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.
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
