What is in a name?

Part 1

I will never forget the day I found out that my grandfather had an additional birth name.  I thought his formal name was EDWIN DOUGLAS DRIVER and his nickname was “BUBBA”.  I later found in the 1910 census someone by the name of HOBBED D. DRIVER who was the same age as my grandfather.  I was puzzled as to who this new person was.  Was he another brother that died young or was there a complete misspelling of my grandfather’s name?  This puzzle was solved when I had a chance to visit my grandfather’s brother and my Godfather, ELIJAH MORRIS DRIVER (also known as “BUSTER”).  I informed UNCLE BUSTER that I have been engaged in genealogy and found a person by the name of Hobbed.  He smiled and said that the name was actually HOBART and it was my grandfather.  My grandfather dropped the name and went by the remaining EDWIN DOUGLAS.

Over the years I tried to make since of family names and their origin.  I will be making several more postings concerning the DRIVER names, but I first want to finish my story about my grandfather’s name.

When I found out his first name was HOBART, I tried to find other older family members with that first or last name.  There were none, but I did notice that HOBART was similar to ROBERT.  Census takers were notorious for misspelling people’s names.  Often after a long day/week of going from house to house (by horse or cart and down long dusty roads), the census taker was exhausted and made mistakes.  If my grandfather’s first name was ROBERT that would have made plenty of sense.  After all I had found 15 other ROBERT DRIVER in our family from the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  That assumption was too easy and debunked by my uncle BUSTER when he informed me that the name was indeed HOBART.  So I had to go back to the drawing board and do some more research about the name.  I found that when my grandfather was born and named, the name HOBART was becoming popular and peaked in use in 1901.  I now understand where the name came from, but I am still curious as to why his parents did not follow the standard naming convention of the day.  If they had followed this convention, my grandfather (1^st oldest son) would have been named after his paternal grandfather, ADDISON DRIVER.  After all my uncle BUSTER (2^nd son) was named in accordance to the standard naming convention.  He was named after his maternal grandfather ELIJAH MORRIS.

Early Naming Conventions in the 18th and 19th Century

Child: - - Named for:

1st son: - - father's father

2nd son: - - mother's father

3rd son: - - father

4th son: - - father's oldest brother

5th son: - - father's 2nd oldest brother or mother's oldest brother

1st daughter: - - mother's mother

2nd daughter: - - father's mother

3rd daughter: - - mother

4th daughter: - - mother's oldest sister

More to come…….