The so-called “genealogy standard” is to use birth names for everyone, even in cultures where it doesn’t make sense. The “encylopedic standard” makes more sense. As a mental shorthand, I think of it as “best known as”. For example: Cokayne [formerly Adams], George Edward (1825–1911), genealogist, born at 64 Russell Square, London, on 29 April 1825, was...
“In England, as well as in France and other continental nations, down to the seventeenth century, married women and widows not infrequently retained their maiden names, generally, however, with an alias ; and in certain parts of Scotland and Wales, such persons still sign by their maiden name in legal documents, even though described in them by the surnames of their lords. In Scottish...
Yesterday’s post about names as performance got me to thinking. Somewhere on the periphery of memory I seemed to recall a paper about a medieval debate whether people can have names. And, sure enough, I found it: Rachel Anna Bauder. Naming Particulars: A Thirteenth-Century Debate on Whether Individuals Have Proper Names. PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto, 2016. (The original link at...
Are names performative? That’s a new idea for me. I came across it while reading a book by Abu El-Haj about the politics of Israeli archeology: The author “specifies for the first time the relationship between national ideology, colonial settlement, and the production of historical knowledge. She analyzes particular instances of history, artifacts, and landscapes in the making to show...
One of the canards of genealogy is that professional genealogists always prefer the earliest recorded name. The idea is that name is the most authentic. More or less true, but not quite, not always. William Shakespeare, for example. You think you know his name? His baptismal record, the earliest in a scant collection, calls him Gulielmus — Latin for William. Wait! Do I have to change...