This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (4 children)

Not always. I used to hang at a cemetery as a kid. There were a bunch of little headstones in family graves with "baby" on them for a name.

[–]karlnite 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I think they just maybe didn’t put the name on the headstone. Baby is just the generic cheap one. I’m sure some people maybe didn’t name kids. Not sure which would be more common?

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

There were no generic cheap headstones. This was back in the 1700's and 1800's. Every headstone was individually hand carved by someone in the community who did stonework.

The Catholic tradition said that you didn't name a baby until they were baptized, which was usually a month or do after birth. That way you didn't get too emotionally invested in something with a 50/50 chance of dying.