If George and Barbara were going to name their first son George, why not make him George Jr.? Omitting the “Herbert” deprived him of that honor. Had they ever said why they made that choice?
Omitting Herbert just denied him being GHWB the II, not the Jr moniker.
Perhaps he was called junior as a child and choose not to carry on with it. I’ve known people who where called junior into their 80’s because the chose to be called that. I’ve also know guys who were called junior in grade school and then it just stopped. There is no hard fast rules.
The “II” is used instead of “Jr.” when a boy has an ancestor or other relative with that name who is not his father, such as a grandfather. George W. Bush does not have the same name as his father so he is not Jr. Likewise John Quincy Adams was not John Adams Jr.
It’s not that it’s some legal rule but that is the commonly observed convention.
At the other end of the spectrum, George Edward Foreman has five sons all named George Edward Foreman: George Jr., George III (“Monk”), George IV (“Big Wheel”), George V (“Red”), and George VI (“Little Joey”).
Notwithstanding, the question was why didn’t his parents give him the same name as his father. They got awful close.
By dropping the Herbert from his son’s name, GHWB could honor his mother’s entire side of the family instead of just his grandfather.
The Foreman family has nothing on the House of Reuss.
Numbering of the Heinrichs
All the males of the House of Reuss are named Heinrich (Henry) plus a number. In the elder line the numbering covers all male children of the elder House, and the numbers increase until 100 is reached and then start again at 1. In the younger line the system is similar but the numbers increase until the end of the century before starting again at 1. This odd regulation was formulated as a Family Law in 1688, but the tradition of the uniformity of name was in practice as early as 1200.
My parents did the same thing with my brother—different middle name.
2-3 years before my dad was born, my grandparents had a son and named him A. B. Lobotomyboy63.
He died as an infant. For their next child (my father) they named him B. C. Lobotomyboy63, using the middle name but choosing a “fresh” middle name.
When my dad had his first son, they named him B. A. Lobotomyboy63 (honoring both my father and his deceased brother?)
When he had a son, he named him B. A. Lobotomyboy63 Jr.
I think they wanted to honor the original by reusing the name. I’ve seen a fairly extensive family tree and I don’t recall the B. name being used before that point.
I never had a son. Would I want a “Jr.”? It’s a nice honor for the wife to pay me I suppose, but I wouldn’t want son to think he had to follow my footsteps. There are mistakes that I made that I hope he would avoid.
In my whole life, I’ve only met one woman who was named after her mother. Mom was “M” and she was “Little M.” Is this because M. A. has daughter M. A. but daughter marries and becomes M. B. so now retaining the “junior” is really confusing? She was M.A. jr. but after marriage…who’s M.B. sr.?
My former brother-in-law was named for his grandfather, goes by II. As this mentions, the skipping a generation bit goes back to royalty.
There have been eight kings of England named Henry, and another eight named Edward, for example. It is easy to see here that the kings and queens were being named after previous monarchs of the same name, sometimes their parents and sometimes earlier royal branches on their family tree.
My parents also did the same with my brother. Their simple explanation is my father hated his middle name.
My oldest brother was a Jr, mostly because he was born on dad’s birthday. He was supposed to be I think Michael. Dad definitely wanted his first-born to also be William because of the shared birthday, but was willing to go with Michael for a middle name. My mom was not going to ‘waste’ Michael as a middle name (the next born son got it), so they went with a full Jr by using Dad’s middle name (a different “M”) (blurred because it is uncommon enough that you could probably identify the players).
I have relatives who are now in the fifth generation of doing this. They have a string of fathers and sons who all have the same first (and last) name but different middle names.
I once dated a woman from Texas who said that everyone in her family was named Jimmie (all spelled like that, not “Jimmy”). Her name? Jimmie Jennifer. Her mother’s name? Jimmie Louise. Her son’s name? Jimmie Jeffrey. Etc. The first name on every person’s birth certificate was Jimmie, though they called each other by their “middle” names. I suppose Jimmie Jeffrey grew up and named his kids Jimmie whatever, too.
IIRC she said there was some tradition going back many years, maybe to the US Civil War, that explained this love for the name Jimmie. Maybe this…?
http://www.civilwarmo.org/educators/resources/info-sheets/jimmie-johnston-child-soldier-civil-war
It would be quite a thing if Southerners named themselves after a Yankee…but enemies would respect the courage of their foes, especially in a child not yet seven years old.
Not me. I have the exact same name as my Dad, but I’m officially II.
Your rule doesn’t make any sense.
It’s not my rule and it makes perfect sense. You are not required to follow it if you want to be different.
I am the third generation of Kent Clark. My grandfather had no middle name, my father had a middle name, and my middle name comes from my mother’s side of the family. When our twin sons were born, my wife refused to name either of them Kent - instead, that’s the middle name for both of them.
My cousin, his father (my uncle of course), our grandfather and great grandfather all have the same first and last names with different middle names. I believe his wife refused to carry on the tradition with their son.
Side question - when did this generational suffix convention start in the US? And do any other english speaking countries do it (I’m thinking maybe Canada?)
My guess, it was when 19th Century New England robber barons (like the Bushes) started fancying themselves as American aristocracy.
Is it confined to any region or section of society (am loathed to use the word ‘class’…) or is it just something anyone can do? I guess I’m asking, why do some families do it and not others?
I’m not sure of its historical accuracy, but there is a stereotype of such naming conventions associated with Ivy League (North Eastern US) heirs to “old money” most famously personified by Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island.
After a bit of poking around it seems this practice is most prevalent in the U.S., and in the UK reserved for royal lines. Maybe the colonists thought it would lend them more gravitas to adopt the naming style of the royalty they rebelled against.
Anyone can do it. No rules, just conventions. Maybe the ones who don’t do it find it pretentious. I didn’t name my son after me because I thought it was a bit narcissistic and I wanted him to find his own identity rather than growing up thinking he was a clone of me. If you have a son you can name him Mangrove Throatwarbler SanVito IV and there’s not a thing anybody can do about it.
Former governor of Georgia and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture George Ervin Perdue III (universally known as “Sonny”) is the son of a farmer and a teacher. Of course “farmer” can cover a lot of territory, and there is a quite ancient belief that “gentlemen” or even “aristocrats” should in some sense be “farmers”–they should own agriculturally-productive land, as opposed to engaging in trade or something vulgar like that. I don’t know exactly what sort of farmer Sonny’s father was, or how prosperous he was.
From the other side of the political fence, there is former U.S. Representative George Washington Darden III (universally known as “Buddy”–that’s one thing about having a moniker with a Roman numeral after it, you may wind up being known by some childish nickname for the rest of your life). I can’t really find anything about his family background.