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| Glasgow Electoral Roll, Ancestry.co.uk |
I’ve
often said that Scots parents never met
a male name they couldn’t tack "-ina" onto the end of, and the names I've encountered in the records over the years have only served to
confirm this.
I
first encountered this
phenomenon – if it can be called that – in
my
Glasgow childhood. When I was growing
up in a sandstone tenement building comprised
of eight
flats, we were on fairly close*
terms with some of the neighbours. One of the ground floor apartments
was the home of three elderly sisters from the Isle of Mull, the
Misses MacInnes (see the above voters' roll). The lady who I knew as “Ina”, I later learned
from my mother, was actually “Archina”. Thus my interest was sparked in this very Scottish naming custom.
What
could account for this quirk? Well, a tradition in many Scottish families
held that the first male child should be named after his
paternal grandfather; the second son after the maternal grandfather;
the third son was given his father’s name. The first daughter was
given the name of her mother’s mother, the second that of her
father’s mother, and the third daughter was named after her own
mother. Thereafter,
particularly
in large families,
it could
be a free-for-all as aunts and
uncles
fought for primacy.
These
were
by no means hard and fast customs,
though.
For instance, if both parents’ mothers were called Agnes,
they wouldn’t usually have two daughters called that – not
usually.
When you’re tracing British families (and
no doubt those of other nations),
you may
often
see a couple having more than one child
given
the same name – e.g. two Margarets
born to Mr and Mrs Johnson, four years apart. This is normally
explained by the discovery that the first Margaret died in infancy before the second Margaret was named. Repeated
naming would be more likely if Margaret
was a name that
appeared in
either parent’s family, in
an effort to preserve the tradition.
I
came
across a
very sad case in
Ayrshire, although
it
is
by no means unique.
Over a 23-year period,
the parents tried four
times to name a son Joseph after his father.
Unfortunately,
each
time the child
died in infancy. This was during the mid-nineteenth century when infant mortality in this
coal-mining area was high, due to poor living
conditions and non-existent sanitation.
However,
there
is something
I’ve noticed that’s
particularly true of families from the Scottish Highlands and Western
Isles: it
wasn’t out
of the question
to
give two (or
more) surviving
children the same name. Quite
often, I have seen similar names given to siblings – in one
case,
a daughter called Katie Mary and a daughter called Kate Ann were born
twelve years apart. Katie Mary lived well into her 90s, while her
younger sister Kate Ann sadly died aged eleven. Both their
grandmothers were named Catherine so I suspect this may have influenced their parents’ name choices.
In
my more immediate family, my grandfather Donald
went to extremes with
three of his five sons: John was
the
eldest after
Donald’s father,
then the second son was called Angus John, and finally my father, the
youngest of the tribe, was Donald John, after his father
and
his
grandfather. There is some
trace of the naming pattern in that family, but it’s all over the
place. Families clearly adapted it to suit their own preferences and
family structure.
But
what does this naming
pattern have
to
do with
the adoption of feminine versions of male names? Well, if several girls
were born into a family before
any boys,
the parents might have
felt
obligated to hedge their bets by
calling some
daughters after grandfathers, rather than take the risk of never
having any sons with whom to honour the menfolk.
Another
interesting aspect of -ina names
is the forms to which these
were shortened in later life – that is, the form which appears on
other vital and census records. My personal favourite of these
feminine names is Campbellina, perhaps because she was the hardest to
find anywhere else using the name which I first found her recorded
under (see below),
in
the 1841 census – Camilina – after,
I later found, the
surname of her maternal grandmother, Mary Campbell. Perhaps there had
been other Marys born into the family and her mother wanted to avoid
confusion? Or maybe she wanted her daughter to stand out. Whatever
the reason, searching
for her
in other records meant liberal use of the wildcard search plus some
imagination. It
wasn’t until I looked for her marriage record
that
I realised how her name was originally intended to be spelled. Until
that point I had been labouring under the mistaken idea that her
parents had plucked the name “Camilla” out of the ether.
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| 1841 Census, Greenock, FamilySearch.org |
In
my ancestral
database, there are almost
200 women with a given name ending in -ina, out
of over 4,700 females.
Christina
is
the most common with 108,
more
than half
being
born
in Scotland (67),
which
is not surprising as most of my ancestry is Scottish. It’s
not an uncommon name throughout the English-speaking world, either.
Coming
far behind in my tree, close together are Alexandrina and Williamina,
plus
their multiple variants (Alexina, Wilma, etc.), with 20
and 16
respectively, neither
of which are particularly unusual in previous centuries.
Other
less
obvious alternative
forms I have found are: Lexy=Alexandrina; Kennick (-ick being derived
from
a Gaelic diminutive) =Kennethina; Dolly=Dolina;
and
Ruby=Robina.
Of
course, many of these women would have been known simply as “Ina” (or "Ena"),
like my former neighbour, which can be problematic for their
descendants, who have to try and work out which “-ina” they should
be looking for!
To
prove my earlier point about any male name being fair game for
feminisation, I give you, courtesy
of ScotlandsPeople as well as my own tree:
Alfredina,
Angusina, Archibaldina, Charlesina,
Donaldina,
Gavina, Hughina, Jacobina (possibly a Jacobite in the family?!), Jamesina, Malcolmina,
Murdina
(for Murdoch), Peterina; and, of
uncertain motivation - and definitely
not Scottish - we have Zepherina, who
was born in Québec.
I'm sure there are a few outliers that I've forgotten, or haven't yet come across. If you have any unusual omissions you care to share, do pop them in the comments. As I said to a friend recently, I'm still running into the occasional example that makes me think, "Oh, come ON!"
If you'd like to learn more about Scottish family naming customs, there's some good guidance on the ScotlandsPeople website.
* no Glasgwegian pun intended
