In some Polish families, given names are reused, with children being named for other relatives. Not so in mine. In fact, the only times that names were deliberately reused was when a child died at a young age and the same name was used for another child born to the same parents.<\/p>\n
With my earliest known Niedzia\u0142kowski ancestors,\u00a0children were given the names of saints whose feast days were celebrated at about the time of the children’s births. The feast day of the saint for whom\u00c2\u00a0a child was\u00c2\u00a0named became his or her Name Day, or Imieniny.<\/p>\n
My 6th great grandparents, Krzysztof Niedzia\u0142kowski and Kostancja \u017baboklicka, named their children as follows:<\/p>\n
The name days usually were not the same as the date of birth or baptism, but were fairly close to those dates. Later generations did not seem to hold so closely to choosing a given name based on a name day that was close to the date of birth.<\/p>\n
In general, my ancestors gave their children only one name, a common practice in Poland. Some children, however, received two names:<\/p>\n
Faustina Apolonia Obidzie\u0144ska, my first cousin six times removed, was given a name that I find particularly interesting. She was baptized on 28 Feb 1762, and her\u00c2\u00a0name days are 15 Feb (Faustina) and\u00c2\u00a009 Feb (Apolonia). I don’t know\u00c2\u00a0anything about\u00c2\u00a0the Saint Faustina for whom she was named, but it was surely not the well-known Saint Faustina who lived in the 20th century. Saint Apolonia was a martyr for the faith whose teeth were knocked out by anti-Christian persecutors. She died in the year 249 and is the patron saint of dentists.<\/p>\n
Written for the Carnival of Eastern European Genealogy.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2008 by Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In some Polish families, given names are reused, with children being named for other relatives. Not so in mine. In fact, the only times that names were deliberately reused was when a child died at a young age and the … Continue reading