Yesterday’s post mentioned men who might have had wives with the same first name. Keep in mind that in some ethnic backgrounds “reusing” names of deceased children was a very common practice. One of my Ostfriesen couples had four daughters named Reenste born within a ten year time span. The first three died shortly after birth. The fourth one grew to adulthood.
And my genealogy software program thought I was nuts to have a family with four children with the same name. But it can happen.
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The name was Henry in my case. The first two Henry’s died, my great-grandfather survived. The only difference in the name was my great-grandfather, being from a good Catholic family, and being born on St. Patrick’s Day (even though they were German), was given the middle name of Patrick.