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Honey, what shall we name the baby?

17th and 18th century Yorkshire was not a place that produced a wide variety of given names.  This was certainly the case with the Jibson family of that time period. Among male names Robert, William, John, Charles, Thomas, George, Richard and Samuel were favorites.  Females tended to be named Mary, Ann, Elizabeth, Hannah, Sarah and Jane.  These names were consistent with the fashion in all of England.  It was common to be from a large family and name your children after your siblings.  Thus Robert Jibson and Mary Wolton produced Richard, Robert, Thomas, John, Jane, Mary and Elizabeth.  Their son John married Ann Scruton and they produced Elizabeth, Sarah, Mary, Richard, Jane, George, Charles, Ann, Robert, John, Jane and (oops) Marshall. A couple of generations later Robert Jibson and Ann Buttle's American brood consisted of Ann, Mary, Robert, John, George, Sarah, Richard, Prince, Elijah and Martin. This makes for difficult genealogy and confusing family reunions.

Then as now children were awarded two given names.  Here families were often more creative, though still repetitive.  The Jibsons often followed the convention of using a mother's maiden name in the names of their children.  These more distinctive names often were repeated through several generations, creating a family tradition.  Thus you can find a number of Jibsons with the middle name of Scruton.  The most common use of a wife's maiden name comes from my own line of Jibsons.  The name Prince (as in Mary Prince) was used with her own children, as in Robert Prince Jibson and in subsequent generations as with my own father, Howard Prince Jibson, and his uncle, Prince Albert Jibson. One branch of the family in Yorkshire even used a hyphenated combination of Prince-Jibson as a surname for a time. After several generations the Prince name has recently been revived in my own family in the person of Emily Prince Jibson, born on 12-24-2003.

I wish I had known some of these traditions when I was naming my own son, Phillip Alan Jibson, though by chance the name Alan appears several times in the Jibson genealogy.  Had I been better informed at the time he might have been Phillip Prince Jibson (but not Prince Phillip).  

I ended up with the middle name of Kent.  I asked my mother (who's maiden name was VanderBoegh) how I got that one.  It turned out she knew my father's family was English and she knew that Kent was a place in England because a family friend had been stationed there during the war.  She thought it sounded nice.  I'm glad she wasn't familiar with Yorkshire.  I might have been "David Yorkshire Pudd'n Head Jibson" on the playground.

So all you Roberts, Richards, Marys, Anns, Janes and Johns out there.  Wear your names, common though they be, with pride and know it is with good reason you were so blessed.  Consider yourself lucky if you have one of those good old family names that have passed down through the generations. And if you got one of those great old surnames as a middle name...oh I am JEALOUS.