In a message dated 12/18/2004 12:54:24 PM Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: > The youngest son, > Cecil, was listed as "Baby". He was a year and a half > old in 1900 and they listed him as "Baby"?! You would > think that after a year and half they would have > thought of a name for him, don't you think?! Not necessarily. My great-grandmother, stayed with us quite often when I was young. We called her "Mom." She'd had only one son, and told me that they didn't name him until he was 2 years old. Until then, they all called him "Baby" (and he was the last child in the familiy). She said she just hadn't been able to decide. And then she named him Elbert. I never knew anyone to call him that ... but his mother. He went by a nickname. I can still remember how offended she was when I said to her, "But, Mom, if you waited so long to give him a name, couldn't you have thought up a prettier name?" She said she thought it *was* pretty. Julie

Julie, I really enjoyed your story a lot. That was a good one. I made a similar mistake as a teenager when I saw in the newspaper that Lucille Ball had just turned 50 and I made the comment that "Wow! I did not know she was SO OLD". My mother just happened to be the same age at the time which I failed to determine and my mother got very disgruntled! :-] "Fifty is not THAT OLD" and a few other things she was saying as she exited from the room. I had often wondered if some people may have waited a long time before deciding on a name for a child. You see a young child in the old censuses once in a while listed as Baby. Things were a whole lot different then and I think we fail to realize some of those things. I have yet to find any source that will affirm my belief that it was a fad or something to go by your middle name in the late 1800s to early 1900s. I have seen sooooo many instances of people going by one name and when they became a young adult they started going by their middle name. It appears to me like it was a popular thing to do and a lot of people were doing it. Nathan --- [email protected] wrote: > In a message dated 12/18/2004 12:54:24 PM Pacific > Standard Time, > [email protected] writes: > > The youngest son, > > Cecil, was listed as "Baby". He was a year and a > half > > old in 1900 and they listed him as "Baby"?! You > would > > think that after a year and half they would have > > thought of a name for him, don't you think?! > > Not necessarily. > > My great-grandmother, stayed with us quite often > when I was young. We called > her "Mom." She'd had only one son, and told me that > they didn't name him > until he was 2 years old. Until then, they all > called him "Baby" (and he was the > last child in the familiy). She said she just hadn't > been able to decide. And > then she named him Elbert. I never knew anyone to > call him that ... but his > mother. He went by a nickname. I can still remember > how offended she was when I > said to her, "But, Mom, if you waited so long to > give him a name, couldn't you > have thought up a prettier name?" She said she > thought it *was* pretty. > > Julie > > > ==== ORFORUM Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe, send a message to > [email protected] that > contains (in the body of the message) only the > single word: unsubscribe > > ============================== > View and search Historical Newspapers. Read about > your ancestors, find > marriage announcements and more. Learn more: > http://www.ancestry.com/s13969/rd.ashx > >

> I had often wondered if some people may have >waited a long time before deciding on a name for a >child. You see a young child in the old censuses once >in a while listed as Baby. Things were a whole lot >different then and I think we fail to realize some of >those things. One of the reasons that folks waited to name their babies was the high mortality rate with infants. Remember it wasn't until WW2 that we got Penicillin. Happy holidays to everyone, Janice M. Healy Co-compiler of "Oregon Burial Site Guide" Aloha, Oregon U.S.A. Mailto:[email protected] "Oregon Burial Site Guide" http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/obsg.html Plan ahead for the FGS Conference in Salt Lake City Sept 7 thru 10 2005 Public service site http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ancestors.html

>> One of the reasons that folks waited to name their babies was the > high mortality rate with infants. Remember it wasn't until WW2 that we got > Penicillin. > Janice M. Healy Not some of my Irish relatives. They used the same name on 3 babies until it stuck. They even paid to have a tombstone erected in Bangor Ireland for a memorial to their dead James Kelly sons.