52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

The old Irish had a saying, “We won’t have three John’s in the house.” (i)

I found “same name” to be one of the most frustrating aspects of starting my family tree and genealogy research. My dad comes from a long line of “John” Fitzgerald’s. None of them appear to have the same middle name so there are no suffixes like Sr. or Jr. following their names to aid in putting the “Johns” in the correct family.

In fact, I became so frustrated with the number of John Fitzgerald’s I was finding that I switched to dad’s mother’s side of the family, the Carew’s. Well, lo and behold, here I found many Patrick’s, John’s, Michael’s, Bridget’s and other first names we think of as Irish.

I mentioned my frustration to an online acquaintance who was also researching my same ancestors. She told me she found information that described the traditional naming pattern Irish parents used until the late 19^th century. The pattern for males looked like this:

• First son usually named for the father’s father;
• Second son usually named for the mother’s father;
• Third son usually named for the father;
• Fourth son usually named for the father’s eldest brother; and
• Fifth son usually named for the mother’s eldest brother.

The female naming pattern looked like this:

• First daughter usually named after the mother’s mother;
• Second daughter usually named for the father’s mother;
• Third daughter usually named for the mother;
• Fourth daughter usually named for the mother’s eldest sister; and
• Fifth daughter usually named for the father’s eldest sister.

Although dad’s family did not follow the traditional male Irish naming pattern, this is what I found in his male lineage.

• John Joseph Fitzgerald (my dad)
• John Hugh Fitzgerald (his dad)
• Robert D. Fitzgerald (dad’s grandfather)
• John H. Fitzgerald (dad’s great-grandfather) and
• John Bateman Fitzgerald (dad’s 2nd great-grandfather).

The line of John Fitzgerald’s appears to have stopped with dad as I do not know of any John’s in the younger generations.

There is another twist in Irish naming and nicknaming. The male child named ‘John’ is often nicknamed ‘Jack,’ as was my dad. While his dad’s dad was called John, my dad was called Jack. How did the name John become Jack?

After researching several sources to find how the name John came to be Jack, I found one that encompasses some of the explanations and makes the most sense to me. “The name Jack dates back to about 1,200 and was originally used as a generic name for peasants. Over time, Jack worked his way into words such as lumberjack and steeplejack. Even jackass, the commonly used term for a donkey, retains its generic essence in the word Jack. Of course, John was once used as a generic name for English commoners and peasants, (John Doe) which could be why Jack came became his nickname. But the more likely explanation is that Normans added -kin when they wanted to make a diminutive. And Jen was their way of saying John. So little John became Jenkin and time turned that into Jakin, which ultimately became Jack.” [sic] (ii)

Today, the boy’s name Jack is popular in its own right.

For me, Jack is a strong male name. I think it’s because my dad was “Jack.”

Sources:

(i) https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4921764/4904828 The quote and image above are from a website, duchas.ie, I came across while writing this post. The site comes from Ireland. The image is handwritten from a school- aged child and is housed on the website’s ‘The School Collection.’ Check it out if you are researching Irish ancestors.

(ii) https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4h4aph/eli5_how_did_jack_become_a_nickname_for_john/