e-mailed to me, announcing the arrival of James Augustus Smith VII.

As her husband's grandfather is still alive, it means James Augustus Smith IV, V, VI and VII are all in one family, which I find stark raving bonkers.

Now I'll just have to wait a few decades, to find out if James Augustus Smith VII will be the one to break the tradition.