Irish Naming Patterns for Children

From the County Monaghan, Ireland History website, the pattern for naming
Irish children is, or at least was, as follows:

The 1st son was usually named after the father's father
The 2nd son was usually named after the mother's father
The 3rd son was usually named after the father
The 4th son was usually named after the father's eldest brother
The 5th son was usually named after the mother's eldest brother
The 1st daughter was usually named after the mother's mother
The 2nd daughter was usually named after the father's mother
The 3rd daughter was usually named after the mother
The 4th daughter was usually named after the mother's eldest sister
The 5th daughter was usually named after the father's eldest sister

Does anyone know how prevalent this naming pattern was in Ireland around the
middle of the 19th century especially for the names of the first two sons?

Trish...

This was certainly not followed in my family.
It sounds made up.

John...

My family followed the pattern (almost), through at least two
generations1830 - 1910

TIA for any help.

Bob Lightburn

Robert Lightburn...

What I am really interested in, and probably should have said so in the
first place, is the naming of the first born son. How common was it in 19th
century Ireland to name the first born son after his paternal grandfather?
On my wife's side (the Irish side) of the family it was fairly common to do
so, at least during the latter part of the 19th century. Thanks, again, for
any help.

Bob Lightburn

Clohogue...

I have just checked my own family tree (back to late 1700s, mostly Kilkenny
area) and the naming pattern seems to work most of the time. With only 1
exception the first born son was always named after the paternal grandfather
(the one exception being named after maternal grandfather who had recently
died and in that case 2nd born son was named after paternal grandfather).

In 2 cases the first born son died and in one of those a later son was given
same name (relatively common in those times). The pattern seems to work
pretty well for the remaining children in most of the families too. In some
cases the father and paternal grandfather had the same name (or mother and
maternal grandmother) and in those cases they just skipped right on to the
4th steps as the name for 3rd step had already been used for 1st child.

It's not foolproof of course, there are always exceptions, but in my sample
of 1640 people on family tree, for the entries I have the pattern works
reasonably well enough to be used as a guideline. Mind you it all falls
apart from the 1960s onwards;-) Up to that point I would say pattern worked
80% of the time and up to then almost everyone on my tree had one given name
only. By the late 1950s early 1960s children on my tree now mostly had a 2nd
given name and for the firstborns in each family this 2nd given name which
was following steps 1 and 2 of the naming patterns (steps 3 onwards have
just disappeared).

myths...

I know a modern family where the second name of the first son is that
of the living greatgrandfather, and the second son has the given names
of bith grandfathers as 2nd and 3rd names.

Ron Martell...

It was common but by no means prevelant, and there were several
variations on it. One fairly common variant was to reverse the
second and third children (second son named after the father, third
after the maternal grandfather, and same with daughters).

In my family we have been trying for years to determine the names of
the parents of my 4th great grandfather (Charles) who was born in
Dublin in 1733. Family lore says that their names were
Antoine/Anthony and Ann. However he acquired property, possibly by
inheritance, from Thomas and Jane. His firstborn son was named
Thomas, the second Charles and the 5th son was named Anthony. But
his first daughter was named Jane and the second Ann. So we have
discounted the children's names as any sort of conclusive indicator of
the names of his parents.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada