I just saw a Facebook post from Elizabeth Shown Mills mentioning something I’ve noticed and meant to share before, because it still throws me for a loop when I see it.
OLD SOUTH NAMING PATTERNS:
In a post earlier this week, I flagged a case study I had just published in NGSQ. At the end of that article, I discuss a naming pattern that was fairly common in the Old South: the naming of first daughters of a subsequent wife for the deceased first wife who did not have a daughter to carry on her name. Our colleague Rebecca Christensen, after reading the article, commented on that point, noting that she had seen that in her own family.
No published source, to our knowledge, discusses this. A discussion here might help others. …
