Born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle-class family, Fitzgerald was named after his famous second cousin, three times removed, Francis Scott Key,[2] but was referred to by the familiar moniker Scott Fitzgerald. He was also named after his deceased sister, Louise Scott,[3] one of two sisters who died shortly before his birth. "Well, three months before I was born," he wrote as an adult, "my mother lost her other two children ... I think I started then to be a writer."[4] His parents were Mollie (McQuillan) and Edward Fitzgerald.[5] His mother was of Irish descent, and his father had Irish and English ancestry