naming patterns
Replies: 7
Re: naming patterns
 kozlay
(View posts)
|
Posted: 11 Jan 2008 2:46PM GMT |
Classification: Query
The proliferation of given names such as you describe was, and is still, common among royalty. But finding this among the ordinary nobility or the peasantry would be highly unusual.
Perhaps the customs differed in Austria, but in Hungary it was uncommon for a child to be given more than one name. When one does find a "double first" name, it is nearly always in a noble family. I have personally never seen a double first name in peasant families, though it may have happened.
So how did Hungarians deal with the problem of multiple people with the same name? There were several alternatives. One was to simply do nothing. Indeed, that could easily lead to confusion. Most of us have run into that problem in trying to sort out family trees.
A second way of handling the problem is to adopt a prename. A Kovacs Janos might become, for example, Toth Kovacs Janos. His children might become known, then, as belonging to the Toth branch of the Kovacs family. In time, the family might drop the Kovacs completely and become a Toth family.
A third way, found among nobility, was to specify where the family originated, such as Tornay ((varsanyi) as differentiated from Tornay (tornai).
Yet another way was to simply adopt an alias. Hungarians seem to have been much more prone to changing their names than others. It is not uncommon to find the use of the Latin term alias in the records (maskent in Hungarian). Ethnographers have also noted that a man might be known by one name in his home village, and a different one in a neighboring village. My husband's great-grandfather, for instance, was known by at least three different names.
A final note about your comment regarding naming children after the saint's day on which they were born. This may have been the case in some areas, but naming customs varied. Often the first-born male was named after the father; the first-born girl after the mother. Therefore their name days would not occur on their actual birthdays. Because name days were so much more significant, actual dates of birth took on less importance.
Janet
Perhaps the customs differed in Austria, but in Hungary it was uncommon for a child to be given more than one name. When one does find a "double first" name, it is nearly always in a noble family. I have personally never seen a double first name in peasant families, though it may have happened.
So how did Hungarians deal with the problem of multiple people with the same name? There were several alternatives. One was to simply do nothing. Indeed, that could easily lead to confusion. Most of us have run into that problem in trying to sort out family trees.
A second way of handling the problem is to adopt a prename. A Kovacs Janos might become, for example, Toth Kovacs Janos. His children might become known, then, as belonging to the Toth branch of the Kovacs family. In time, the family might drop the Kovacs completely and become a Toth family.
A third way, found among nobility, was to specify where the family originated, such as Tornay ((varsanyi) as differentiated from Tornay (tornai).
Yet another way was to simply adopt an alias. Hungarians seem to have been much more prone to changing their names than others. It is not uncommon to find the use of the Latin term alias in the records (maskent in Hungarian). Ethnographers have also noted that a man might be known by one name in his home village, and a different one in a neighboring village. My husband's great-grandfather, for instance, was known by at least three different names.
A final note about your comment regarding naming children after the saint's day on which they were born. This may have been the case in some areas, but naming customs varied. Often the first-born male was named after the father; the first-born girl after the mother. Therefore their name days would not occur on their actual birthdays. Because name days were so much more significant, actual dates of birth took on less importance.
Janet