Genealogy Chat

The ancient Romans used to do something like this. Seemed like they didn;t have a vast choice of names, and if there were three daughters for example, in a family, they might be called Claudia Prima, Claudia Secunda and Claudia Tertia - Claudia one, two and three! Must have been confusing! Lisa

I've got 14 people in one family and only 5 actual names, they repeated them so often! lou

Hi Kitty, yes it appears it was very common - I have several generations too - and it is very confusing. If they knew back then that it would cause such problems for us now, perhaps they would have varied the names a bit more. LOL. Jan

The Irish, Scottish, and to some extent English, families tended to follow naming traditions with children. The first son would have been named after the fsather's father, the second after the mother's, etc. A similar practice existed for daughters as well. It can be quite confusing at times, especially when you add the practice of naming a child after a brother or sister that had died as well. Paul

Yes, quite common! Also, don't get misled if you find two children with the same name in one family! It simply means that the first one would have died .... they quite often gave the same name to a subsequent child in that case.... it confused me no end until I discovered why it happened! Tyne

How confusing?!!! Thankyou so much.

Why would a child be given the 1st and 2nd name exactly the same as her mother? seems a bit odd to say the least and slightly unimaginative. Was this common in the late 1800's?