AIBU to wonder about names in the past.

[Wiseplumnet]

AIBU to ask if anyone has noticed this, and if they do, what the reason for it is. I am in my 60's, so my grandparents were all born in the 'Edwardian' era and not one of them were called by their actual names. Some of them were so different from their given names, not diminutives like Dottie for Dorothy but more like Nora for Gladys! Names bearing no relation to first or even middle names. My Grandfather was called James John but every called him 'Bertie'. I have come across this in other families too. I thought I would ask a bigger group ( ie mumsnet) to see if anyone else has noticed or pondered this. I think I got too much time on my hands 😂

I’m not Scottish but my middle name is my paternal grandmother’s maiden name and my aunt had the same. It’s a very traditional northern surname, I love it

I think Dontlike is joking! 😂

I also have worked in older people who have different names. Most of them had dementia and would get annoyed when you called them by their real name and couldn't understand why we didn't just know to call them by a completely unrelated name.

I know a Jill who is really Joan but when she started work in the 1960s there was already a Joan so she was told to pick a new name.

I also know an Alison who is really Rachel but she was too embarrassed to correct our employer in the 1980s when they recorded her name wrongly so she just became Alison at work. I only found out as I bumped into her outside of work and her friends asked me why I was calling her Alison.

Can’t imagine either of those scenarios happening today.

My great-grandmother got along famously with her husband's Aunty Betty, to the extent that when great-granny was pregnant with her first child she planned to name the baby after Aunty Betty if it was a girl.

At almost the last moment she thought to ask, "It is Betty-short-for-Elizabeth, isn't it?" and Aunty Betty replied very matter-of-factly, "Actually, it's short for Angelina...but you can't call a baby THAT!"

My granny was duly named Betty, not short for anything.

I don't disagree with you, but it isn't really any of the registrar's business to police that decision. Having said that, apparently Iceland has a list of 'approved' names and you are only allowed to choose from that list.

Several examples of this among women in my family history. Ella became Dinah, Sarah became Bill, etc. I haven't come across any men with odd nicknames in my tree, though.

Not the main point, but I don't understand why people in English-speaking countries would call their DDs Wilhelmina - spelled that way - when they would never have dreamt of calling their DSs Wilhelm.

Something like Wilma or Willimina - even Williamina - make more sense in the absence of any Germanic heritage.

But if everybody is called one of three or four different names, it's hardly difficult for your enemies to guess!!

Among my same-aged friends there's a... Sess (her name's Linda)...

I'm really not sure that I'd want to be known as Sess - her surname isn't Pitt, is it?!

The registrar is the official gatekeeper, though - and also impartial in a way that your own family (every single one of them already called John or Margaret) aren't. If they don't get to veto it, then nobody will - and so it continues indefinitely.

Haha, no 😂

I don’t know how it’s actually spelled in her case, we were talking about it. She’s lived in the USA since the 1960s

😂

Yes, but what would you have to do - provide birth certificates and a complete family tree for your entire extended family for several generations before the registrar allowed you to name your baby?

As an aside, I once worked in a bank many many years ago before t'internet and we had a family group of customers. An elderly woman, her middle-aged son & his wife and their three adult children. All with the same surname. Fine. None of them had the same first names, but they all had exactly the same initials. Not only that, but they were all doctors. There were six bank accounts.

Dr G.P. Smith could have been any one of six people, male or female. Honestly, the number of times they opened a letter addressed to one of the others and used the wrong cheque book, cheque card, bank statement and cashpoint card was beyond belief. They never checked the bank account number. They always blamed us.

How they all managed to become so highly qualified is beyond me - they didn't have an ounce of common sense between them!

That poster wasn't being serious.

True, it wouldn't be an easy task! It's never actually going to happen; just ideology on my part!

But addresses can change a lot... and, if you have such a tight-knit family, what's to say that people may not have lived together in the same address, or even taken a turn at residing in a 'family house'?!

I guess it's part of the 'fun' for people who deliberately choose to make it confusing as to which person is which, instead of treating them as individuals who are easy to differentiate.

But they can't then go blaming other people for the obvious consequences of their foolish choices. What did they actually expect you to do to prevent this from happening?

Maybe they're these bizarre people who are only happy when they have something to complain about - and will go as far as deliberately engineering the drama for new material! Terry Wogan used to talk about the people who would sit at home in front of their TVs or next to their radios, just waiting to be offended!

@ParsleySageToiletDuckAndBinBags Was it 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells'?

Has anyone pointed out that Edwardian families can be very big so if you have several siblings who all have several children and they all name the first son after Grandad their risks being confusion

Well, yes, because that's what brings us round to the 'that's why people used nicknames/diminutives/names completely different to the birth cert' explanation in the first place! They were less concerned with duplication on the birth cert and differentiated by other means in daily life.

They can, but the last known address is a way of tracing people. That coupled with the date of birth is normally enough to identify someone.

Every single Scottish will that I've seen has included the address that was current at the time that the will was written together with the relationship to the will signatory.

Yes, that was very much the case in my maternal grandfather's family.

There were several family members named "Alexander" at one point so diminutives and nicknames were used. That's still a common one in Scotland, so you'll get Alex, Sandy, Eck, Zander...

In other countries they'll use patronymics instead.