"Traditional" Naming of Peers?

What are some of the "traditions" within certain Peers' families in
terms of naming their children?
(For instance, I know the Earls of Radnor alternate between Jacob and
William for the eldest son.)

Deloria...

It used to be somewhat common for peers to name one of ones children
after/in honour of the current monarch. Though that tradition has
apparently died out. I don't know of any others, though. Sorry.

Any others?

Peter Tilman...

The current (10th) Earl of Tankerville is the first not to be called
Charles.

The Dukes of Richmond like the name Charles (presumably because the 1st Duke
was an illegitimate son of King Charles II). Starting with the 6th Duke, the
preferred form has been Charles Henry, and indeed the current (10th) Duke,
his eldest son (the Earl of March and Kinrara) and his eldest son (the Lord
Settrington) are all called Charles Henry, so the pattern looks set to
continue. The only Duke not to be called Charles (the 9th) was a younger son
born whilst his elder brother (Charles Henry, Lord Settrington [who was in
fact the second son, the eldest, The Hon. Charles Henry Gordon Lennox,
having died as an infant]) was still alive. And at any rate the 9th Duke's
name was Frederick Charles, so they had their bases covered.

The 1st to 7th Dukes of Devonshire (like the Earls of Devonshire before
them) were called William, and though this custom seems to have died out the
current heir (the Earl of Burlington, who doesn't seem to have upgraded
himself to the Marquessate of Hartington, judging by his recent engagement
announcement) is called William.

The Dukes of St Albans like the name Aubrey (now usually only as a middle
name), presumably due to their descent (through his daughter Lady Diana de
Vere, who married the 1st Duke) from Aubrey, 20th and last Earl of Oxford.
All members of the family now have names ending in "de Vere Beauclerk"
(presumably for the same reason), though it's unclear whether this is
actually an unhyphenated double-barrelled surname or merely a universal last
first name.

The Dukes of Buccleuch like the name Walter, possibly due to the surname of
the 1st Duke (the Duke of Monmouth)'s mother, Lucy Walters (who was a
mistress of King Charles II, the 1st Duke's natural father).

The Earls of Shaftesbury are usually called Anthony.

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.=2E.which is quite understandable, considering that the alternative
would seem to be "Cropley".

Peter Tilman...

And both of the Earls not called Anthony (the current (12th) Earl and the
6th Earl) were younger brothers of Anthonys. Indeed, the shock of a Cropley
succeeding seems to have made them slightly obsessive, and all the sons of
the 6th to 9th Earls had the first name Anthony, the eldest being plain
Anthony and the younger sons Anthony followed by one or more other names,
the first of which was the name actually used. Even the current Earl is
called Nicholas Edmund Anthony.

To fill in on the general story, the Dukes of Wellington have all but
one gone by "Arthur", and both the current Marquess Douro and Lord
Mornington do the same.

Peter Tilman...

Are you sure? It would seem the 3rd (Henry), 6th (Henry Valerian George) and

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No. I thought i was sure enough not to have to check. I wasn't.

7th (Gerald) Dukes didn't have Arthur amongst their names, so did two of
them call themselves Arthur even though not actually being called it? And
their affection for Arthur is perhaps not terribly surprising, given the
renown of the 1st Duke.

Don Aitken...

The Dukes of Manchester have a fondness for "Drogo".

Peter Tilman...

Any idea where that came from? Many of the traditions have an obvious
reason, but Drogo seems to have popped up out of nowhere.

Don Aitken...

The first seems to be the 7th duke, born in 1823. Their cousins the
Earls of Sandwich have also been using it since 1908, but only for
younger sons. I presume it comes from the family's claimed descent
(which CP says is spurious) from the medieval Montacute/Montagu Earls
of Salisbury, who traced their lineage back to one Drogo de
Monte-Acuto, fl.1086. The concoction of such pedigrees was at its
height around the 1820s, I believe.

And the current (13th) Duke of Manchester seems to have decided that

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choosing names from the family collection is too difficult, with the result
that his only son revels in the outstanding name of Alexander Michael
Charles David Francis George Edward William Kimble Drogo Montagu, styled
Viscount Mandeville, which rivals Richard Plantagenet Campbell

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Well, I can see a reason, sort of. AFAIU, Viscount Mandeville can't
expect much of a material inheritance, at least not in ducal terms.

So if the Duke of Manchester can't bring his heir the proper ducal
wealth, he can at least give him an impressive string of given names to
match the elevated title that once will be his.

Makes perfect sense to me.

An alternative explanation would of course be that the 13th Duke has
inherited the general intellectual faculties of his late father, the
12th Duke, and simply was incapable of choosing, and thus had to take
the whole barrel if the poor child were to have any names at all.

Jan B=F6hme

Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos,
without even using a double-barrelled surname, which is quite impressive.

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But none has really gone by this outlandish name, have they?

Frank R.A.J. Maloney...

I should think school would be most unpleasant for any Drogoes showing up
these days. Lots of Hobbit jokes would be the least of it.

However, looking around I discovered a number of Drogoes in history, a duke
of Champagne and Burgundy, a bishop of Metz, a duke of Brittany, a count of
the Vexin, a count of Apulia and Calabria, and a saint (a Flemish noble and
the patron of those others find repulsive inter alia).

Plus an early 20th-century Devon country house called Castle Drogo.

Jan B=F6hme

A bit unpractical, when the members of the family live as long as the
Wellsleys do. I wonder how they distinguish between all the Arthurs. Do
the go by their titles also en famille?

Peter Tilman...

I don't know about the Wellesleys, but this was once near universal
practice, and even courtesy peers used to be called (say) "Hartington"

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Yes, I know. But wouldn't this seem oppressively stuffy in this day and
age, also in a Ducal house headed by a nonagenarian?

Jan B=F6hme

rather than "William" by immediate family members. There was an obituary of

Don Aitken...

Or by abbreviations of the title. The future 6th Duke was "Hart", and
the future 8th was "Harty-Tarty" - which might have been embarassing
to his mistress, if not to himself. And once such nicknames are
adopted, they tend to stick even after succession to the main title.
Several of the Earls of Carnarvon have been "Porchy", from the
courtesy title.

Joseph T Major...

The most famous one being the chap who sponsored Howard Carter, and as a
result got to go with him into Tutankhamen's tomb.

One remembers in this connection Sunny Marlborough. A most implausible
byname, given his chronic melanchiolic air. (I have seen only one picture
of him smiling. He seems to be posing for a Halloween skeleton.)

However, upon realizing that he was also "Earl of Sunderland", the
"Sunny" has some probability.

Joseph T Major

one of the daughters of the 7th Earl Beauchamp in The Times recently which
stated that her father had insisted on using not only titles but even "Lord"
and "Lady" even for his own children, and had addressed her brother (styled
Viscount Elmley by courtesy) as "Lord Elmley" even when he was a young
child, but I suspect that was extremely unusual behaviour even at the time.

Joseph McMillan...

Probably the same way Scottish families have distinguished among the
male first cousins who are all named after their common paternal
grandfather--nicknames.

bxzi...

The Barons Rotherwick have all been named Herbert Robin. This
includes all 3 peers (including the current one) and the 17 year old
heir.

Brooke
bxzi@yahoo.com

(My own totally non-aristocratic family has a surplus of men named
Robert--my father's uncle, two of his first cousins, the son of one of
those cousins, both my mother's brothers-in-law, both of their eldest
sons, and my own younger brother. We all manage to sort each other out
somehow.)

Keith J. Brown...

Also totally non-aristocratic, but at one time I numbered 4 different
Lauras among my friends, most of whom knew each other as well. We kept
track of them by who had introduced them to the group: my Laura,
Nancy's Laura, Maura's Laura, and Tom's Laura.

Jan B=F6hme

The Marquesses of Bute have all been called John (as is the current heir,
the Lord Mount Stuart).

sionevar...

The Earls of Morton seem to be fond of the name Sholto.

Many of the Earls of Abingdon have been called Montagu or Willoughby.

(Gary Holtzman) garyholtzman...

The dukes of Wellington seem to favour Gerald and Arthur.

Brooke
bxzi@yahoo.com