Irish Naming Patterns

People often ask me if there is an “Irish Naming Pattern.” The simple answer is “Yes.” However, it not that simple, as circumstances and individuals tend to mess with our nice little formulas. This blog focuses on traditional Irish Catholic naming patterns which are as follows:

 

 

1^st son was named after the father’s father

2^nd son was named after the mother’s father

3^rd son was named after the father

4^th son was named after the father’s eldest brother

1^st daughter was named after the mother’s mother

2^nd daughter was named after the father’s mother

3^rd daughter was named after the mother

4^th daughter was named after the mother’s eldest sister

Nice formula on paper, but let’s discuss how it often plays out in real families. If you are already working in the Irish parish registers, be aware that these can be incomplete for all denominations, especially Roman Catholic. So you might only document half or less of the children in a family. That really messes with the formula in a bad way.

Another factor is even if you think you have all the children documented, look for gaps, because so many children were born dead or were miscarried. Thus they were never christened. In other cases, a child would die and the mother would name a later child after the one which died. These can mess with the formula. You may wonder how a stillborn or miscarriage would affect the formula. Well, it all depends on if the family saw the dead child as a child or not. If so, even without being christened, they may have named the child. Also, don’t forget, many children were named after the local favorite saint. It gets complicated.

My advice is to always look for the naming patterns in your research. However, don’t be literal in your approach and don’t set anything in stone. Tomorrow I will be talking about Scottish Naming Patterns.

 

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Professional Links

Dwight Radford, visit me at: www.thejourneyhomegenealogy.com

Leland Meitzler Publisher of genealogy products and books: www.FamilyRootsPublishing.com

Irish Genealogical Society International: www.irishgenealogical.org  I write articles for their journal The Septs

Kelowna & District Genealogical Society located in beautiful British Columbia: www.kdgs.ca I will be speaking at their conference in September

Mike O’Laughlin author of Irish family history books: www.irishroots.com

Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, MFA, CG professional book editing: www.nonfictionHelp.com  

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