After reading some of the other blogs I have decided that the Celebrating Your Name is a good idea, and a little fun.
My name is Claudia. In my research I think I am the only one, unless some German relative that I have not discovered yet has that name.
My mother was born in Germany and came to the USA in 1926. She had told me that she had always liked that name. And so it was to be…..
Claudia is a name that has been used for thousands of years. It is Roman and was used during the Roman Empire. It is quite popular is Austria, Germany and Italy, but not so popular in the USA. WHY, I do not know.
All I know is that when someone calls out Claudia, I can be sure 99.9% of the time they are calling me. I have know about two other Claudia’s in grade school.
My Grandmother, Gertrude O’Rourke was angry that my parents did not name me Gertrude or Anna. I am glad she stuck to her guns on that one.
My brothers names are Thomas, Richard and William. Thomas was named after his father, grandfather and great grandfather. Although I have not found the documentation I suspect that the great great grandfathers name will be Thomas too. Also I suspect that my great grandmother Bridget Naughton father was named Thomas Naughton. I need the documentation but I found a file on the LDS site that leads me to believe that.
Richard was named for my fathers brother, who had died when my brother was born. Also a great uncle was named Richard.
William was probably named for my mothers father, Willi Schridde, on his tombstone he is listed as William. There are also a few Wilhelms on the German side.
Kathleen, there are no Kathleen’s, but a few Catherines on the Dowd side. Shawnna, no Shawnna’s were found in the research yet either.
What names I have found are Catherine, Nora, Mary, Theresa, Agnes, Barbara, Elizabeth, Katharine, Anna, Johanna, Ellen, Gertrude and Maria. That is a nice selection.
My name is Sheri and I was born after WWII. I find very few women named Sheri who were born before the war. I was told the men coming home from the War started giving their daughters names they'd heard in France. Sheri (with a different spelling) of course means "darling". There were three other Sheris in my class at school, all with different spellings: Sherie, Sherrie, Sherry. Other French names which became popular were Michelle, Nicole, etc. My own daughter's name is also French: Danielle. Funny. We don't have any French ancestry!
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