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lady_lilitou t1_iw1bhvi wrote

Reply to comment by Milamber69reddit in The effect of the First World War on names, in France [OC] by bjco

My mother was named for her mother, which was also the name of her paternal aunt, and an assortment of other relatives on both sides. Her brother was named for his father. Most of my grandfather's brothers named their kids after themselves. When my mom got pregnant with me, the only daughter, my grandfather was "incensed* that she didn't name me after herself/her mother. My mother had grown up as the youngest in a household with three people sharing her name. She told him she'd never inflict that kind of vanity on her kid. (And on top of that, my dad was raised Jewish. They don't name their kids for living relatives.)

Anyway. Point is, I agree with you.

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SurroundingAMeadow t1_iw2bdzo wrote

My father-in-law comes from a long line of men sharing the same first name. His mother didn't love the trend, but respected the family wishes, so she and everybody else just called him by the nickname common for his middle name (which she otherwise would've used as his first). Now if anybody calls looking for somebody by his first name they assume it's spam because nobody who actually knows him calls him that.

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