Multiple Children, Same First Name

[Jon DeMars Victorsen]

Can anyone explain if there is a cultural reason why parents would give a child the same name as an older child, who may have died?  
 
Many times in my research I have seen a daughter who has died in infancy or died as a young child, and the next daughter born to that family will be given the same name.  In a few cases, with high infant mortality, there have been three children with the same first name.

[christina holmr-gunnerfältk]

Somewhere on Rötter I have read that it was common to give the next newborn the same name if  a child had died.  I don't recone this today. This has no cultural reason today what I know of.

[Leif Olsen]

In Denmark you also see, that a child is given exactly the same name as an older child, who has died.
 
I think the reason is: It has been tradition to give the eldist son the same name as his fathers father and son No. 2 as his mothers father. Then if one of these sons die, the next born son will be named as his dead brother to honour his grandfather (in stead of the dead brother).
 
Maybe the same goes for daughters.
 
Best regards, Leif

[Mikael Persson]

In the province Skåne -- formerly a Danish province -- they used to give the children the same names that their DEAD ancestors -- at the time of the birth (baptism?) of the child -- had had. They started looking for dead ancestors of the right sex as close as possible, starting on the fathers side.  
Sometimes this meant that two LIVING children had the same name! (There is even at least one example of THREE living children!) One of my ancestors got twins, and both were named Måns -- one after his paternal grandfather, and one after his maternal grandfather.
If a child died, many times they gave the child of the right sex the very same name, just as you mention. But I'm not certain if they 1) named the new child after the now dead child, or 2) if they named the new child after the same ancestor that the now dead cild had been named after, thus ascertaining to have a LIVING child named after that very ancestor. (I guess I'll never know!)
 
Many hold the view that this is a remnant of the heathen belief that the soul kept on living after the body had died (ignoring the fact that the soul IS the person), and hence they needed to give the name of the dead person to a new person.
 
Regards, Mikael!

[Mikael Persson]

... they gave the next child of the right sex ...

[per bjurling]

In my family they gave three boys in consecutive order the same name, Anders, wich happened to be the name of the unlucky mother?s father. The last in the row lived so they could begin with other names for the rest of their boys. This happened in the beginning of the 19teenth century.  
About 100 years later my grandparents gave two sons the same name. The second one who survived was my father.
I have no explanation. People do this.