[PearlyWrites]

Hi,

I was wondering about naming after family members. Does your family follow any traditions?

My first name "Lisa" is named after my grandmother (father's mother) who was named Bessie. I never met her as she passed before I was born. My middle name "Pearl" is named after my other grandmother (mother's mother) who has been my only living grandparent, 91 years old!

In Judaism, usually we don't name children after living beings. I can't answer why my parent's decided to break from this as my sisters are only named after my grandparents who have passed, but I am very happy with my names.

Thanks!

[lpelham]

We decided to name our son after both Grandfathers (William Paul). My dad is William and I found out after we had named Will that he had an Uncle William (a great uncle who died before I was born), so I really have no idea how far back in our family the name William goes. My mother-in-law thought Will should have his own name, but he does have his own name - Will. My dad goes by Bill and his uncle went by William

Libby

[shoshanna]

On my dad's side of the family, there is a Jonathon in every generation. My parents didn't know about this until they'd had several children (my dad isn't very close with his extended family), but they liked the name and wanted to follow the tradition. So, my fourth brother's name is Jonathon. I am assuming one of my brothers will continue the tradition.

As far as my husband and I are concerned, we decided to use his first name as our son's middle name. We may use my name in a daughter's name in the future, but I don't know yet. We just didn't want to give our first names to our children as first names because that would be pretty confusing. I know people do it all the time, but we didn't want to.

[PearlyWrites]

How interesting! I hope more people add to this discussion as I find naming a very interestnig subject.

My husband and his brother's are named after family members but somehow the names are also from biblical characters; hhhmmmmm.

Thanks!

[lpelham]

Originally Posted by shoshanna

We just didn't want to give our first names to our children as first names because that would be pretty confusing. I know people do it all the time, but we didn't want to.

It's funny, when I read that, I thought about Lucy and Desi Arnaz with their children, Lucie and Desi. How confusing that must have been. "Lucy?" "Yes." "Yes."

Libby

[erika h]

In my husband's family, the father's first name often becomes the middle name of the first son. My family's tradition is to sometimes use the name of a grandmother or grandfather for the grandchild. Unlike the tradition in Judaism, we often name after grandparents who are still alive.

My brothers are named after their grandfathers, my daughter after my mom, and my son's middle name is my dad's first name.

[PearlyWrites]

How neat! Yea, besides an English name, we also get a Hebrew name which also reflects the person we are named after in a ceremony when we are an infant.

Thanks!

[chdsgrl]

Let's see....My first daughter is Savanna Joy. My Mom wanted to name my Joy, but my Dad "fell in love" with a character on General Hospital, Diana Taylor. So, I was named Diana. When I had my daughter, I chose Joy as her middle name as a way to honor my mother. My Mom then went out and legally changed her middle name to Joy and so now they share the same middle name.
When I had my son, I wanted to name him Anthony Thomas, Anthony for my Dad, Thomas for my stepdad and the two names combined took care of just about every grandfather, uncle and brother we had. My exhusband insisted on naming him Shane, so his name is Shane Anthony Thomas, yes two middle names!
With my last daughter, my husband and I went back and forth on a name. He saw a stamp in a craft store that said "Kaitlyn" and knew that was the one. His father died while I was pregnant, and his name was Oliver. So, her name is Kaitlyn Olivia, in honor of her grandpa. The most interesting part of that story was that her grandfather and his sister in law would have these bantering funny arguements, and would end up saying, "Kiss old Rose" at the end as a joke. It then turned into a simple, "KOR" as an inside joke. as it turns out, Kaitlyn's initials are...."KOR". We didn't realize that till she was about a year old.
Funny how things work!

[pattiewrites]

All of our children have a family name as either the first or middle name. My oldest daughter was given the middle name Teresa after both my grandmother and my husband's grandmother. My middle daughter was given Patricia as a middle name, which is both mine and my mother's name. My youngest is named Madeleine for my grandmother and Isabella for a middle name after my husbands grandmother. We are pregnant with our fourth and his middle name will be John after my husband's father. The first names for all but our third are not family names.

[PearlyWrites]

Wow, this is great! Thank you so much for sharing all these great naming stories!