Siblings of the same name--Research Digest, Vol 68, Issue 22

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My grandfather always named his children according to the Catholic calendar. Therefore my mother had two brothers named Alejandro. They were both born on March 17th--I guess he could have named one Patricio and the other Alejandro. The first died at the age of 1 plus months. The second was born 8 yrs later and lived to adulthood. I recall asking my grandfather if he did not worry about the second one dying, he said no.
My father also had a cousin with two daughters who were both named Maria Guadalupe. I asked him if both were born on Dec. 12th. He said one was, but the other was born in the Ano Guadalupano 1931-1932. Apparently you will find many Jose Guadalupes or Maria Guadalupes during those years. Interesting... I also have run across many a family where all of the males were Jose-something, and the females were Maria-something.. My parents obviously didn't check the Catholic calendar when deciding to name me--there are no Santa Irmas. They must not have liked Gregoria :)

Irma
N. Calif.

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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:27:55 -0600
From: Stuart Armstrong
To: research@lists.nuestrosranchos.com
Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] siblings of same name
Message-ID: <566122080.20110922072755@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15

Esther ... ,

> Rafael Lopez Ornelas ... oldest male in a family of 13. His
> youngest brother was also named Rafael Lopez Ornelas

I have a surprising number of such instances in my database. And I
would say that in browsing the christening record images I have seen
MANY like this. It causes a lot of problems before you discover that
two siblings had the same name.

There are several scenarios I have seen.

A child is given the same name as an older sibling for no apparent
reason.
A child born on the birthday of an older sibling was often given the
same name.
A child born in the same month as an older sibling. Saints days
weren't followed precisely - it seems that families often chose between
favorite saints whose days were close to the birthdate of the child.

Twins were often given the same name.

I have seen records that don't even name each child distinctly - for
example, the record just says "Bacilios", meaning two of them, and
"hijos legitimos" (plural) and in the margin the word gemelos (twins).
To my way of thinking I would somehow feel cheated if the recorder
didn't make a separate record for my birth .

One particularly confusing instance was of a child born exactly 10
years to the day after his older brother, and was given the same name.
Until I discovered the christening records for both of them I thought
it was a typo or copying error.

In still another family I discovered 3 siblings named Francisca. Two
of them were twins, and the other was born exactly 6 years earlier to
the day.

Contrary to what I've often heard, there was no requirement that the
older sibling died young, although that sometimes happened. In the

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