[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Naming Traditions

[Bill Fife]

For an excellent article on German naming customs, see the March 2003 SGGEE 
Journal.

Bill


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael & Maureen McHenry" <maurmike at bellatlantic.net>
To: "'Rose Ingram'" <roseingram at shaw.ca>; "'GPV Listerserv'" 
<ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org>
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 12:23 PM
Subject: RE: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Naming Traditions


Are there any naming traditions at all?

                                 Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org
[mailto:ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org] On Behalf Of Rose
Ingram
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 2:19 PM
To: GPV Listerserv
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Naming of godparents

Jerry and Karl are correct.  From what I have seen, most of the time
there
is no rhyme or reason that we can see for giving a child a particular
name.

As Karl pointed out, there might be a hint of sibling relationship due
to
names showing up repetitively.  In one of my family lines I confimed a
sibling relationship in a death record of man, the main witness
(finally)
stating he was a brother.

Rose Ingram
======================

From: "Karl Krueger"
----snipped---
> For example, you might find that Gustav A and Heinrich B witness for
the
daughter of Friedrich A, whose wife was Wilhelmine B. Then in another
record
you might find that Friedrich A and Gottlieb C witness for the son of
Gustav
A, while in another record Friedrich A and Samuel D witness for the son
of
Heinrich B. Seeing certain names showing up repetitively in this type of
relationship might be an indication that Gustav and Friedrich were
brothers
and Heinrich was the brother of Wilhelmine. Of course, many times
witnesses
and godparents were simply good friends or neighbors of the parents. But
by
studying an entire town, and looking at who all the residents of the
town
were, you will be surprised how much you can figure out without having
the
"definitive" records to prove that Gustav and Friedrich had the same
parents.
>

Jerry Frank  wrote:

It is my opinion that naming practices of any type, in any culture, are
inconsistent and unreliable for hard core research. They can be used as
clues for furthering our research but I don't think we should ever say,
for
example, that an infant is related to a godparent just because the name
is
the same. The relationship should be established through actual b/m/d
records.

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