Namesake

 

Some of my ancestors were named for other family members. I wrote of some of these in another blog post “Same Name”. But there were some others I didn’t mention. My mother and here sisters first names were from characters in a book my grandmother read. They were Yvonne, Bonalyn, Millicent and Constance. I wish I knew the title of the book. My mother’s middle name was my grandmother’s sister’s middle name, Arlene. The only problem was the doctor misspelled it as Arline. When I was born I was given my mother’s name reversed, Arlene Millicent. As for my grandmother, her name was Hazel, and she said she’d come back and haunt anyone who named their child Hazel. He sister’s first name was Mabel. I don’t know if those names were unattractive in the 1890s, but they would not have been choices my mom and her sisters would have chosen in the mid twentieth century.

My grandfather, Edward Wiedrich may have had a middle name. I’ve seen some evidence that his middle name was McKinley. Was he named for the president? My paternal aunt, Carolyn Moore’s middle name was Grover and I wonder if she was named for Grover Cleveland.

My son, Sean was named for John Wayne’s character in the movie “The Quiet Man”. It was a favorite movie of both my husband and me. We had decided that if we had a girl next we would name her Mary Kate after Maureen O’Hara’s character in the same movie. Mary Kate turned out to be a boy and so he was named for the commander of the Alamo, William Travis. Travis’ middle name is Earl after my father.

#Namesake, #52 Ancestors, #Hazel Bristol, #Edward Wiedrich, #Caroline Moore, #Sean Baker, #Travis Baker