Of Names and Naming

Today I saw a "Whaileighaiha."
What the fuck were those parents thinking?

 

I do like my name. It's the shorter version of a longer name, but my name is just the shorter version. When my mom called my aunt (Dad's sister) to tell her I was born, she asked for a name suggestion. My aunt said she always wanted a girl by my name. My aunt had 7 children...6 of which were girls. Whatever, I got the name. I didn't run into a lot of people with my name and still haven't.

My mom was funny. My brother's and I all have J names, and they're short. She said she named us these names in case we were stupid, we could at least spell our names.

 

feel free to answer any/all of the following questions:
Do you like your name? Yes I do

Do you know what your parents were thinking / their motivation behind choosing your name? My mother considered many names before my birth. I know one important weight that she put on them is the tease factor, what other kids would call me on the playground. She absolutely insisted on not making a firm decision until my actual birth stating that she felt she wanted to meet me first.

Any funny stories to share when it comes to names? Funny stories when it comes to names tend to be about them being unintentionally mispronounced or names that could be embarrassing in other languages.

Who are you named after? No one.

If you have children, how did you choose your child's name? I wanted something that was not entirely common at the time, had a timeless quality to it and a bit romantic in identifying with something I thought was beautiful.

What are some no-no's when it comes to naming? Intentional misspellings. I think that has become a little less trendy as of late however it makes things complicated, you are pretty much guaranteeing that the (intentional) misspelling will be further (unintentionally)misspelled throughout the person's life and often mispronounced as well. Consider pronunciation of the name, is it difficult to pronounce? It may be a really cool name but I have seen parents repeatedly irritated because their precious child's name has been mispronounced .. yet again. Going back to the word Precious, lol, does it sound like it would make a good stripper name? Do all of your children have to have the names with the same initials or rhyme, can't they be unique individuals?

What are your favorite names? I think the beauty comes in the meaning and intent

What are the disadvantages of giving your child a popular name? A unique name? Too popular makes it difficult to distinguish between people in conversation, work etc. It also makes it likely that those with the popular names will somehow be given nicknames (whether they like it or not) in order to distinguish between them.

Unique is a whole separate topic. Often the so-called unique names become the trend and the result isn't nearly as unique as one would think it would have been. Ex: if I hear another 16-25 year old single uneducated welfare mom explain to me that their darling Nevaeh's name means "heaven" spelled backwards I may just have to slap someone. Likewise if I see another guy puff up his chest explaining he had to give his son the name Danger as his middle name I may just vomit.

Does your nickname reflect your given name? No, but you bring up a valid point here. It is always good to consider how a name may be abbreviated or what nicknames may come of it.

 

Old(er) thread trolling late on a Wednesday night, just because.

Do you like your name?
I used to hate both my first and last names, partially due to rampant misspellings and mispronunciation of my first name and some fucking obnoxious and cruel butcherings of both names by classmates in elementary school. Now I love them both.

Do you know what your parents were thinking / their motivation behind choosing your name?
I think there was a clothing label involved somehow. Can't remember the details very well anymore.

Any funny stories to share when it comes to names?
My dad wanted to name me Roland if I'd been a boy.

Who are you named after?
See above.

What are some no-no's when it comes to naming?
This:

What are your favorite names?
(F) Louise, Sabine, Susanna, Evelyn, Rebecca, mine
(M) Sascha, Dominic, James, Jacob, Gregory, Gabriel, William

What are the disadvantages of giving your child a popular name? A unique name?
This:

Does your nickname reflect your given name?
My TFP handle is an alliterative substitute for my middle name and was given generously to me by Plan9.

 

I posted in Fen 2013..pre-pregnancy.

Now you would think I'd be obsessed with names planning for the arrival of a child, but it was easy for us. I don't care if anyone makes fun of my daughter's name. It was my mom's name and it's super special. Her middle name is a shortened version of my maternal Grandmother's name. If her first name was my grandmother's full name, she may get some looks and misspellings/mispronunciations.

I was thinking of giving her my middle name, but my brother beat me. His daughter will have my middle name, which I think is my S-i-L's middle name too. I'll pretend she'll be named after me since, if we had a boy, a possible middle name we were thinking was my brother's name.

 

Do you like your name? I rarely get called it, don't often think about it.

Do you know what your parents were thinking/the motivation behind your name? If I had been a boy, I'd have been named the family given name, James. With girl names it was a choice between names that were of that time, Rhonda, Sheila and Cynthia. My mom picked Cynthia and her reasoning was I would use the nickname, Cindy, until I was older and then I would switch to my middle name, "Leigh." Haha. Best laid plans.

Any funny stories? Cindy stuck and though there were not an inordinate number of them, I never met an American person during my growing up years (6-18) in Connecticut that pronounced my middle name correctly Leigh = "Lee." They would say "lay" and get a giggle from that. My last name is also giggle-inducing for those with minimal intellect.


Who are you named after? My mom had a dog named Cindy who died prematurely. As a wee kid, I'd tell people that I used to be a dog named Cindy.

What are your favourite names?
I like Ali for both sexes (My beloved grandma was Alice and had I borne a girl she would have been Alice (something) or Alyssa. My mom hated her names(s) but I considered using some combination of Margaret Victoria Adeline--lots of room for nicknames.
I still like Christopher and James. Tend to go Biblical with boys.

My kids names: Went the safe route. Biblical and family-based. James Daniel and Christopher James. I like that you can get myriad nicknames out of both first names as well as initials out of using their first and middles (they do not do that, however). Both of them have different last names than me as I use my maiden name.

No-no's when naming. Don't be strange for the sake of it. Give the kid a fairly normal middle name if you are going a bit different on the first.

Does your nickname reflect your given name? Sometimes. People tend to wants to shorten your name to one syllable in casual convo so my friends call me "Cyn" which I kinda like for it's connotations. I get called by my relationship status a lot tho, including "Mom" and "Sis."