necronym

In Ashkenazi Jewish culture, it is a custom to name a child after a beloved relative who died as a way of honoring the deceased. Often the child will share the same Hebrew name as the namesake but not the given name in the vernacular language (e.g. English).{{Cite journal|last=SAMUEL|first=EDGAR R.|date=1969|title=New light on the Selection of Jewish Children's Names|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/29778787|journal=Transactions & Miscellanies (Jewish Historical Society of England)|volume=23|pages=64–86|jstor=29778787|issn=0962-9688}} For most practicing Jews it is taboo to name a child after a person who is still living.

In Japan, Buddhist families usually obtain a necronym, called a kaimyō, for a deceased relative from a Buddhist priest in exchange for a donation to the temple. Traditionally, the deceased were thereafter referred to by the necronym, as a sign of pious respect. This name was often the only one inscribed on gravestones in the past, though now it is more common to have the necronym in addition to the given name.{{Cite book|last=Swarts|first=Erica|title=Kaimyo (Japanese Buddhist Posthumous Names) as Indicators of Social Status|publisher=The Ohio State University|year=2001}}

In Assyria and Babylonia, children were often given "substitute-names", necronyms of deceased family members, to keep the dead's names and identities alive. Evidence suggests that the desire for children may have been motivated by the desire to pass on these necronyms.

During the Cold War, necronyms were commonly used as a means of protecting an intelligence officer's true identity. For example, the Soviet KGB agent Konon Molody was only known as Gordon Lonsdale (the true Lonsdale was a Canadian born two years after Molody who died in 1943 when he was 19) in the United States.{{Cite book|last=Tietjen|first=Arthur|title=Soviet Spy Ring|publisher=Pan Books|year=1961}} Molody adopted the name when he was 32, 11 years after the real Lonsdale's death.{{Cite web|date=1998-08-15|title=At last, the truth emerges about Gordon Lonsdale's shadowy life|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/at-last-the-truth-emerges-about-gordon-lonsdales-shadowy-life-1171736.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220618/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/at-last-the-truth-emerges-about-gordon-lonsdales-shadowy-life-1171736.html |archive-date=2022-06-18 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=2020-10-09|website=The Independent|language=en}}

The practice of bestowing necronyms has sometimes caused confusion for historians. This is primarily because of the two birth certificates or records that could be present at a given time. This confusion often stems from the inability to differentiate between the records of each child. One such example is the case of Shigechiyo Izumi (1865?–1986), accepted in 1986 as the world's oldest man by The Guinness Book of World Records; it is suggested that he was possibly born in 1880 and the birth certificate of a brother whose name he assumed upon his death was submitted in place of Izumi's own.{{Cite web|title=CalmentMen1.html, No. 1 of 3; as of September 11, 2012|url=https://grg.org/calmentmen1.html|access-date=2020-10-11|website=grg.org}}

• Composer Ludwig van Beethoven, born in 1770, had a brother named Ludwig Maria who was born in 1769 and lived for only six days.{{Cite journal|last1=Testoni|first1=Ines|last2=Dorsa|first2=Maurizio|last3=Iacona|first3=Erika|last4=Scalici|first4=Giorgio|date=2020-08-17|title=Necronym: the effects of bearing a dead little sibling's name|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2020.1807923|journal=Mortality|volume=26|issue=3|pages=343–360|doi=10.1080/13576275.2020.1807923|hdl=11577/3358778 |s2cid=225410022|issn=1357-6275|hdl-access=free}}
• Vincent van Gogh had a brother of the same name who was born, and died, on March 30, 1852, exactly one year before the painter's birth.
• Artist Salvador Dalí was born nine months and ten days after his brother, also named Salvador, died from gastroenteritis at the age of one year and nine months.{{Cite web|date=2015-08-01|title=The Believer - What's in a Necronym?|url=https://believermag.com/whats-in-a-necronym/|access-date=2016-01-03|website=The Believer}}
• NASCAR driver John Hunter Nemechek was named after his uncle John Nemechek, who died in a crash at Homestead-Miami Speedway about three months before John Hunter was born.{{Cite web|date=2013-02-28|title=John Hunter Nemechek, 15, carries family tradition|url=https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2013/02/28/john-hunter-nemechek-15-carries-family-tradition/|access-date=2020-10-09|website=Official Site Of NASCAR|language=en-US}}
• Musician Richard David James, known better as Aphex Twin, claims he had a stillborn older brother named Richard, from whom he inherited his name. The Aphex Twin moniker is also a tribute to his legacy, though this fact in general might be fabricated.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/mar/19/shopping|title=Aphex twin, Chosen Lords|last=Warren|first=Emma|date=19 March 2006|work=The Observer|access-date=2019-04-18|language=en-GB|issn=0029-7712}}
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., born in 1914, the fifth child of Franklin D. Roosevelt, shared the name with the future U.S. President's third child, who was born in 1908 and died the following year.{{cite book|last=Abate|first=Frank R.|title=The Oxford Desk Dictionary of People and Places|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195138726/page/329|year=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-513872-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195138726/page/329 329]}}

• Deadname
• Posthumous name
• Taboo against naming the dead

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite journal|url=https://believermag.com/whats-in-a-necronym/ |title=What's in a Necronym? |last=Vanasco |first=Jeannie |date=July 1, 2015 |journal=The Believer |number=112 |publisher=McSweeney's}}

{{Death}}

{{Personal names}}

Category:Cultural aspects of death

Category:Human names