Thank you, Lou, Maynard, Craig, for shedding such erudite light on naming patterns. I figured there was less here than meets the eye, but in some ways, the discussion indicated there may be more here than I had figured. I was particularly interested in Lou's contrast between the New England colonials and the Virginia colonials, particularly as I have some of each. The history of naming is interesting even if it doesn't help the search. I shall certainly look up the book mentioned. But Craig's mention of the random family where parents just name their children after friends/neighbors is true also in my family. An uncle writes (in correspondence discovered recently) that he was named after his parents' best man. I guess I may never know why my great granddaddy, fresh from the CSA army, named his children the way he did. That the Welsh have been credited with a naming system was, of course, also news to me. Please see the email that follows for another naming question I've been pondering. Diana