Humor as we research. Much to be said in agreement with the following comments. almost factual! from another list.. thanks Richard. glorybee I think some of our ancestors definitely applied these rules ~~ ANCESTORS GUIDE TO NAMING 1) Thou shalt name your male children: James, John, Joseph, Abel, Richard, Thomas or William. 2) Thou shalt name your female children: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha, Maria, Sarah, Ida, Virginia or Mae. 3) Thou shalt leave NO trace of your female children. 4) Even after naming your children using the above lists, thou shalt never refer to them by those names again; instead, thou shalt call them by strange nicknames, such as: Ike, Eli, Polly, Dolly, and Sukey. 5) Thou shalt not use any middle names on ANY legal documents or census reports and whenever possible, use only initials on legal documents. 6) Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that your surname can be spelled, or misspelled in various ways: Tipper, Topper, Hopper, Tucker, Tapper. 7) Thou shalt, after no more than 3 generation, make sure that all family records are lost, misplaced, burned in a court house fire, lost at sea or buried so that NO future trace of them can be found. 8) Thou shalt propagate misleading legends, rumors and vague innuendo regarding your place of origin: a) You MAY have come from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales ... or Iran. b) You MAY have American Indian Ancestry. c) You MAY be descended from one of three brothers that came over. 9) Thou shalt leave no cemetery records, or headstones with legible names; nor will any of the dates thereon match those in any public records. 10) Thou shalt leave no family bible with records of birth, marriage or death. 11) Thou shalt ALWAYS flip thy name around. If born James Albert, thou must make the rest of thy records in the name of Albert, AJ, JA, AL, Bert, Bart or Fred. 12) Thou must also flip thy parent's names around when making reference to them, although "Unknown" is an acceptable alternative. 13) Thou shalt name all generations of children with the identical first names, as will all of your brothers so that all cousins are named the same.