Frisian Naming Conventions
Frisians have always maintained very strict naming conventions regarding how they name their children. The guiding principle is to maintain names which have occurred previously in their ancestry. This becomes very useful information when attempting to build family trees.
First of all, the first born children in a family will be named after both paternal and maternal grandparents. After this, further children might be named after great grandparents, aunts or uncles, or the parents themselves. If a mother died during childbirth and if the child was a daughter, she would usually be given the mother’s name. If there were more children of one sex than the other, sometimes a child might be given the female version of a grandfather’s name or vice verse.
During the centuries before 1900, infant and child mortality was quite high. If a child died young, the next child born to the family might be given the name of the deceased child. In other words, good names should not go to waste! So sometimes, we may find 3 or 4 children in a family tree with the same name, which indicates usually that the earlier children died young.
An example can be found in the family of our great grandparents, Kornelis Gabes Bijlsma and Antje Beernts Sietsma in the latter half of the 19th century. There were a total of 10 children born to the family. It included 3 boys called Jan and 2 girls called Janke; the older two Jan’s and the older Janke all died young by the age of 4 months. In the previous generation, in the family of Gabe Kornelis Bijlsma and Tietje Klazes Walinga, there were also 10 children. It included 3 boys called Klaas , 2 boys called Bauke and 2 girls called Maaike; the older two Klaas’s, the older Bauke and both Maaike’s all died by the age of 3.
There is an exception to this rule. There are occurances where a family has two children with the same name who lived. This would occur if both male or both female grandparents had the same first name; both grandparents in that case would have to be honoured with a grandchild with their name. An example of this occurred with the family of our great great grandmother on our Berger family tree: Grietje Jans Veldstra; she had a son with her first husband who was named Jan Luites Krikke after Grietje’s father; after the death of her first husband, she re-married and had anothet son who was named Jan Minnes Klompmaker after her new father in law.
In our own family, our parents followed these rules quite strictly. The first daugher, Grietje, who only lived for six weeks in 1944 was named after the maternal grandmother. Her name derived originally from Grietje Jans Franzen, from a peat-digging family married into the Schokker family in the Berger family line, who lived in the early part of the 18th century in Wanneperveen in the province of Overijssel. The first son, Klaas, was named after the paternal grandfather. His name derived originally from Claas Geerts in Gaastmeer, born into a poor fisherman’s family in the early 18th century, whose children later took on the surname Overmeer in the Bijlsma family line. The second son, Durk, was named after the maternal grandfather. His name derived originally from Durk Sjoerds de Vries in the Dijkstra family line, born in 1776, who was a rich farmer in Broek outside Joure, a member of the Mennonite church. The second daughter, Rene (Reinschje Grietje), was give both grandmothers’ names. The first name derives from Reinsckjen (Rinske, Reinsje) Geerts Oosterhof from Nijeholtwolde near Wolvega, born in 1774, in the van der Meer family line. The next son, Gerard, was a male version of the maternal grandmother’s name which was discussed above. Neil (Cornelius) was named after our father. The name derives from Cornelis Allerts born in 1729 in Aalsum outside Dokkum, from a family of butchers. And Jack (Jacob) was named after an uncle. The name derives from Jacob Cornelis Kloot, from Zuidveen, Orverijssel, which later become Cloo, from the Berger family line; this derivation goes back the furthest, to about 1645. In all of these cases, the name occurs a number of times over 6 to 10 generations.
In the case of our parents, the same applied. In the Bijlsma family, the first daughter, Antje, was named after the paternal grandmother; the second daughter, Maaike, was named after the maternal grandmother; the only son, Cornelius (Cornelis) was named after the paternal grandfather; the third daughter, Grietje, was likely named after an aunt, a sister of her mother. Apparently, her parents proposed giving her the female version of her maternal grandfather’s name, Aagje (his name was Age, pronounced Ah-guh), but he apparently refused. He had a large family and already had many grandsons named after him!
In the Dijkstra family, the first son, Tjebbe, was named after the paternal grandfather; the second son, Jacob, was named after the maternal grandfather; the first daughter, Akke, was named after the paternal grandmother, but died young; the third son, Gerrit, was named after the maternal great grandfather; the second daughter, Sibbeltje, was named after the maternal grandmother.
An amusing end-note: With photography, families enjoyed taking photos of a grandparent with all of the grandchildren who had been named after him. There is a photo of our maternal grandfather, Pake Durk Dijkstra with the four grandchildren who all carried his name; each of his four surviving children had a son named Durk. A copy was generously provided by my deceased cousin’s wife, Elske Dijkstra Pekema.
