Your questions answered
Why do they keep changing their names?
Q I have some maternal ancestors named Savage Evans. John Savage Evans married Esther Powell in Sedgley, Staffordshire in 1791. The baptism of their son John Savage took place in Bilston, Staffordshire in 1795; they had not included the name Evans. John Jnr married Sarah Fletcher in Dawley Magna, Shropshire in 1820, where he added Evans again. Their son Joshua was then only given the name Savage at his baptism in Ettingshall, Staffordshire in 1837. He married Emma Edwards in Ipstones, Staffordshire in 1863 as Joshua Evans. Their daughter (one of my maternal 2x great-grandmothers) was born in Pendlebury, Lancashire as Emma Savage in 1870. Her baptism took place in Normanton, Yorkshire in 1875. She married one of my maternal great-grandfathers, Arthur Smith, in Castleford, Yorkshire as Emma Evans in 1891.
Please could someone tell me why they keep changing their name? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,
Nick Monaghan
A When researching your family history it is important to realise that surnames are changing all the time. The spelling of surnames varies greatly, particularly before the Industrial Revolution when writing wasn’t very common. There are apparently 80 variations of William Shakespeare’s surname used during his lifetime.
Sometimes a change of name is forced upon the family, perhaps when officialdom changes a surname generally by accident – such misspelling a man’s name when he joins the Army.
More often, however, the family changes their surname deliberately. An immigrant family may change their surname so they fit in more easily. The Polish ancestors of my wife were called Lipschitz, but they soon adopted the more English name of Lyons when they settled in Liverpool before the First World War.
It was not unusual for middle and upper-class families to adopt double-barrelled names. This seems to have been particularly common from mid-Victorian times. Doing so gave an aristocratic feel to the family name, that would have pleased social climbers! This was largely affectation, but sometimes the change was made to acknowledge a bequest made by a relative, or to
