Week 6's theme is "Same Name." Do you share your name with an ancestor? What about a name that keeps repeating itself in your family tree? Do you have an instance of ancestors naming two children the same? (It happened more often than you might expect!)
In a way, this entry into #52Ancestors is a sequel to last year's entry on "Namesake". Don't you just love sequels? In that blog, I talked about how my direct family line alternated between the names "Vincenzo" and "Marco" for centuries. This week, we're going to dig a little deeper. Let's take a look at Italian naming conventions!
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| Grandpa Marco and the poodle who only liked him! |
* The first male is named after his paternal grandfather.
* The second male is named after his maternal grandfather.
* The first female is named after her paternal grandmother.
* The second female is named after her maternal grandmother.
This is very helpful for anyone studying Italian genealogy. For more on this, check out this article on Italian naming traditions: Italian Naming Traditions and Their Ramifications.
I say this is helpful because it might give you a clue as to who their parents and grandparents might be if you've hit a brick wall in Italy. However, you might want to be a little cautious. You don't want to go making assumptions because many families tend to throw tradition out of the window and make their own rules. Here is one example:
My 2x, great-grandfather, Vincenzo Carrabs and his wife, Maria Giovanna Capobianco had a daughter named Angiola Rosa a year before my great-grandfather, Giuseppe was born. You could argue that Vincenzo named his first daughter after her maternal grandmother. One problem. Her name was Carmina Martone. Not exactly following tradition, huh?
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| Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione. |
Then again, we don't know for sure if she was their first child. Since they were married in October of 1880, there's a very, very good chance she most likely was their first daughter. The rest of the children born to that family don't seem to adhere to any sort of naming convention. Their children were:
1. Angiola (1881-
2. Giuseppe (1882-1974)
3. Maria (1883-
4. Michele (1885-
5. Rocco (1887-
6. Pasquale (1889-
7. Rosina (1892-1961)
8. Pasquale (1894-1983)
9. Raffaele (1899-
As you can see, not every Italian family is going to stick to the same naming convention like my dad's direct paternal line.The others are a bit random. This could be because they aren't the oldest or because the family just decided to be different. I do see Vincenzo, Giuseppe, Paolo and other names pop up quite a bit. It's like there was a big book of Italian baby names circling around Italy in the 19th century. I would say that was the case. But, you see it happen in all corners of the globe. When a friend of mine first brought up the Italian naming conventions, it was like "Okay. I've never seen that in my tree." I guess, in a way, my family has been unconventional. Don't get me wrong. I still see various names popping up again and again through time. Tallying them up would take quite a while.
On my mother's colonial side, I've seen generations of people named "Joseph", "Hannah" or other various, solid Puritan names. The coolest and most unique will always be Zebulon. On her Canadian side, I've seen quite a few "Guillaume"s "Antoine"s and various other names. Chalk that up to popularity, I suppose.
That's usually why some names go on and on for a long period of time. Popularity. Of course there are traditional and religious aspects. But, let's cut to the chase. Sometimes your parents named you "Robert" because your father was named "Robert" and HIS father was named "Robert". Why? It's just how it happened. Families either like the name or want to carry on the tradition.
Some, like the Carrabs family of Gesualdo, tended to be a bit more unique in the grand scheme of things. I have yet to find any Italian family that sticks to those guiding principles. Then again, I could be mistaken. I'm still researching my father's side and for all I know there could be older siblings who do follow the naming conventions.
However, the Carrabs family did seem to follow the tradition of naming a child after one who passed away. Look at the two Pasquales. One born in 1889 and the other in 1894. Chances are that the first Pasquale died young. It happens. It happened with my grandmother who was named after a sister who unfortunately died young.
Carrying the same name of an ancestor has been a tradition for centuries in many, many cultures. Some just either like the name or it serves as a means to keep the person who had it before you alive. In my case, I have yet to find another "Christopher", "Cristofo" or "Cristoff" in my tree. I could be unique. However, since I was born so close to Christmas, that's probably not the case. Chalk that up to me being descended from some truly unique people.
See you next time!
Edit: Looks like I DO have a Christopher. I just didn't look long enough. Christopher Lovejoy. He is a 9th great-grandfather and lived in Andover from 1662-1737. He was also part of the Great Puritan Migration in the 1630s-1640s when several people fled England to escape religious persecution. Nice. But, I'm probably not named after him. =)
There's also Christopher Osgood, an 11x great-grandfather who was also in the Great Puritan Migration. Interesting.
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