Names on early 1800's baptismal records

[Pontiusmaximus]

I'm trying to make sense of the names on baptismal records. An example would be Rosaria Vincentia Antonina Petruso. Which of those names is the name they use through their life, that is, on a marriage record, which name should I be looking for?

[carubia]

Petruso would be her surname. The other 3 names are given names. Most likely she used Rosaria, but not necessarily. She may also have used more than 1 of her given names. You really can't be sure just looking at the baptismal record.

[brogie62]

Petruso would be her surname. The other 3 names are given names. Most likely she used Rosaria, but not necessarily. She may also have used more than 1 of her given names. You really can't be sure just looking at the baptismal record.

I recently discovered the same thing. In reviewing the allegati I found more than one instance of a bride using the 2nd or 3rd of her given names as her name in tha marriage record.

Kevin

[erudita74]

I have a male in my husband's direct line ancestry with three baptismal names. It's the third one that appears in his church marriage record, and then this same given name appears in the census records for the town (riveli), and in his civil death record. I had actually researched the civil records first, since the church records were not available at the time, so it was a shock to find that the name I thought was his first name, actually was his 3rd baptismal name. I was fortunate though in that the priests in this Sicilian town indexed the records according to all three names. So you could search the index for any of the given baptismal names and find the record.

*Bear in mind that the content and format of church records was at the discretion of the individual priest. The Council of Trent in the mid 1500s only dictated that local parishes had to keep records or registers of events in their parishes such as baptisms, marriages, and deaths. It did not dictate the format those records had to take, or the content that had to be contained in each of those records or registers. In my one church parish, the priest even used nicknames in the records and would cross reference them to the actual first names, so a record could be found in the index alphabetized under the first letter of the nickname, as well as under the first name of the actual given name.

Erudita