Hi Dee, >The source is from an article at www.genealogy.com on the Importance of >Given Names. Here is the website address for the article >http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/35_donna.html Yes, and it cites as its source Angus Baxter's "In Search of Your British and Irish Roots". I think it's that last one I'd take big issue with :) I'll have to try to look at the book, to see what the exact wording says, but again for all the reasons I've outlined I'm very wary of its veracity. >I've been noticing this very pattern in most of my family since I started >researching in Scotland, but I never said that it was a die hard rule only a >popular naming pattern. You don't want to give it too much credence as the >article says. Yup - as goes for any pattern that appears to be the case! I think the difficulty with citing patterns in any context is that people then assume that their ancestors would have followed them (if only because it then makes subsequent research easier). Whether a pattern is right or wrong this can be misleading, but there doesn't seem to be too much we can do about it. Best wishes. Viv