Given names

[gilmore]

We in Britain and USA share much common heritage and included are our given names (what were called Christian names when I were a lad).

In Britain these tend to be pretty much traditional with a few exceptions. In the USA there are also many traditional names BUT, here's the thing, there is a preponderance of surnames (family names) used as given names. So we might have David, Michael, Susan, Mary alongside Washington, Jackson, Taylor and Macauley. As we know surnames came into being to distinguish people of the same (given) name once populations began to increase. (David son of John would be called David Johnson not just plain Johnson)

My question to our American friends is how did this about-face naming start?

BTW I once worked with a Harrington James and I always wanted to call him James Harrington (we settled for Harry)

As a subsidiary question - why are so many American girls being given neutral or male names?

In the American South this has been going on for centuries. We use distaff surnames often as middle names, and less often as first names.

Sometimes a child would be after some one, usually a relative, by giving him (and sometimes her) both the forename and the surname of the person honored, such as, say, Andrew Jackson Smith, [or Robert Lee D______(my former brother-in-law's name.)] If there were a lot of Andrews in a family or town, the person might be called by both names to distinguish him from the others, e.g., "Andrew Jackson." From there, perhaps he would come to be called simply "Jackson." This being the name he was known as, it would be the one used when a child was named after him.

One of my nephews is named "Lark," originally the surname of a woman who married into our family in the 1700's, but used as a given name since then almost continuously.

Sometimes it can be confusing to strangers. I had a cousin named Byington Lindsay who was often called Lindsay Byington by those who didn't know better.

My sister was given her paternal grandmother's maiden name, Daniel, as a middle name. She hated it when when was a child, but seems to have recovered.

I have heard that the Irish also use family surnames as middle names. Does this happen in Ireland, or more among descendants of Irish in America?

[Standard]

I've got my father's middle name for my given name, and my grandfather's name for my middle name. For our two children my wife and I picked Biblical names for first names, and celtic names for middle names to honour our celtic heritage (she Irish, me Scottish). So our childre became Joshua Rielly, and Elisabeth MacKenzie.