Family Names: How to Honour a Relative Without Regret

Seven ways to name a child after someone

Honouring a relative is one of the oldest reasons to choose a name and the one most likely to cause friction, because it involves other people's expectations. It is also more flexible than most families assume. These are the routes, roughly from most to least direct.

1. The name itself, as the first name

The clearest option and the least flexible. It works best when the name is one you would have chosen anyway, and worst when it is not, because the child carries the compromise rather than you.

2. The name in the middle position

This is what middle names are principally for in Britain. It is used in documents, it never appears on a class register, and it lets you honour someone without giving your child a name from another era. It also allows two relatives to be honoured with two middle names, which no British rule prevents: there is no legal limit on the number of forenames.

3. A maiden name or family surname

Surnames make excellent first and middle names precisely because they carry no first-name expectations. This is how names such as Harper, Hunter, Parker, Marshall and Carter enter families, and each has a plain occupational origin. Using a grandmother's maiden name honours a line rather than a person, which sidesteps the problem of choosing between two grandmothers.

4. The original-language form

If the relative's name was anglicised at some point, going back to the earlier form honours the person and gives the child a different name. Elizabeth, from Hebrew Elishevaʿ meaning "my God is an oath", has forms in most European languages. So does John, from Hebrew Yoḥanan meaning "Yahweh is gracious". Behind the Name lists the forms for each name in each language, which is the practical way to find them.

5. The masculine or feminine counterpart

Many names have a counterpart form: Louise from Louis, Angela from Angelus, Renata from Renatus, Ariella from Ariel. This honours a relative of a different sex without inventing anything, and the forms are established rather than coined.

6. The same meaning in another language

If a grandmother was called Zoe, Eve carries the same idea — Behind the Name records that Zoe was adopted by Hellenised Jews as a translation of Eve. A relative called Sophia can be honoured with a name meaning wisdom in another language. This route needs care, because it only works if the meaning is securely attested in both directions.

7. The same initial

The loosest option and the most useful when a name is genuinely unusable. It honours the person in a way the family will recognise and leaves you free to choose the name.

When two families both expect it

The practical solutions are structural rather than diplomatic. Two middle names is the simplest, and it does not rank them if you agree in advance that the order is alphabetical or by age rather than by importance. Splitting the job also works: one family's name as the first name for this child, the other's for the next, agreed openly. And using surnames from both sides — one as a first name and one as a middle name — honours two lines at once without either name being the one that got second place.

What does not work is deciding in secret and announcing it. A name that has been publicly compared with an alternative rarely recovers, and the comparison is the thing that causes lasting offence rather than the choice.

The three cautions worth stating

A name given under pressure is the one people regret

There is no registry data on naming regret and you should be wary of any figure claiming otherwise. What people describe is consistent: names chosen to satisfy someone else are the ones they wish they had handled differently. If you do not want the name, the middle position exists precisely for this.

Check that the honoured name still works as a name

Names date, and a name from two generations back may be squarely in the trough of its cycle. Look it up in the ONS full list, which publishes every name given to three or more babies in England and Wales. A name at a few dozen babies a year is uncommon but ordinary; a name absent from the list entirely was given to fewer than three, which is a different proposition.

Do not invent a meaning to justify the choice

Family names get retro-fitted with flattering etymologies more than any other category. If the meaning matters, source it; if it cannot be sourced, honour the person rather than claiming the name says something it does not. The person is the reason, and that is a better reason than a meaning.

One thing families get wrong about generations

Names skip generations, and the reason is arithmetic rather than taste. A name that peaked when your grandparents were born is roughly a century old by the time you are choosing, which is precisely when revivals happen; a name that peaked when your parents were born is only a generation old and will read as dated. That is why honouring a great-grandmother is usually easy and honouring a mother is usually hard, and it is not a judgement about either name. If the name you are being asked to use falls in the awkward middle, the middle position and the initial route both exist for exactly this case.

The practical point about registration

Whatever you decide, the name given at registration is the legal one. A birth must be registered within 42 days in England and Wales and 21 days in Scotland. A forename can be altered within twelve months of registration under section 13 of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, and after that it takes a deed poll. That window is worth knowing if a family conversation is still going on when the deadline arrives: register the name you want, on time, and deal with the conversation separately.