What's in a Name

We take for granted the use of modern surnames indicating child-parent relationships. They were not always shared between generations, and at some points in history names were granted based on geography, status, and even achievements. Around the time of the Norman conquest of England the prefix “Fitz” was used to indicate “child of” (from the French “fils”, “son of”). So you would have Ralph’s son Herman named Herman Fitz Ralph, but Herman’s children would be Fitz Herman, and each of their children would have a different surname, with daughters taking the names of their husbands or “de” (French for “of”) and the town where her father was lord. Sometimes a second son would try to make his own way by claiming his heritage as the manor he ruled. The Irish surnames also adopted this, and it is equivalent to the Gaelic “Mac”.

 Some think that the Fitz prefix started as a way to designate bastards, with “Fitzroy” being the surname given to a king’s illegitimate son.

Given names are not any less confusing for some families who felt the need to name each generation of children the same pattern of names. After five generations of Thomas’ who all had Thomas’ as sons and grandsons, sometimes more than one if the first one died young, it can get a bit troublesome to untangle the threads. Infant mortality was also very high in the U.S. in Colonial and pre-Colonial times. Sometimes a couple would have several children of the same name before one survived into adulthood.

Yet another complication for names the further back one goes, there was a time when literacy was uncommon. Those who took down records often spelled names phonetically or in their own style. This led to a number of variations in both surnames and given names, making record-matching that much more difficult.