Wednesday Wonders...

Names have been a topic of discussion for me lately. I think this only adds to my obsessing over doing more research.  According to some genealogists and historians, naming children used to be part of tradition often times naming each child after a different relative. Quite often the first son named after the father's father, the second after the mother's father.

While I've found a couple instances of that practice myself,  the majority of the time I have found that a fondness of a particular name is more common, as well as surnames used as middle or given names.  Occasionally I have found names that are peculiar and not used before a certain time frame but used quite frequently after the first instance.

One example is a recent discovery on a distant branch of my tree. The Children of Henry Randolph - who died shortly before his twin son and daughter were born. Apparently distraught to an unmentionable degree, his wife Elizabeth named there son Grief and their daughter Mourning. These names then often repeated themselves throughout the next few generations.   Mourning, died at a young age, but Grief lived on to marry and die well into his old age.

What naming practices have puzzled you  about the in your family tree?  Did you find a pattern in the names? What is the most interesting name you've found? Was a peculiar name passed on through generations?

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