Necronyms

How can one family have 3 daughters all of whom are named "Prudence"? Obviously, someone made a mistake. Well, probably not! The practice of necronyms was common in days of old. A necronym is the name of someone who has died. Using it often is a sign of respect.
If a daughter was born and named "Prudence", for example, but didn't survive, a subsequent daughter may be named after her for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the parents used the name to honor an ancestor of their own and continued to use the name even if the first born with that name had died. Finding 2 children with the same name in a family is more common than you think. Even 3 is unusual but obviously more rare. IT is common in some cultures but taboo in others.

(The practice of necronyms should not be confused with the manner in which George Foreman ("Big George") named hi five sons George....that's another story.)

But when you find a necronym, it may go like this: You find the birth year of a child of say, 2 years of age in a census but then in the next census 10 years later, find "her" again at age 4 rather than 12. Usually, with a little digging, you'll find that the first child had died and the parents used the same name for another child. It provides a pretty good clue that there are more children than what a census record may show. A related problem would be if a child was born the year after one census and died the year before the next, you may never realize that the child had ever existed!

Time to check church records for christenings!