Naming Conventions

Do you know what the names in your family reveal about your ancestry? There is hidden information in the choices that our ancestors made when they named babies. Several cultures even use well-known patterns in the naming of their kids. I read about an interesting study recently that indicates that even our political leanings can be learned from the names we give our children. Yikes!

There are other naming issues that make a genealogist's work difficult. For example, how do you write a name in western text that was originally written with a different alphabet (Cyrillic, anyone?)? What if the place where your family came from had two names - the name on the map and a local name (I've been trying - for years - to figure out the place my great-grandfather was describing when he told us he came from "Beaustagard" in Sweden. I've been told that is the name of a farm...)? Still worse, what if there were two places with the same name in the same country? Challenges like these could torpedo your entire family history project.

Some resources on the web can help you make sense of the names in your own family tree:

CEMSEARCH-UK
Geni.com
Pro Genealogists
Search My Tree

I've got a happy ending to one story about names. My grandmother's name was Virginia. This took on a special meaning when I visited her father's hometown in Italy, with the impressive Monte Vergine on its skyline. I can't confirm that they were thinking of that mountain when their daughter was born, but I get a kick out of thinking that Vincenzo and Rosa wanted to remember a place they knew in the name they gave her.

Don't give up on the chance to learn about your family using naming conventions. Happy hunting!