Naming patterns: guess the grandparents from the children's names

The traditional Scottish naming pattern

This tool uses the order given by the Scottish group of the Ontario Genealogical Society, which warns that the habit began to fade in the later 1800s.

For younger children the sources are less sure. The usual view is that they were named for the parents' brothers and sisters. One version goes further: the fourth son after the father's eldest brother, the fifth after the mother's eldest brother, the fourth daughter after the mother's eldest sister, the fifth after the father's eldest sister, with great-grandparents offered as an alternative.

Naming children for close relatives was not only a Scottish habit. Studies of English parishes, cited in the Glasgow thesis below, found that sons were often named for their fathers and daughters for their mothers, though they do not show a fixed order for the grandparents. Scandinavian families had an order much like the Scottish one, described further down.

Sources do not agree

Guides list variants. In one, the first son is named for the maternal grandfather and the first daughter for the paternal grandmother, the reverse of the usual order. Another writer says that in the Lowlands the first son was often named for the father, and that in the northwest the later children were named for aunts and uncles rather than the parents.

The strongest warning comes from research. A University of Glasgow thesis checked more than 24,000 baptisms and 7,734 families in four Scottish parishes of the 1700s. It found no definite proof that the pattern was in use, and it found clear cases of families choosing not to follow it. Let the records decide.

Names reused after a child died

When a baby died, parents often gave the same name to the next child of the same sex. The Glasgow thesis calls this substitution. A study of birth and death registrations in England and Wales found that when an infant died, about one later sibling in ten received the full name again, and about one in ten more received the same first name.

Two sons named Donald often means the first died, and the second may sit in a different place in the order. In 1789 a Dingwall couple lost their son Donald at two and gave the name to the next son, baptized that same month. A repeated name is your cue to look for a burial.

Middle names and other traditions

In America, especially from the mid 1800s, a mother's maiden name was often turned into a child's middle name, as with Thomas Oglesby Rosser, whose mother was born Elizabeth Oglesby. Middle names also honored ministers and famous men, so check before you trust one.

Scandinavian families followed a similar habit for first names, often naming the first son after the father's father and the second after the mother's father. Their surnames worked differently: until the later 1800s most used patronymics, so Lars Andersen's son was Hans Larsen and his daughter Anna Larsdatter.