General Chat

I wonder if there is anyone who can help me with this query. A couple of my Victorian ancestors have middle names that appear to be surnames. If it was just the females, it would prehaps indicate an earlier marriage. However, I have a Great Great Uncle with a middle name, so I have ruled this theory out. I would be grateful for any comments on the subject and/or if anyone knows any publications that might help me in this quest that would be great. Thanks Lynne T

Hi Lynne,I have this alot in my family,from my research the middle names in my case have always been the mothers maiden name,I hope this helps. Roxanne

think somebody beat me to it but a lot of mine use the mothers maiden name as a middle name. My mums middle name is Brown so they even followed on that tradition 1927. Glad she didnt use her maiden name for my middle name. lol

Thanks Roxanne, I should have mentioned this in the original message, but the middle names I am querying have no connection to their Mother's maiden name, nor to any cousins or Grandparents on the Mother's side.

If it is of any help-----My GGrandmother gave her children middle names of the friends of the family and in some cases---the person who was present at the birth. C xxxx

I have a few ancestors with surnames as middle names. In one case it was the mother's name. In another, the parents weren't married and the father was the lodger - the middle name was the lodgers!! I have yet another whose middle name is the fathers,and surname is the mothers(out of wedlock again), but subsequent children, after marriage, were given the mother's name as their surname!!! The worst one was (yet again) born out of wedlock and used to alternate between his mother's and father's surnames!!! He was actually known as Y alias X or X alias Y. maggie

In coming suggestions sound very interesting thanks for your input into this query. Maggie's suggestion sounds logical and useful, I guess I can only check the names on the lodgers through census returns. But this may be one theory to explain the name difference.

I had to go back nine generations before I discovered the reason for an unusual surname as a middle name - the surname belonged to the only man in the family who had 'made good'! OC

Hello Lynne, on both sides of my family I've girls and boys having middle names after other folks surnames. My maternal grandparents used not only grannies surname and granddads mothers surname but that of her grandfather and her uncle by marriage. My paternal grandparents used the surnames of grandads brothers in law and granddads grandmother. I suppose anything would go if they fancied it. I've seen children being named after battles too! Daphne

hello everyone, This has happened a few times in my tree as well. both my grandfathers had surnames for their middle names and as they were both illegitimate we suspect they were given the names after their fathers. Also two family names occur throughout the generations : Zachariah Mann Adey and Isobel/Isabella MacDonald (then the surname) Its very satisfying when you find the person where these names originate from! Carole via Susan (my mum)

Carole (Susan Fenton), Your points about illegitamacy are also worth thinking about. I do have some ideas of my own about the names. My ancestors have working class origins and lived in one of the major industrial towns of the time. In both of the cases I am looking at, the children were part of a large family of 8 or 9, and there were considerable gaps between these children and their elder sister. My idea is, that if local factory wages did not pay for the necessities in life, women prostituted themselves occasionally, in order to survive. As birth control did not start emerging until the early 20th century you can imagine a few accidents happening.

Hi Lynne My gg grandmother's surname became a middle name to my grandfather, his daughter {my mum} his son {my uncle} two of my uncles daughters and indeed me! Quite normal, certainly for my family, on the other hand my dads name has his dads name within it and he was born out of wedlock.....hence dad never knew his father but clever gran I think!

Hi Lynne, That had never occurred to me! I don't know how common that would be though. Previous generations of working class (esp the women) had a very strong sense of family pride and the pride of the 'family name' was enough to ostracize anyone who 'shamed' the family and I suspect not many people would want to chance that. Esp where I come from (Its grim up north!) Also if a woman did prostitute herself I doubt if she would give the child their father's name (and would she even know their name!) A lot of these women were unfortunate, having been seduced by a smooth talker promising god knows what! Also there were quite a few 'hussies' and I have a few ancestors who it seems were just that! The gaps in the siblings could be explained in a couple of ways. There could've been children who died in infancy or still births. Or (as happened on both sides of my family) an illegitimate child could've been born and the person may have re-married which would explain the gaps. Whole groups of my family were living in the dock, quay and ship yard areas. Its definitely something to look into. A lot of the census records for the workhouses contain names whose profession was listed as prostitute. May also be an idea to check census records for jails as well. Carole via Susan

In my husband's family his father had 2 surnames of previous generations - Stephenson and Kirby - By the time they got to one of the younger ones ( there were 6) he was just 'Frank'. Felt a bit sorry for him actually!