Why do people give their children the names that they do? I just received a paper from Wilma regarding a conversation she had with Aunt Olive Lilley Reber in the early 1970's. It was handwritten notes about family. It was thoughtful of Wilma to send it to me and just awesome to me that she kept this paper from all that time ago. There was a list of relatives and who they married or didn't marry and who their children were. A lot of the information I was familiar with and some not. I am going to transcribe the notes and put them in some kind of order.
Notes on a paper from Wilma. These parantheses ( )throughout are mine. These [ ] were on Wilma's paper.
Bixler J. Forry (I am not familiar at all with this name)
Effie May Forry, Pa.
Womelsdorf
Hattie E. Siegfried
Aunt Olive = Family Tree Lilley and Forry
( I am not sure what some of these things mean but I am putting it down as it is on the paper as closely as I can)
(Ella)
Ellie
____ _____ Lilley __________Lilley
| /
\ /
- William Lilley ----Effie May Forry
I did not know he was a musician. Cool.]
1) Harry Lilley; married, turned Catholic. Several children.
3) Ed Lilley – not married. [ This is Edward Kennedy Lilley. He was a cook, or a chef]
4) Ida Lilley (Lou Delker) Two sons and a daughter
Eddie and Willie Delker: Eddie was second base for Cleveland and a catcher for Cinncinnati
(Major League Baseball, Willlie was head of Van Heusen Shirt
Dorothy was youngest.
Effie May Forry
Caroline Forry married John Garrett and had 2 kids, Eleanor and another and was married to 2 others.
Elizabeth Forry- husband Jim Liddle; Beatrice, Emma, Carolyn, Eleanor.
Beatrice Liddle – husband Bill Frantz; Billy, Jr.
Emma Liddle – husband Bill DeWitt; no children.
Eleanor Liddle –husband, boy next door; Jimmy
Carolyn Liddle ?
William A. Forry, Minister –wife, Sarah; 2 adopted children
Martha Forry –husband Claude Davis; Claude Jr., and Eleanor
Raymond Forry –wife Lottie, had twins; Buddy and Mary Forry
Effie May Forry + W. Lilley
Olive May
Bill
Dick (Melvin Lionel Gray Lilley [Dr. Gray delivered]
Virginia Irene
Ted Kermit
Thanks, Wilma!
The rest of the note dealt with the names of Anna May and Bill Lilley's children; us.
Did you know that:
Barbara Ione was named after Aunt Alice Lines, who was named after her Grandmother, Barbara Alice Boyer, and Ione, ' a friend of Mama's from camp' according to the notes Wilma had, but Mama told me that Ione was her Greek next door neighbor, who is in many pics from Miltimore Street.
Virginia Christine [Gim] was named after Aunt Gin Gin and a friend of Daddy's named Christine?
Ann Louise was named after Mama (Anna) and Louise (I think after Jessica because it was an L name) because the initials spelled ALL- a not so subtle reminder per Grandma Lilley that there should be no more kids from Daddy and Mama) [And my kids sometimes think I am intrusive? Not even close!]
Wilma Dawn was named after Daddy [William=Wil], and Mama and Grandma Lilley [May=Ma] and Barbara's friend Dawn, who was also Wilma's Godmother.
Lynne Eileen was named by Daddy and I guess Aunt Olive had no indication of why she was named Lynne Eileen.
And of course, William Arthur Lilley, Jr. after Daddy, but also Papa, who was a William and G-Granddad Lilley who was William H.
End of notes from Wilma's paper.
In the olden days people were named family names, too.
For Instance, Uncle Walter was named Walter Ressel Lines after his father, Elmer Lines', Grandmother, Leah Ressel, whose daughter, Leah Kepperling, married Christian Lines and was Elmer's Mother. Understand that? And see what I mean about family names?
That being said, I named my daughter Diana Louise because as I understood the Jewish custom, you used the first initial of someone in your family who had passed away, and we chose Diana after Marty's Grandfather, David Israel, his Mother's father. {It could have been an “I” name, after his mother's mother, Ida. Not a lot of 'I' names; Ione (and kept it in the family so to say), Imogene, Ida, Imelda.... Diana is the Roman Goddess of the Hunt and Martin is the Roman God of War, so it fit nicely in that respect, too. I named her Louise because a) I loved the name and b) there were many Louise's; i.e., Ann Louise Lilley, Jessica Louise Hertz and Stephanie Louise Strunk, and it seemed like I was passing on a piece of history to my daughter. Where the Louise initially came from I do not know, and Aunt Gin Gin is not around to ask why she named her daughter Jessica Louise.
Marty named David for his Grandfather, David. I named him Jeffrey because I loved my nephew, Jeffrey Kittrell.
Zachary Travis was named Zachary because there was a Zachariah Siegfried in our Grandmother, Hattie Siegfried's, family; it was her father's brother. We gave him the middle nameTravis for no familial reason, though. Ray and I read John D. MacDonald's private detective novels with Travis McGee as the hero the year before Zak was born. Left quite an impression. It was a toss up which would be his first and which would be his middle name, until Ray saw him the first time and called him Zachary.
Sometimes there are familial reasons when you name a child, sometimes not; sometimes a combination of both. I can summon, quickly, some of those instances of familial naming in our recent family children. Sometimes I do not even know if that naming is deliberate or just a liking for a particular name which coincides with a long ago family member's name. Sometimes it is very obvious.
I would like to hear your naming story.