Indeed.
My father was the oldest of 7 (Catholic) kids, all of whom named after biblical characters. My immediate family and all my first cousins are named after Catholic saints.
(My children, James and Charlotte, follow this pattern but are named after my father and god-mother, rather than for religious reasons)
I have an unusual last name. Quite unusual, though simple to spell and pronounce. (No silent letters and it’s phonetic.)
I have three siblings. My parents deliberately gave us short (4-5 letter) and unusual first names..and no middle names. She would often tell us that they gave us “just enough” names to make us stand out and not be confused with other people with similar names. They succeeded.
As a corollary, my mother would get pissed off when elementary school teachers made us put our first name and the first letter of our last name on all test papers and homework. “How many [FIRSTNAME]s do you have in the class??”
It would also upset her if we used a middle initial of some type. For example, I got a monogrammed sweater in high school and thought a two-letter monogram looked weird. I just added a middle initial (the first letter of my mother’s maiden name) so it looked like an actual monogram. She hated that and commented every time I wore it. To make matters worse, my fiancee thought I had a middle name and used all three initials to engrave our wedding bands. When my mother saw the bands, she curtly stated, “I NEVER gave any of my children middle names!” It made my fiancee cry.
Weird? Nope. My uncle and aunt did exactly the same thing with my cousins.
A cousin of mine named her two kids male and female names starting with the same 3 letters.
It’s got more confusing as the younger has now come out as trans male, and has chosen a new name that’s a common nickname for his brother’s name.
We have friends whose first names begin with “T”. They named their kids with names beginnin with “T”, too.
And also the dog.
Years ago it was customary in the South to name children after Confederate generals. Thus there were a lot of little Stonewalls, Forrests and of course Robert E. Lees running around. It may have been Thurber who remarked that this practice resulted in a lot of slow, steady drinkers.
The name Robert E. Lee currently seems to carry some disadvantage, if not a curse.
Traditionalists will rejoice that such children’s names are once again becoming more common, thanks to a Trump proclamation.
The is exactly the case in my friend’s family. Thank you for explaining it.
She, being the eldest, is always called “Big Family Sister” by her siblings and their children.
I also knew a Faith, Hope and Charity trio - they were at Girl Scout camp back in the 1980s.
Twins at my elementary school were Jeff and John, and their other brothers were Jack and James. I I think there was at least one more brother who also had a J name. Both parents also had J names.
Mom’s cousin’s married initials are LM, same as her husband’s initials. All three kids got the same initials.
Ditto. I have a South Slavic last name, but the spelling was Ellis-islanded from the traditional - ić to a more phonetic -ich.
My first name has six letters, but also ditto. People stumble over pronunciation a fair bit trying to make it more complicated than it is. But I’ve oddly gotten occasional push back from people thrown off by my lack of a middle initial. Particularly when I’ve had fill out forms in an office.
Them: “Oh, excuse me - we going to need your full middle name as well.”
Me: “I don’t have one.”
Them (incredulously): “What?”
This is something really big bureaucracies have figured out. For instance, the US military had a standard placeholder for a non-existent middle name: NMI (No Middle Initial) (which is all they usually needed: an initial). But it meant the placeholder needed three characters when an initial only needs one. But they made it work. Forms would accommodate it.
My HS girlfriend and her 4 sisters all had the same 3 initials.
This is the pattern of the characters in the 1954 musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, all given biblical names, in alphabetical order: Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank(incense) and Gideon.
It blows my mind that people have a hard time with my last name. Think of something similar to “Feeblevetzer.” It’s “feeble,” which is pretty easy, followed by “vetzer,” which looks just like it is. People add syllables, add “-stein” or something that’s just not there, drop syllables. My first name is four letters and my last name is ten letters/four syllables…that’s it.
(My name is not Feeblevetzer…apologies to all Feeblevetzers.)
Most Chinese names are surname >> generational name >> first name. For Example, Premier Xi Jinping follows this format. Not sure what the percentage is, but it is also common for Surname >> first name (very common in Shanghai such as actress Chen Chong aka Joan Chen).
Generational name means that everyone in the generation, such as cousins and siblings, all share the same generational name. So, in a clan setting, it’s straightforward to figure out the pecking order, ages, etc from the full name.
In high school in norcal, one family had 6 kids with names starting with “v”. Vic, Val, Velma, etc.
One night over a couple of J’s, Mrs. H and I discussed the names we’d have given our children if we’d had them. We landed on Elias William for a boy, and we’d call him “Will.” For a girl, we landed on Holly Grace, and we’d call her “Grace,” since Holly [OurLastNameWhichBeginsWithH] wouldn’t work. Then about an hour later we realized we’d named our hypothetical children Will & Grace.
I knew a couple who combined their own names (Malcolm and Lori) to name their kid Mallory.
My niece is Autumn Brown.
Back when I was living in California, I knew a family of five siblings whose first names all started with the letter “R.” Most of them were pretty common choices, but one of the boys was named Ramford, which I had never seen before and don’t think I’ve seen since.
That’s nice, but what’s her name?
Hahahahahaha.
souvenir children?
I believe Ron Howard’s children have middle names based on where they were conceived.