Naming a baby

Mrs_Ryan

I noticed someone mentioning about issues with genealogy and names- we’ve come across a couple. A great aunt of OH’s- was registered as Mary Teresa. (They were Irish) but try as I might, I couldn’t find any trace anywhere of this Mary Teresa and it was driving me mad. Eventually we located her as an informant on a death certificate of another of the family. Turns out she was known as Minnie, and OH’s dad had mentioned her several times. Once I knew this I easily located her marriage and death certificates- both of which stated her as Minnie!
Also OH’s birth mother interchanged her names so many times in her life that it got to the point where neither of us know what her name actually was. We had a civil partnership and both parents names are on the certificate- we asked for his stepmum (whose correct name we definitely do know) to be put on there as OH was estranged from his birth mother as she abandoned him when he was a baby. They refused and told us we had to find out her name ‘for genealogy reasons’ we gave them a name but we still to this day don’t know if it’s even correct and did warn them of this. So anyone actually doing the family tree might not necessarily find her. Plus she changed her surname when she remarried so the name on OH’s birth certificate probably bears little resemblance to whatever name she ended up using. 

As well, when my dad died I had problems closing his Facebook account as they couldn’t grasp that Jack can be used in place of John. I sent his death certificate but they kept asking for something with the name Jack on it. I had to explain in the end that although his name was officially John, he was known all his life as Jack and their own rules said it was fine for a diminutive form of a name to be used. 

I absolutely hate both my first and middle names. I have no idea what possessed my parents to call me that. I hate my middle name so much that I changed it to the Irish spelling- it was one of those names that was incredibly common at a certain time in the 70’s/80’s and essentially most of my year had one of two names as middle names. OH loves his middle name and always uses it- he can’t understand why I hate mine so much 😂

tooldle

Is the John / Jack thing less common these days. My GF was Reginald John and always known as Jack. There were boys in my daughter's school year called Jack, but i've no idea if their name was indeed Jack or John. 

Spendless

tooldle said:

Is the John / Jack thing less common these days. My GF was Reginald John and always known as Jack. There were boys in my daughter's school year called Jack, but i've no idea if their name was indeed Jack or John. 

Yes. I mentioned this earlier on the thread. Jack has become a name in it's own right though it started out as a diminutive.

Prince Harry is another example. His name is actually Henry but has been called by the diminutive all his life. Harry would now be considered a name in it's own right.

@Mrs_Ryan - Similar story in our family. When DH started geneolgoy as a hobby he was contacted by a distance relative in the states that he'd never known. The man told him a story of how a sister and her husband had lived in America and the sister had fetched her younger sister out there to live with them. Within a year sister and husband had split up because younger sister was pregnant and her brother in law was the Dad! The baby was subsequently given up for adoption. Later on in life theis baby tried to find out more about his British roots but the 'powers that be' pointed out there was a war on and conscription and did he really want to persue this. He decided to leave it alone but went on to tell the story to his son, who was the man that contacted DH. Neither of them could find a trace of the man's biological Grandmother whose name was Annie. DH tried for so many years that I was convinced he wasn't going to and she lay buried under a patio somewhere over the scandal. Then one day DH had a breakthough and discovered her name was actually Anna and that he'd been given both a middle name that wasn't quite correct think along the lines of Mary versus Marie and an extra letter on the surname think Peters instead of Peter. He tried contacting his distance cousin with the news having not spoke to him in ages only to find he'd sadly died. 

GaleSF63

MaryNB said:

sheramber said:

onomatopoeia99 said:

Our parents deliberately chose monosyllabic first names for both my brother and me and I'm glad of it as my name can't be foreshortened and usually I don't have to spell it, though occasionally people will ask if I use the French spelling (I don't, and there is absolutely no way my parents would have chosen a non-English spelling) .

I'm not particularly attached to the name, it just is and I'm not motivated to change it.

My brother and his wife chose first names for their children that are alliterative when combined with the surname.  Both children have polysyllabic first names, which are routinely shortened, indeed use of the full first name usually indicates a telling off is about to happen .  

My sister in law gave her kids one syllable names on purpose so thye could not be shortened but people then lengthened them- Jane-Janey,  Lynn-Lyndy.

Look at the Duchess of Cambridge- her name is Catherine which is used by her family but the press immediately started to call her Kate.

My first name is a single syllable irish language name with no variant. A former manager would add a "y" at the end. It's hard enough to get people in England to pronounce it correctly, I didn't need her confusing people even more so. Also I don't know why some people take it upon themselves to vary someone else's name.

I've come across people like that. They are introduced to Jennifer, or Christine, or Sarah, and immediately start calling them Jenny, Chris, Sally. I think it's arrogant and rude. It's happened to me a few times and I immediately take against the person who does it.