Some recent observations from County
Cork-L list regarding naming patterns:
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On Wed, 3 May 2000 NKie wrote:
> After a recent return from beautiful Ireland, West Cork
and Sligo in
> particular, I have been pondering that naming pattern
again. It occurred to
> me after some thought, would not the first and fourth
son end up with the
> same name. If first son is named after fathers father
and the fourth after
> the eldest brother, eldest brother is named after the
fathers father in all
> the sons families. Is there some logic in my thinking or
have I confused
> myself beyond repair??Is that why they seemed to name
people one thing and
> call them something else??
>
> Regards, Nancy Kie
Reply
given by Sean Ruad is as follows:
Exactly - unless the father was the eldest son and his oldest
brother
was actually younger than himself and so was named for the
mother's
father - well, with that said... I'm beginning to feel a lot
more like
I did when I first got here than I do now - *{;-)
May 10th, 2000
It is not an aberration.
The naming convention was;
First Son after paternal Grandfather
2nd Son after maternal Grandfather
3rd Son after Father
4th and subsequent Son's after next eldest Uncle
The exact same convention was used for girls, with
Grandmothers and Aunts
used.
This convention was modified when the resulting name would
mean that 3
people in one family had the same name. The superstition was
that in the
case of 3 having the same name, one would die. When one of
the people having
the name died, the name was reused on the next born child.
Regards, Shaun
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