Naming after ancestors: Stevelina and Klarus
Naming children after family. In the early days quite common. And it was not always the case that girls were named after women and boys after men. That is how Dutch girls got named Fransje, Dirkje and Gerritje, boys names with -je put after it to make it a girls name.
I was researching Marc's ancestors and I got taken away, I find a person that interests me, because he has been married twice and a child of that person has something else interesting and before I know it I am far away from the main road in the genealogy. It was also in this way I found two children with very uncommon names for the Netherlands. The central person is Jan van den Broek, born in 1815. A very common name. He was married to Dirkje van der Grift. Here you have a girl with a name like that. She was named after her grandma Dirkje and this grandma is probably named after a man called Dirk. Grandma Dirkje was married to Steven Bos, still nothing very spectacular.
We go back to granddaughter Dirkje and her husband Jan. They had a lot of children. Neeltje is the oldest, named after her father's mother. The next is a son named Dirk Jan, he is named after both his parents! Very special in this age. The third is Jacoba, she is named after her father's father. Now it is time a child is named after someone in mother's family and apparently is is Dirkje's grandfather's turn. This is the Steven I mentioned before. This daughter is called Stevelina! Very special and creative! In every day life she wasn't called Stevelina I think, it was a much too long name, much too posh. I can think of what her name could have been, but people were creative, it could have been Lina, Ina, Stina, Vlien or maybe even something else.
After Stevelina there is another Neeltje born, because the first Neeltje died at the age of five. After that there is a Melis, Jan Willen, Willemina Johanna and Everard. Dirkje's mother is called Wulfje and there are no children named after her. Back to Jan van den Broek. Jan has a brother with a very uncommon name, namely Klarus. He even had two brothers with that name. The first Klarus died at the age of two years and seven weeks after his death another son was born, in January of 1825, and he was named Klarus too. Klarus. Strange name. I understood it when I saw how the grandmother of Jan and Klarus was called. Her name is Klara! Her husband's name is Jan and so did Jan van den Broek get his name. It is one or the other.
