In some cultural traditions, the “first” name on a baptismal record is not necessarily the name that a person actually used or was commonly known by. Several of my German ancestors from the Thuringen area of Germany were named John George, John Michael, John Adam, etc. only to use respectively use George, Michael, and Adam in the United States.
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For Germans, the first name is the baptismal name. In other countries, the baptismal name is the middle name.
Partially depends on the area. My families in the north of Germany did not follow this practice, but those in other regions did.
They would have used George, Michael, and Adam had they stayed in Germany too. What we think of as a “first” name was a spiritual name, where the child was named after a saint. The “second” name, or what we think of as a middle name was actually their given or call name.
This is true, Maria. For the most part they used George, Adam, and Michael in the United States. Although for some reason, John Michael seemed to toggle back and forth between John and Michael. The other two really didn’t do that.
Similarly in Ontario, Canada, french Canadians were baptized by the Catholic priests with the almost automatic names of Joseph or Marie (Mary). When they took these baptismal certificates to the local municipal clerk to have the birth registered with the province, the sometimes non-french clerk would record the names exactly as written on the baptismal record. The actual given names that the parents intended were second on the baptismal information. The birth certificate then became proof of name and heath records, driver’s licenses, and yes passports had the Christian name rather than the given name first. So the next time you come across a family with all the boys named Joseph and the girls Marie or Mary, you may look to this naming anomaly as the reason. If someone talks about an “English” birth certificate for a french person, they are implying that the registered name shoes the given name correctly and the baptismal name of Joseph or Marie as second or middle name. If their second name is their father’s (or mother’s), the baptismal name may appear as the third name in their given names. Hope this also helps your research.
Both my great-grandparents were born in Germany (still trying to find town/village in Bavaria), married in Cincinnati and their 4 children were born there. The three boys were John Valentine (named after his father), the other two were John Henry and John George. That is how their names are listed on the baptism records. John Valentine went by his original name, but the other two were always known as Henry J. and George J. My grandmother was Mary Magdalena and was known as Lena. Had trouble getting her death certificate in FL., because it was listed as M. Lena.
I was the HR manager for a home health company. We often had Philapino nurses apply and several had Ma in front of their name. I had no idea what this meant and finally asked one of them. It is an abbreviation for Mary.
In my father’s family there were 12 children-9 went by their middle name. My father was Oscar Kenneth Welty. The family called him Kenneth, in business he went by OK, but in official documents he’s Oscar. Oscar was his uncle, not a saint.