THE THIRTEEN COMMANDMENTS FOR NAMES 

A "Tongue-In-Cheek" viewpoint of a family researcher. 
From George Horton


(1) Thou shalt name your male children: James, John,
Joseph, Josiah, Abel, Richard, Thomas, William.

(2) Thou shalt name your female children: Elizabeth, Mary,
Martha, Maria, Sarah, Ida, Virginia, May.

(3) Thou shalt leave No trace of your female children.

(4) Thou shalt, after naming your children from the above
lists, call them by strange nicknames such as: Ike, Eli,
Polly, Dolly, Sukey, --- making them difficult to trace.

(5) Thou shalt Not use any middle names on any legal
documents or census reports, and only where necessary, you
may use only initials on legal documents.

(6) Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so
that your surname can be spelled, or mis-spelled, in various
ways: Hicks, Hick, Hix, Hixe, Hucks, Kicks, or Robinson,
Robertson, Robison, Roberson, Robuson, Robson, Dobson.

(7) Thou shalt, after no more than 3 generations, make
sure that all family records are lost, misplace, burned in a
courthouse fire, or buried so that No future trace of them
can be found.

(8) Thou shalt propagate misleading legends, rumors, and
vague innuendo regarding your place of origin:

   (A) You may have come from: England, Ireland, Scotland,
   Wales...or Iran.

   (B) You may have American Indian ancestry of the _____
   tribe...

   (C) You may have descended from one of three brothers that
   came over from ____.

(9) Thou shalt leave No cemetery records, or headstones
with legible names.

(10) Thou shalt leave No family Bible with records of
birth, marriages, or deaths.

(11) Thou shalt Always flip thy name around.  If born
James Albert, thou must make all the rest of thy records in
the names of Albert, AJ, JA, AL, Bert, Bart, or Alfred.

(12) Thou must also flip thy parents' names when making
reference to them, although "Unknown" or a blank line is an
acceptable alternative.

(13) Thou shalt name at least 5 generations of males and
dozens of their cousins with identical names in order to
totally confuse researchers