I’m a “John Smith IV”. My son, due in September, will be a “John Smith V”. Personally, I’m a huge fan of this tradition.
I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other. But I do have a fun story!
When my mom was pregnant with my older brother, they had a phone repair guy at the house. She was going through a book of baby names and trying to pick one, while her husband was yelling from the other room that his name would be the same as his (we’ll go with John for the example and privacy).
Husband: (yelling) his name will be John, same as me!
Mama: no! I will not do that! He’d be a junior, I’m not naming my son Junior like some redneck!
Husband: it’s not a redneck name! You don’t have to call him junior, call him john!
Mama: no, it’s trashy! It’s a white trash name and I’m not doing it! I want him to be able to read, not learn how to make moonshine out of an old radiator!*
*That one’s an actual direct quote
Phone repair guy: turns around I need something from the truck.
Mama looks up and notices his name tag. Junior.
Dude left, got in his truck, and drove away. Sent someone else out the next day to fix the phone
It always comes across to me as a very american thing, specifically trying to make something feel older than it actually is.
I’m something like HelloThere XV because the firstborn son in my family has had the same name since at least the 1700s - even across language when we got forcibly relocated for sheep.
Would my future son be XVI? Sure - but they won’t have the actual numerals.
I find it odd that you say it’s an American thing. I’m not disagreeing, as I’m American, and I’ve encountered plenty of Jrs and thirds, but any higher than “the 3rd” makes me think of the British and French Kings, or the Pope.
Maybe every other country has quit the practice in the past 200 years or so, and we’re the only ones continuing it at this point.
I’ve not heard of it used outside the context on royalty even historically here in the UK, perhaps there’s something in that too
Yeah that’s a better way of phrasing it.
Narcissistic.
I would agree for jr and III, but I think by the time you get to IV like op you’re dealing with generational pressure just as much as you are ego.
It strikes me as extremely stereotypically american and to be honest I’ve never really understood it. To me a name seems such a big part of being an individual that to have the same as a parent seems a little odd - and it always seems to be for men and not women. It also makes me think of rich white oil barons, like Dallas, a very nouveau riche thing to do and maybe a little pretentious.
The main thing i would be concerned of is if there or may be two sons, will the non-inherited name child think they are somehow lesser? Would it create some resentment?
Sharing generational middle names is a thing here but I can’t say I’m personally a fan of doing it for first names.
Thats not to say I don’t find it quite impressive you have already got the counter to 4 or that it is some awful thing like calling your child something stupid or unpronounceable, you know better than an internet stranger in that regard.
I don’t know how far back it goes, but my middle name is my dad’s first name, and his middle name is his dad’s first name, and so on.
I let my 5 year old daughter pick my son’s middle name.
She suggested Patrick, and it sounded good with the first name we had planned for him, so we ran with it, even if her inspiration did come from SpongeBob. 😂
my middle name is my dad’s first name
This is what I went with: my elder has my first name as a middle name and my younger has my Dads first name as a middle name. It seems like a good way to honor someone or connect someone while still giving them their own identity
Yeah, I prefer this to being a jr.
I don’t mind since it doesn’t affect me in any way. But since you asked my opinion about it, I think it’s really stupid.
I think it’s a weird attachment to a glorified idea of heritage that puts too much emphasis on the patriarchal line, it strikes too closely to the concept of divine-right-of-kings and the general familial privilege of wealth. It’s a title, like Baron, with a whole lot of baggage.
The Venn diagram of men who name their boys jr, III, IV, etc and the men who really care that their child has a penis is not a perfect circle but does overlap a lot IME. Gives “boys carry on my blood, girls are accessories” vibes.
If you’re not a monarch or a pope you don’t get a roman numeral after your name.
I’m an IV and we named our son V. While I like the tradition, there are significant logistical hassles, even just having IV vs III, and moreso with V like it not being an available option on suffix fields, as well as making sure paperwork lines up and is correct. I don’t know at this point if it was worth it in general, but I do know it has been useful in the past for my dad to be able to hand me a credit card and buy things on his behalf with a legal ID that matches what the card says.
It is fun though, and an interesting conversation piece if nothing else.
I’m an IV
I like how simply using “an” instead of “a” causes me to read it as I.V. and not 4. So it sounds to me like you started off by introducing yourself as an intravenous system or something.
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You’re effectively making the given name part of the surname and adding a number to act as the given name. I don’t see any advantage to that over normal naming practice.
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You’re suggesting that the child who shares the parent’s given name is somehow preferred over their siblings, inasmuch as they’re inheriting a tradition their siblings are excluded from.
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My father was a numeral, and hated it. So when we were to be born, and he said he’d also name a son a numeral, mother said he was being stupid and he realized and agreed lmfao.
Luckily neither of us were male so no numerals anyway.
It’s fine if you’re an aristocrat I suppose. Kind of weird if you’re a hill billy
Billy-Joe-Jack the 3rd, Esquire.
Why do women never take their mother’s name?
Because men are more important obviously
You guys ever do any genealogy? There are so many places and times in history where women’s names simply weren’t recorded. Census records from the 1800s in the US are like, “John Smith, wife, 6 children 3 male 3 female”.
Unsurprising… why would they record his property?
Sadly, yes. Or at least when they started doing it.
The women were just supposed to marry into another family, so there was no point in trying to retain the name of Mary Smith, when she’s just going to get married and become Mary Johnson.
Nowadays, Dutch people always keep their maiden name. You can choose a preferred name to be addressed by, but your passport will always show you Bob Billson and Anna Aarons. You can choose to both use Billson, or Aarons, or Aarons-Billson if you want, but your passport doesn’t change.
And recently, parents got the ability to pick their children’s lastname. So Anna and Bob can keep using their birth name, but use Billson-Aarons for their kids.
They can even do something incredibly stupid, like call themselves Anna and Bob Billson, and name their kids Charly and Debbie Aarons. So kids are allowed to take their mother’s maiden name here.
I’ve met several who have. They just dont always make it so obvious by adding jr, 3rd, etc.
Their grandfather’s name?
I think it’s weird almost nobody picks their own name and people carry their parents or spouse’s name, you’d think something so personal and self identifying you’d want it to be something you prefer or you find fitting based on some preference or personality trait.
It has never been done in my family, and it would feel very weird to me to have a son with my name. I don’t think my wife would like it very much either.
I do think it’s a pretty cool tradition though.
For at least the last 6 generations in my family there was a tradition of sharing a first name across two generations with different middle names (so there was no actual Jrs). So like Robert James, Robert Charles, Charles Lee, Charles William, William Daniel, William Samuel, blah blah blah. My father was the second William, so to continue the tradition me or my brothers would name a son with our first name.
We all produced girls. So much for that stupid tradition!
It can come in handy for sharing memberships
