Why is it that the same tombstone in Hungary has similar names several times?

Answer

This question is also on the Dutch goodquestion.nl, but I think the answer there is incorrect (that Schmidlechner-Karoly would be a double surname, and the suffix refers to married or unmarried daughters, is nonsense). It is nevertheless an interesting issue. Thank you for that!

• First and foremost, in Hungarian one writes the family name before the first name, as often still happens in Flanders, and Karoly is a first name, synonymous with Karel. So this is the family grave of the Schmidlechners.
• Apparently, as happened more often in higher circles in those days, they passed on the first names – compare it with our ‘Juniors’ .
• Only in this family they have used diminutive forms (-kà means -tje) ).
• Women by marriage also took their husband’s name, but with the suffix né, which means ‘wife of’.

This results in the following family tree for this family, with ‘Dutchized’ first names:

• ancestor Karel Schmidlechner, who turned 75 (1837-1912) and his wife Mrs. Caroline S., born Anna Farkasdi-Szabo (1844-1915)
• their son Kareltje Schmidlechner, who became a doctor (1875-1940) and married a Mrs. Karel Schmidlechner, born as Josje Gutjahr (1978-1943)
• their two granddaughters Josje Smidlechner (1901-1984), who married a Dr. György Hajcsi (1897-1971) and therefore changed her name to Mrs. George Hajcsi, and Caroline Schmidlechner, who was only two years old (1902-1904).

The granddaughter, who died young, is at the top, because the tombstone was probably made after the death of her grandparents. The font changes after that, the other names are added later. It seems dramatic that the son and his wife, with their Jewish surnames, died in World War II, but since they both lived to be 65, I hope they died peacefully. The headstone features three women named Caroline Schmidlechner (grandmother, daughter-in-law and grandchild), but only the grandchild, who died prematurely, bore that name when she was born, the other two were named after marriage. The two granddaughters were given the first names successively from their mother (Josje) and their father (Caroline).