Naming the children

[marie]

Is there a custom in Sweden when naming the children using three names? Most of the names are found are like this:
          Arthur Enoch Severin
          Bror Axel Osborn
          Carl Edvin Richard,  
my grandfather name was Erik Gerhard, I wonder if  
he had  a third name to

[Leif Boström]

No, there is no such custom. The children are given one, two, three or more namnes. Nowadays I think that two or three names are most common.

[Mary E. Leveille]

Was there a custom of naming two children in the same family the same name? I first though maybe the first one died so they named another the same name. But I noticed that sometimes there were two living children with the same first name. (different birthdates)This was on my Gotland side of the family and was in more than one family.

[Kia Wahlsten]

Hi Mary,
 
I have noticed that if one child died the parents very often named another baby with the same names. It is as if God had given them the dead child back - I don't know whether this is a common thesis, but it seems to me a possible explanation. However, I have never noticed that two living children had the same name. If one was named Anna Brita, the other was named Anna Lisa and probably called by the second name. Do your ancestors who seem to be called the same name have more than one name?
Kia Wahlsten

[Ulla Kristoffersen]

Mary,
I have come across a case where there were two brothers by the name Ole. The reason for this was the custom to name sons after the grandfathers.  In this case both grandfathers had the same name.  Son nr 1 was named after the paternal grandfather and son nr 2 was named after the maternal grandfather. I have actually heard this from the daughter of one of the Oles, so it is absolutely true.
 
Other reasons for giving two children the same name, was if the first child was sickly and not expected to live into adulthood.  In order to keep the name in the family, they gave the next child the same name to be on the safe side.  Then maybe both children lived.
Regards
Ulla

[Mary E Leveille]

Hi Ulla and Kia
Thank you both for your answers.

[Rolf Berger]

Hi!
I can add a small item of curiosity interest: In my home parish (Orsa, Dalarna), there was long (during the 19th c. at least) a tradition for naming the first sons or daughters. Most common was to give the eldest son the name Anders, and the second Erik. Correspondingly, the first daughters were named Anna and Kerstin, respectively.  
Sometimes the order was broken;my grandfather was named Anders, and his elder brother was Erik. They had a sister, Anna (who died as a child). In their turn, Erik's first children were (in order) Anders, Erik, Gustav and Anna. Anders' first sons, born into the 20th century, were Anders Gösta and Erik Hjalmar. However, none of them were called by their first names.  
This strict name tradition was then starting to fail due to foreign influences, but the position of these names was still strong 50 years ago (and my brother and I carry these male names); and on the name days of our calendar (Nov. 30 and Dec. 9) people called Anders and Anna, respectively, were celebrated rather than on their birthdays. That reflected on the whole an old tradition to stress the dates of their names (which everybody would know) rather than of their birth (known only to friends and family).
Regards
Rolf

[Lena-Maria Jansson]

Just a comment, in parts of Sweden you have the three name as a rule. But it is different in other places. Some district even have a dubble name practice like Sven-Ingvar and such. So the naming practice depends on where you live, where you come from and sometimes family has there own way. Usual for most of Sweden I would say that a name was in the family- grandfather to grandson or grandmother to granddoughter, but it is not always that, and in familys with many children you some times has dificulties to find enouhg names. Therefore exist names with number, like Elva(=11), Tolva(=12) or my grandmother De Nina(=9)
Regards
Lena-Maria

[Cecilia Löwen]

Few people have only one name today(though my maternal grandmother hand only one,a double name,but her mother had two),today it usually varies between two or three.I have only two,my children however have been given three each.I think today that there are no noticeable difference in name-giving customs between different parts of the country.

[Charles LaVine]

In doing my genealogical research, I frequently ran across the practice of naming a second child of the same sex after a earlier born and deceased child with the deceased child's first name. But the second name has always been different. My maternal great grandfather even continued the practice in America, although all 13 of his children were born in American and given English names.
 
Charles LaVine

[Ingela Martenius]

The practice of naming a child after a deceased sibling isn't unique to Sweden. I know it has been practiced in the US by people of e.g. Irish and French descent, so presumably the tradition existed in most of Europe. This practice ceased only when all children were expected to survive, and each child was thus regarded as an individual already at birth.
 
The most common practice in Sweden was for the child named after a sibling to have the exact name of the deceased sibling. Some families had - still have in fact - the tradition of using one name for all children of the same sex, while the other name was unique for each child. E.g., one family I know of name all their boys Maximilian, and have done so for at least 150 years (none of them actually use this name).
 
Naming a child after a deceased sibling and giving it a unique name seems to me to be a transition between the old way of regarding children as a boy (a girl) and the new way of regarding children as unique and not replacable by a later sibling.
 
Ingela

[Ingela Martenius]

Cecilia,
 
Double names are actually two names. When people started giving their children several first names, all of the names were used (yes, you actually called people Anders Erik or Sara Margareta). Today we think that a hyphen is needed, but this was unheard of 200 years ago. Some name combinations eventually became so common that people started regarding them as one name, a double name - like e.g. Anna-Karin or Lars-Gunnar - and we began using hyphens to emphasize that both names should be used.
 
Some name combinations became so very common that they actually made upp a totally new name: Marianne, which of course started out as Marie Anne.
 
Ingela

[Cecilia Löwen]

Her name was Inger-Maj,is that name actually also considered as two names even if they are connected with a hyphen?I never really thought of it as two names even if it in practice is.
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av cecilialoewen den 29 januari, 2008)

[Ingela Martenius]

Certainly Inger-Maj is actually two names. Only, since we today use a hyphen between the names we think of it as one name, and the relevant authorities (mainly Skatteverket) also regard it as one name.
Internationally people don't notice the hyphen and will tend to drop the last part of a double name: Anna-Karin easily becomes Anna. Except in the American South where they stick to the old custom of using both given names: Billy Bob - no hyphen necessary since both names are used as a matter of course.
 
Like I said, as soon as we dropped the custom of using all given names we had to invent the hyphen to tell people which of our names we would like used together. Today someone named Anne Marie Louise could be called any of those names but put a hyphen in and in Sweden we would immediately realize how the names should be used: Anne-Marie Louise or Anne Marie-Louise. In the old days Anne Marie Louise would have been called all of those names: Anne-Marie-Louise - no hidden second names that are never used.
 
Ingela

[John Hage]

Hello,
If a child is stillborn, dead at birth, is it customary to not give the child a name?  My grandparents had a stillborn child who was registered without a first name.
Thank you,
John H.

[Stig Geber]

Hello John,
 
A stillborn child never was baptized or given a name. They were, however, registered in the birth records book.
 
Stig G

[John Hage]

Stig!
Thank you.  This child was born in the USA about twenty-five years after my grandparents emigrated.  It is interesting how the Swedish customs were continued even after many years in a new country.
Regards,
John H.