Naming tradition for first-born children and inclusion of unwed parents' names
My Goffredo family line from Giovinazzo & Barletta in the 1800's has the repetitive naming tradition over several generations where the first-born son & first-born daughter are named after their paternal grandparents. However, my great grandfather, Nicola Domenico Goffredo, appears to be illegitimate as his birth, marriage and death records list the name of his father, but not his mother. The mother wished to not be named on his birth record. I have found no records of the father marrying. This Nicola Domenico Goffredo then had three children of his own. His first-born daughter was born in 1894 and was named Angiolina, but this name does not appear anywhere in the known paternal line. I am wondering if perhaps Nicola did know his mother, even though she was not named on any of his vital records, and he followed the naming tradition and named his first-born daughter after his mother? Could this be a clue as to the name of Nicola's unnamed mother?
Nicola then named his second child (daughter) Giuseppina which is feminine form of his father's name Giuseppe. He then had a son, named Nunzio, but Nunzio name does not appear anywhere in paternal family line, so could Nunzio name also come from the unknown mother's side of family. Are there any known cultural traditions in this regard that could help me decipher this? Thank you.
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The tradition in Southern Italy was and still is to name the firstborn son after the father's father, the firstborn daughter after the father's mother, the 2nd son after the mother's father, and the 2nd daughter after the mother's mother. That said, although this was a tradition, it was by no means guaranteed the parents would follow this pattern.
About illegitimate births in the period after 1866: The vast majority of these births were actually to married couples, but married in church only. Italian law from 1866-1929 did not recognize church marriages as valid. Couples had to attend 2 ceremonies, one in church and one civil ceremony, but some couples chose to ignore this and marry in church only. Children born to such a couple will be marked as illegitimate, but often with unknown mother. Usually, such couples eventually married civilly later and such civil marriage would legitimize the children (this would be mentioned in the atto di matrimonio), but if one of the spouses died, this might never have happened! Now, all this is not to say this is definitely what happened in your case, but it is the most likely explanation.
Now, even in a true illegitimacy scenario, the mother is surely always known personally, even if she might not be recognized as the legal mother. Therefore, I think it's likely that Angiolina/Angela is indeed the first name of your ancestor's unknown mother. Of course, this is not possible to guarantee because the naming pattern was not necessarily followed to the letter 100% of the time.
As to what you can do to actually figure this out, there's unfortunately not much! The only strategy that comes to mind would be to check birth and death records, which normally give the exact street address of the birth or death. Perhaps you might find an unmarried woman named Angiolina/Angela of the right age who died at Nicola Domenico's exact birth address. Otherwise, the best approach would be to seek out an actual church baptism record for Nicola Domenico to see what is said. If it is the church-only marriage scenario as I described above, his church baptism record will indicate both parents normally. However, church records in Italy are not available online nor are they accessible to the public in-person. Any record lookup or any in-person access would rely solely on the good will of the parish staff and is not guaranteed.
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Thank you so much for such great information. Very helpful!
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As an addendum to what @joseph99929 said regarding the naming convention, Italian law prohibited the same names within a direct line while the predecessor was alive. This can help you determining death ranges for an ancestor based on the births of children or grandchildren. I used this once to determine the death of a father didn't happen within the commune. Then, we found the record elsewhere.
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