Continuation of Names Historically

[Kenai4]

How true is the notion of Italians naming the first son after the Paternal Grandfather and the first daughter after the Paternal Grandmother? And the second on the Maternal side.....

So..if it is true, I should have a "clue" if I am looking at who may be my Great-Great Grandfather if I know his offspring's names, than those names should be his parents as well?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Italysearcher]

It is a clue but only if you are sure your Grandfather was the first son. If he was the third or sixth he could be named for any Aunt (masculine version of her name) or Uncle etc.

[Kenai4]

Absolutely. But my thinking is that is you have the names of all the family--say my Great Grandmothers 7 siblings, then you should see some of the names carried over unless there was a death or what have you. I will say this...it is confusing when all the family names keep repeating themselves and when the family names from the village are so common.

[tlombardo]

It is a tradition that many families have carried on. My family did this...they had absolutely no imagination when it came to names! In fact, one set of my great-grandparents lost a child, and then gave that child's name to the next child, who was born just a day after the first one died. So family names were extremely important to a lot of families. Even today, more than 100 years later, some of the family names are still being used with my relatives.