Henry (name)

The Omen II · 11-08-2017 12:45am #1

Any particular reason why a name like 'Henry' would be passed down from generation to generation? I've checked the lineage on my mothers side and it has been passed down at least 5 times.

Peregrinus · 11-08-2017 3:14am

Names run in families. There's no particular reason why "Henry" should run in a particular family, but there's no particular reason why it shouldn't. Given enough families, some of them will have "Henry" as a name that runs, and your mother's happens to be one of those families.

tac foley · 11-08-2017 8:52am

Just be happy the name isn't 'Nigel'.

tac

pedroeibar1 · 11-08-2017 11:04am

The Omen II wrote: »

Any particular reason why a name like 'Henry' would be passed down from generation to generation? I've checked the lineage on my mothers side and it has been passed down at least 5 times.

There is a well-known and common naming pattern in Irish families, a clue used by genealogists for many years.

First born son named after his father's father
Second born son named after his mother's father
Third born son named after his father
Fourth born son named after his father's oldest brother
Fifth born son named after his father's 2nd oldest brother
or his mother's oldest brother
First born daughter named after her mother's mother
Second born daughter named after her father's mother
Third born daughter named after her mother
Fourth born daughter named after her mother's oldest sister
Fifth born daughter named after her mother's 2nd oldest sister
or her father's oldest sister

It is still used - particularly in rural districts - but has started to die out in cities, where Darren, Jade, etc., have taken over. :rolleyes:

tabbey · 11-08-2017 12:30pm

Henry was quite a common name in Ireland until the early twentieth century. It was found among both catholic and protestant families, but more so in the latter.

Although names ran in families as listed by Pedroeibar, practised to a greater or lesser degree, following independence there was an emergence of names such as Colm, Kevin, Ciaran etc, and some names perceived as more English than Irish, went into numerical decline.

Because the name Henry was associated with the reformation centuries previously, there may have been embarassment among the RC nationalist community in the mid 20th century about naming their new babies. There are very few boys born since 1950 in Ireland given the name Henry.

It is a pity, as tracking ancestors named Henry is a breath of fresh air, after plodding through numerous Johns, James, Thomas and Patricks.

William was also perceived as being associated with 1690, but there was safety in numbers. In Dublin and Ulster, it was more common than Patrick, and remains very common in Dublin especially.

Henry and George seem to be the main casualties of the independence era trend.

tabbey · 11-08-2017 12:36pm

Another name which faded away even earlier was Tobias, or Toby.

Perusing the GRO indices, it was common enough, at least in some families, in 1864 births, but by the turn of the century was only found in the death registers.

tac foley · 11-08-2017 1:39pm

tabbey wrote: »

Another name which faded away even earlier was Tobias, or Toby.

Perusing the GRO indices, it was common enough, at least in some families, in 1864 births, but by the turn of the century was only found in the death registers.

Not surprised, me. Of all the many gloopy names inflicted on baby boys, that has to be near the top of the pile.

The only Toby I ever met in my life was a total dwong, seemingly lacking sufficient brains to operate a spoon and breathe simultaneously.

tac

Kalimah · 11-08-2017 2:11pm

Having a name like Henry is great when it comes to tracing family trees. We had a Walter in ours born about 1820 - I've no idea where that might have come from.

On the other side going back from my grandfather there is Michael- Robert- Peter - Robert - Peter. I think with the exception of Michael, the rest were all eldest sons so the names were carried on through the generations. What was even better was that the 1821 census records for Cavan are still extant, so I got back to 1760 with very little effort.

tabbey · 11-08-2017 3:06pm

Kalimah wrote: »

We had a Walter in ours born about 1820 - I've no idea where that might have come from.

Walter was quite common in families with Norman ancestry, or areas in which Norman names were significant.
One of my ancestral lines had a few Walters.

Kalimah · 11-08-2017 4:04pm

tabbey wrote: »

Walter was quite common in families with Norman ancestry, or areas in which Norman names were significant.
One of my ancestral lines had a few Walters.

I never thought of the Norman connection - thank you Tabbey! My lot were from Westmeath and Cavan. Our Walter was in the Westmeath family. I keep meaning to do a DNA analysis on myself some time soon to see if there is anything other than Irish in our genes.

Jellybaby1 · 14-08-2017 3:29pm

Maybe in the future genealogists will be ploughing through endless numbers of Jades, Britneys, Brandons, Reubens, Romeos, Paris's, Poppys etc., etc.

tabbey · 14-08-2017 4:25pm

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Maybe in the future genealogists will be ploughing through endless numbers of Jades, Britneys, Brandons, Reubens, Romeos, Paris's, Poppys etc., etc.

Most of these names will never run in families, many are period related, based on celebrities or fictional characters.
Perhaps future genealogists will say ; Jason in Ireland - must have been born about 1980.

pinkypinky · 14-08-2017 4:27pm

Definitely John Paul for 1980.

VirginiaB · 14-08-2017 4:28pm

How about Hugh? One of my Irish family lines is the Bruton family and they are full of the name Hugh. I have found at least three men named Hugh Bruton in mid-19c Manhattan, all of whom of course had sons named Hugh. I have always wondered who 'the' original Hugh Bruton was who made the name so revered among Irish Brutons. They mostly lived in Meath, Westmeath and Dublin.

Bruton is a place name in Somerset, England and one of their most prominent residents was, believe it or not, named Hugh Sexey. Was he the Hugh that launched a thousand Hugh Brutons?

dubhthach · 24-08-2017 11:45am

VirginiaB wrote: »

How about Hugh? One of my Irish family lines is the Bruton family and they are full of the name Hugh. I have found at least three men named Hugh Bruton in mid-19c Manhattan, all of whom of course had sons named Hugh. I have always wondered who 'the' original Hugh Bruton was who made the name so revered among Irish Brutons. They mostly lived in Meath, Westmeath and Dublin.

Bruton is a place name in Somerset, England and one of their most prominent residents was, believe it or not, named Hugh Sexey. Was he the Hugh that launched a thousand Hugh Brutons?

Hugh is the 'Interpretatio romana' for the irish language name Aodh, as a result it was hugely popular particularly given romantic nationalism views of Aodh Rua Ó Domhnaill and Aodh Ó Néill from the 19th century onwards.

Aodh itself was one of most popular surnames among medieval Irish.

VirginiaB · 24-08-2017 2:36pm

Thanks for that--very interesting. But I am still curious about the plethora of Hughs in the Bruton family, which carries to this very day in Ireland. I am not seeing many Hugh Brutons in the US with just a quick look. Thanks again.

Count Marcula · 30-08-2017 11:29pm

I discovered in 2009 that James is considered a Catholic name in the north. I dropped it as my middle name after living there for a year and adopted the name middle name William.
Hugh is most certainly gaelic. I know in north and north west parts of Ireland it is quite common.

Peregrinus · 31-08-2017 4:01am

Count Marcula wrote: »

Hugh is most certainly gaelic. I know in north and north west parts of Ireland it is quite common.

Nitpick: No, it's Germanic in origin. Its spread across much of Europe in the middle ages is attributed to its popularity among Frankish nobles, which got it into the ruling families of France, which in time got it, well, everywhere really. It was brought to England by the Normans (Hugh de Lacy) and later it was brought to Ireland by the Normans (another Hugh de Lacy, a descendant of the first one).

The Gaelic name is Aodh. It's etymologically unrelated to Hugh, but Hugh became established as the conventional anglicisation because the two words sound vaguely similar. There were a number of such sound-based correspondences established; Tadgh/Timothy, Brian/Bernard (until Brian became established as an English name too), Somhairle/Samuel (until Sorley became the standard anglicisation), Donnchadh/Denis.

VirginiaB · 31-08-2017 1:01pm

I can attest that Hugh was an extremely popular name in nineteenth century Ireland, judging by the number of Irish-born Hugh's in Manhattan in the US censuses, a good sample of all 32 counties. I also see that babies named Hugh were often or usually? baptized Hubert or Hugo, although there were several saints named Hugh. I have long wondered about that.

kildarejohn · 02-09-2017 7:22pm

VirginiaB wrote: »

I also see that babies named Hugh were often or usually? baptized Hubert or Hugo, although there were several saints named Hugh.

That's interesting - there were a couple of Huberts in my ancestors' family, and I had thought they were just being pretentious or "west brits", but, based on VirginiaB's quote, they were probably being named after their relations called Hugh, which was also common in the family.

VirginiaB · 02-09-2017 9:16pm

To be specific, there were 1,667 men named Hugh, born Ireland, in Manhattan in the 1870 US census. That does not include those Hugh's who were not listed in the census--I know of several. And it of course does not include sons of the Irish-born named Hugh. Or the nine Irish-born men the census-taker listed as 'Hue'. And yes there were several Irish-born 'Hugh Hughes', poor guys.

pedroeibar1 · 02-09-2017 11:32pm

kildarejohn wrote: »

That's interesting - there were a couple of Huberts in my ancestors' family, and I had thought they were just being pretentious or "west brits", but, based on VirginiaB's quote, they were probably being named after their relations called Hugh, which was also common in the family.

Also possible that Hubert / Hubertus was the priest's Latinized version of Hugh. (Hubert is the patron saint of hunters and also mathematicians.

tabbey · 03-09-2017 2:24pm

VirginiaB wrote: »

I can attest that Hugh was an extremely popular name in nineteenth century Ireland, judging by the number of Irish-born Hugh's in Manhattan in the US censuses, a good sample of all 32 counties. I also see that babies named Hugh were often or usually? baptized Hubert or Hugo, although there were several saints named Hugh. I have long wondered about that.

Hugh was popular in Ulster, especially West Ulster - Tyrone and Donegal, probably in honour of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone.

Donegal would have had more than its share of emigrants to Manhattan and elsewhere in the US.

The name Hugh has led to surnames McHugh and McKay (Mac Aodh).

As with O'Brien, I suspect the holders of this surname are predominantly descended from followers, rather than sons, of Hugh/Aodh.

Henry (name)

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