Thank you Stewart,

I guess my family was normal for those times. From my 7th generation
forward I find a lot of same names, like Antonio, Francisco and Francisca in
the same family, Jesus for male and female, Felipe, etc. and since there
were so many in each family, there are many of the same same but with
different father & mother. Also kind of weird to me because it involves me
is that my mother named me Maria Graciela in the civil registration but my
grandmother thought I should have a Christian name, Esther, so in my
baptismal record that is the only name I have Esther. I decided to retain
this name to honor my grandmother who was very special to me.

Esther Jordan Lopez

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 10:36 AM, Stuart Armstrong wrote:

> Esther ... ,
>
> > Rafael Lopez Ornelas ... oldest male in a family of 13. His
> > youngest brother was also named Rafael Lopez Ornelas
>
> I have a surprising number of such instances in my database. And I
> would say that in browsing the christening record images I have seen
> MANY like this. It causes a lot of problems before you discover that
> two siblings had the same name.
>
> There are several scenarios I have seen.
>
> A child is given the same name as an older sibling for no apparent
> reason.
> A child born on the birthday of an older sibling was often given the
> same name.
> A child born in the same month as an older sibling. Saints days
> weren't followed precisely - it seems that families often chose between
> favorite saints whose days were close to the birthdate of the child.
>
> Twins were often given the same name.
>
> I have seen records that don't even name each child distinctly - for
> example, the record just says "Bacilios", meaning two of them, and
> "hijos legitimos" (plural) and in the margin the word gemelos (twins).
> To my way of thinking I would somehow feel cheated if the recorder
> didn't make a separate record for my birth .
>
> One particularly confusing instance was of a child born exactly 10
> years to the day after his older brother, and was given the same name.
> Until I discovered the christening records for both of them I thought
> it was a typo or copying error.
>
> In still another family I discovered 3 siblings named Francisca. Two
> of them were twins, and the other was born exactly 6 years earlier to
> the day.
>
> Contrary to what I've often heard, there was no requirement that the
> older sibling died young, although that sometimes happened. In the
> case of Francisca, the older one and one of the twins both married and
> raised families. The other twin died at age 13.
>
> The confusion that often results from same-name siblings can be hard
> to reconcile. You sort of get your first clue when the marriages and
> parents of the children don't reconcile. You think there are two
> spouses, but they overlap, then you dig deeper and discover the
> same-named siblings.
> --
> Best regards,
> Stuart mailto:stuartarms@gmail.com
>