Now that I have broached the question of how Great-grandpa Ole got his name (see part I), Kari Larsdatter’s son Ole, christened in 1855, raises similar issues. Since the baby was illegitimate, it is understandable that he was not named for his paternal grandfather, Knut. I think we can safely assume that Kari had not met her future husband Ole Pedersen Nesseth of Gausdal parish; she didn’t move to Gausdal and marry him until seven years later.
Why was the baby not named after some male ancestor of his mother? “Lars” would have been logical; Lars was not only the name of this boy’s maternal grandfather, but also the name of Kari’s maternal grandfather. Incidentally, Lars Poulsen had died just 10 months before this Ole was born, which would seem to make “Lars” even more appropriate. Another choice might have been Poul. Did Kari name him Ole after her 14-year-old brother? That doesn’t seem likely. Or is there some “Ole” in the life of the Lars Poulsen family, or even two Ole’s, related or not, that we don’t know about?
Back to the earlier Ole, Ole Larson: here’s a dark, hugely unlikely, but fictionally intriguing scenario: Suppose that then, as today, babies were occasionally named out of gratitude for some benefactor of the family. The sentencing document that sent Anne Larsdatter to prison for thievery (of food) says she acted in cooperation with “two other persons” who were tried in a lower court. While the printed version of that document as posted on the site does not name the other persons, the handwritten version does; one of them is Ole Engebretsen. And just suppose that besides being responsible in a way for Anne’s imprisonment, Ole Engebretsen was also responsible for saving her family from starvation. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Anne named her prison-born baby after him?