I came across and article (Is The First-Born Son The Only Child Who Should Be A Jr.?) and it raised a question I hadn’t considered before and wanted to get your input. Now, I have no clue who these people are. I think the man is a singer? Anyhow, from what I gather, he had kids with someone else (including a son), then got with another woman, got her pregnant, and that woman named the baby after him…making the baby a junior. For some reason, some people are scandalized by this, my guess is relating to the circumstances of the family and not the mere fact that the man’s second son is the junior, not his firstborn son.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] you guys think that a second son could/should be a junior, as opposed to a firstborn son? Okay, I’ll expand this to women and daughters as well. I don’t see much of a problem with it, personally. Of the people I know who have a junior and more than one son, it’s always the firstborn that is named after the dad. I guess I would find it slightly odd that the secondborn would be the junior, but it really isn’t that big of a deal.
So what do you think? [name_f]Do[/name_f] any of you have experience with this? Or for those that have a junior, had you considered saving the junior thing for a subsequent child?
I know I personally would be extremely hurt if I was that child. I mean my little sister got my mothers middle name instead of me and that still bothers me to this day. It really just says to me “my first family was a mistake, this is my real family and my real son”. [name_m]Even[/name_m] if it was a situation where the first wife didn’t want a [name_m]Jr[/name_m] but the second was ok with it, it still sends that message of “I love this son more” whether it’s intentional or not.
@thenameprincess,
That’s a very good perspective on it! Thank you for your input, and your situation is why my husband and I are trying to come up with names that have a lot of meaning for each child, not just “Child A: your middle name is your grandpa’s name, Child B: you are named after your aunt, and Child C: well…we found your name in a magazine”.
Anyhow, I wonder if the situation would be different if this man stayed with his first relationship and had this kid by her, instead of by another woman.
I personally disagree with naming children after their parents in the first place. I understand wanting to pass the name down through the generations but it seems lazy and like they’re expecting the child to be a little copy of his father. That’s not always how things work out. If one ends up in jail and the other wants to run for president, they probably won’t want to be sharing the “family name.”
There are no official rules dictating which son can be a junior. As someone who spends a lot of time doing genealogy research, I occasionally come across juniors who were not the first son but instead born on their father’s birthday.
@ravenclaw00, I think some people do it just to do it, but it may mean a lot to some people. I won’t diss them for it, but I certainly see what you are saying. Researching my family tree, I’ve found many ancestors that have done this. In one case, the parents named their twin sons directly both after the dad (his name was, let’s say, "James Robert. Twin 1 was “James Robert Jr.” and Twin 2 was "Robert James
"). My grandparents named my mom and uncle directly after themselves as well…first and middle names both. Same exact names. My mom always said to me “what, there weren’t any other names available those years?”. lol.
My cousin is a junior and is the second born male. My older cousin has family names that were more important to my aunt and uncle than my uncle’s name. While I’m personally not a fan of juniors, but I don’t think it matters the order. In the case with more than one mother, it may be because the first woman did not want her son to be a junior. There’s so many reasons why a first born may not be the junior in the family, so in my opinion it is not a really big deal.
I only know one [name_m]Junior[/name_m] and he is the third son. 