I’m really curious to see what people consider a family name.
Is it anyone’s name within your family? Any distant cousin?
Or is it directly correlated to grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great grandparents, etc?
I personally would only consider a name a family name if it is the name of a relative whom I know or did know, or a relative who died before my time but is fairly closely related to me and was important to one of my immediate relatives, e.g. a great-grandparent.
I also consider names which frequently crop up in my family tree, say at least once every two generations, to be family names.
Other names of my ancestors which do not fit these categories are simply ‘finds from the family tree’, although I know to many people these also count as family names.
ditto.
Likewise.
What I consider a family name is a popular name in your family!
If I know or knew someone in my family and would like to honor them, I would consider it a family name no matter how they are related to me. For me to use a surname and claim it as a family name, though, it would have to be direct ancestry to the baby.
Last names and first names that crop up frequently and first names that of direct ancestors are family names. For instance, my brother [name]Daniel[/name] is named after my mother’s father [name]Eddie[/name] [name]Daniel[/name] (called [name]Dan[/name]) who was named after his mother’s father [name]Daniel[/name] McDaniel (yes, he was actually named that). My brother was also named after my father’s father. My dad was 12 when his dad died and my mom was 19 when her dad died. So it was a way of honoring the deceased parents.
I see nothing wrong with stealing a name from a less direct branch of the family tree (for instance a great great aunt’s name). I just wouldn’t call it a family name.