For The Sake of Namesakes

What is your namesake? Did your parents name you after someone, like your grandma or grandpa? Are you trying to come up with a name for your child? Maybe you could use how your ancestors named children.

In the past, some countries had certain traditions or customs on how they named their children. Many choose their child’s names in America because they like the name and do not follow any tradition or custom. I am going to be mainly talking about what my ancestors might have done in Germany. My husband’s ancestors are from the Netherlands, and the Dutch seem to have had the same naming pattern.

When I first started genealogy, it would have been good to know German naming traditions. I got so confused with the names and keeping track of the different generations. What I did was use the birth dates to keep them straight and in the right generation. I also had a visual pedigree tree chart to look at. At that moment, I did not know what German custom was. Not all my ancestors followed a naming tradition or custom that I know of.

Birth/ Baptismal Names

Parents usually gave two names to a child at birth or baptism. In Germany, the first name – what we often refer to as a given name – was a spiritual name, usually to honor a favorite saint. The spiritual name was often used repeatedly in families. The second name – what we now would refer to as a middle name – was a secular or call name and was the name by which the person was known. One of the most common and heavily used saint’s names for males was “Johann” (with no “s”), and for females, “Johanna” or “Anna.” Thus, in a hypothetical German family, we might see the male children named:

                                        Johann Theobold Oster
                                        Johann Phillipe Oster
                                        Johann Georg Oster

Respectively, these children would be known as Theobold (Teddy), Hermann, and Phillipe (Phillip).

For girls, we may see:

Anna Maria Oster
Anna Louise Oster

Respectively, these children would be known as Maria (Mary) and Louise.

Again, Germans did not always carve these naming patterns in stone, but it is helpful to understand the basic custom when researching German families. You may know your ancestor was called Henry, and thus assume his name was Henry Something Oster, when in fact, his name was Johann Heinrich Oster. If his parents were called William and Catherine, their full names might have been Johann William and Anna Catherine. I must be careful, and not assume, and check out as many name possibilities as I can.

When I was doing the Oster side of my family, I got frustrated. That side of my family tree has six generations of Johannes. Knowing the tradition of using a saint’s name for the given name will be helpful when researching different records. Instead of researching Theobold Oster, I could search for Johann Theobold Oster.

Naming Patterns

German families often used the following pattern for naming children. Again, though, several variations were used, and often the pattern was disrupted by other circumstances. When a duplicate name occurred in these patterns, the family usually used the next name on the list. Often when a child died in infancy, his/her name was reused for the next child of the same gender. A child’s name was sometimes repeated when a spouse died, and the surviving spouse remarried and had more children. This would result in half-siblings with the same name.¹

My Family

My husband’s family was fond of this naming pattern. They were of Dutch ancestry. His direct line for a few generations was the first-born son. So, it turned out every other generation had the same name. The name was either Kornelius Hendrik (Henry) or Hendrick Kornelius. There might have been a few different spellings. Kornelius could have been spelled, Cornelius.

Different spelling of names happened a lot when people immigrated to English-speaking countries like the United States. This could have been because of all the different accents. For example, K and C can sound the same in the English language. When I am doing research, I must remember to check if there could be other variations to the names. Last names could have had different spellings also.

My Namesake

My name is Cora Pruim (pronounced like Prime). I am named after someone but just not in my family, yet I am not the first Cora Pruim in my son’s ancestry line. Are you confused? I am sorry. Read about Cornelia Pruim here. When my parents were trying to think of names, they thought of two. For a boy, it was Bryce. For my name (girl), my dad had gone to college with a Coralee. I believe my mother said she thought he said/meant Cora Lee. So, there is a space. My mother really liked Cora Lee, so they went with that one. I was not named after anyone in my family. My children’s middle names are the same as my parent’s middle names.

As I said before, I am not the first Cora Pruim. When my now-husband first told his father he was dating me, he said that he (my father-in-law) had a grandmother named Cora. We thought it was cool. I did not know that her last name was Pruim, too, since we were not thinking about marriage at that time. I did not think about what side of the family he meant.

A couple of years after we got married, I sat down to work a little on my husband’s family history. That is when the name Cora Pruim came up again. I noticed that we both married into the family to become Pruim. After she got married, she went by the nickname Cora, and her given name was Cornelia.

After my husband retired, we moved to his hometown. I cannot wait to dive into researching his family history. So much history to learn about the area. After I look at a Census, it shows me where some of his ancestors lived. There is a possibility that the original houses are still standing. We can drive by where his ancestors either lived or worked.

Cornelia “Cora” Pruim was born in Michigan². She spent her whole life in the same town. I wish I could have met her. The first time that I went to the walk-in clinic, I gave them my name. They asked me if my address was this one certain address. I did not know the address. Months later, when I was doing some research, I learned that Cora had lived at the address they asked me about.

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