Scottish Forenames

Naming conventions of the forename (Christian name) can sometimes help in the tracing of families. A very widespread custom was for the eldest legitimate son to be named after his paternal grandfather, the second son after his maternal grandfather, and the third son after his father. The eldest daughter took the name of her maternal grandmother, the second, that of her paternal Grandmother, and the third was named after her mother. Mothers' or grandmothers' surnames were sometimes used as forenames for boys: Graham, Murray, etc. But even with these conventions difficulties can arise. For example, my grandfather named my father, William. My father named me, William, I named my eldest son William, and he must now name his eldest son William, and so on forever. Within a few generations, with early marriages and long lives, it may become difficult to sort out the individuals. Also, it was a not an uncommon practice in the late Middle Ages for two brothers to have the same forename; a custom which has caused confusion for genealogists. There were two Davids in the family of the father of Cardinal Beaton. One of my own ancestral families had two Williams. But William de Viteri Ponte had three sons named William, distinguished as, Willelmus primogenitus, Willelmus medius, and Willelmus junior. King James V had three illegitimate sons named James, and on 26 February 1532 he wrote to Pope Clement VII asking him to declare them eligible to hold ecclesiastical dignities.I think that there are two principal reasons why these duplicates came about, besides caprice. Sometimes a child died young, and the duplicate named brother was his replacement in the family. But perhaps most commonly, was the necessity of naming a child after each of its grandparents, and, as both happened to have the same forename, the only way of bestowing the honor and getting out of the difficulty was by having the double set.

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