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My favorite name story...one woman of limited education, saw some letters written out. She thought she knew what they spelled, and liked the sound of it. Paj, rhymes with Raj as in Raja. Ama, like Ema, but with a strong AH instead of the e.
The result was, the poor kid got stuck with the name Pajama.
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As the owner of an unusual name, I can say I hated it when I was little. But now I love it. Nobody outside my community can pronounce it correctly, but it sets me apart. Nobody else in the airport turns around when my sister yells "Chanie." Although in retrospect, I wish my parents had spelled it with an "H" instead of a "Ch", so it would be a little closer to mainstream English spelling.
I would say to also check and see what names are most popular at a given time and stay away. We had 4 girls named Shoshana in my class of 14 (same class more or less pre-school through middle school). They became Shoshana, Shosh, Shana, and Shoshi. Perfectly clear to us, confusing to all others.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I have a really good friend named Sahar, she's Persian. I think she said the name means "light". I agree it's a beautiful name.
I really sort of believe that your name chooses you. I got to choose my own name recently and the name I chose didn't really catch my attention when I first came across it but it kept coming back to me and now I've really grown into it. It certainly describes me better than my old name.
oh, and about middle names- my nephews have Homer and Kermit as their middle names. It's soooo cute but they're 3 and 1 respectively so we'll see what happens when they reach school age.
Posts: 58 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Question for Hatrack: Can I name my son Indigo?
(I know I know, I can name my son whatever I want. But--and especially male persons of Hatrack please tell me--would he be totally crucified at school?)
I read a book where the boy was called Indigo, and it makes such a gorgeous sound in your teeth to say it, and furthermore when he was said we could say, Feeling blue, Indigo? Which would make it so very very worthwhile.
quote:And my last name is Hunt...people continually ask me if I have a cousin named Mike.
I mean, seriously. Where is the tact?!?
I don't get it. I don't understand either why they are asking or why it's a tacky question. I know I'm missing something.
----
I love names that can have half a dozen nicknames. There aren't many, but mine (Katharine) is one of them. What I want to name a daughter (Elizabeth) is, as far as I can tell, the other. Are there any others?
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Fyfe, my personal opinion is that if you were to name your son Indigo, he would get his butt kicked at school. Then again, kids will be mocked for everything and anything on the playground.
That being said, I imagine that he would also learn to appreciate it as he got older and it would be filed under "intriuging" rather than "weird" as he became an adult.
I also look at the name and have a feeling he would start going by "Indie" in school, which is actually a cool nickname.
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My naming criteria are simple, and yet so complicated: both sets of grandparents have to be able to pronounce and spell it. That leaves us, like, three possibilities. (A problem if we have more children... )
ketchupqueen, I've been wondering for a while now how you pronounce that name. And for that matter how you spell it - is it anglicized?
Posts: 2762 | Registered: Sep 1999
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katharina, it's one of those names that when said together sounds like something else. It's one of those crude little jokes, of which Ben Dover is one of the more tame. This one is much cruder, starts with "My" and is a word that is considered vulgar by most people.
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Oh, jeez!! That IS a tacky question. I'm floored people ask it.
I heard that slang term for the first time in my life about six years ago, where I read it in a book. I think this is a good thing.
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I didn't name Aerin to be different - I prefer the pronunciation to that of Erin ("Err-in" - Aerin is "Air-in"). I haven't gotten any looks or comments, so I think she's okay.
One of my personal baby-naming rules is that I have to be aware of a real person with the name if I've read it in a book. Of course Aerin is the heroine of the Robin McKinley books, but Aerin Lauder (VP of Estee Lauder, best dressed woman in NYC) spells her name like my Aerin.
I also gave Aerin a Hebrew name that I love and wouldn't mind if she decided to go by in the future. I was limited in my choices, because it is an Ashkenazi Jewish tradition to name a child after deceased relatives and we named her after Andrew's aunt, Stephanie, and his grandmother, Shoshana. (Her Hebrew name is Sela Shoshana, which is the full name - we wouldn't ever call her just Sela).
I think it's one thing to give a child an unusual name, like Aerin, and quite another to give a child an outlandish name, like Moxie Crimefighter or Audio Science.
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quote:I didn't name Aerin to be different - I prefer the pronunciation to that of Erin ("Err-in" - Aerin is "Air-in"). I haven't gotten any looks or comments, so I think she's okay.
If there's a difference here, it's got to be pretty darn subtle as I 'pronounce' them the same in my head.
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quote:I think it's one thing to give a child an unusual name, like Aerin, and quite another to give a child an outlandish name, like Moxie Crimefighter or Audio Science.
Aww come on, how cool would you be if you had a name like Moxie Crimefighter??? and it would totally be DJ Audio Science of course. HEY! If they were brothers, they could be DJ Audio Science and MC MC (Moxie Crimefighter)! Brilliant! You're guaranteed to have a pair of meth-snorting, candy-rolling, PLUR-ridden jungle kids!
Posts: 58 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:Question for Hatrack: Can I name my son Indigo?
I'm female, but I think that Indigo is actually a pretty cool name for anyone, although, obviously, by giving your son a colour name you are opening him up to more name problems than you otherwise might have. It does sound a bit like Inigo but as long as your last name is Montoya I think you might be okay on that score .
Just my opinion, though.
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Ah, another important point: If you are thinking of moving to another country, make sure the name is not some dirty word there. I had a friend whose name was fine in Israel, but not so fine here...
Posts: 159 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I had an "unusual" name as a kid. Not really, but I was a very self-conscious kid, so when the teacher would pronounce Marcia as Mar-see-ah or Marcy, or when people would spell it Marsha and I would have to decide between letting it be spelled wrong or timidly raising my hand and saying, "uh, it's with a CI", I decided I would not do that to my kids.
So of course they are now saying that they won't give their kids "common" names like Daniel and Emily, because there were a dozen in each of their grades, and poor Chris even has a stepbrother who shares his name...
We don't want to commit the crimes of our parents; I think often we just repeat the crimes of THEIR parents. That's the true cycle of life.
Edit to add: So I grew up and "rebranded" myself as Marsh, and it's working out much better. In fact, my sister named HER child March and said she was named after me. March will grow up to name her children Mark and Susan, of course.
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Those who are having trouble with the difference between Aerin and Erin -- do you pronounce merry and Mary the same way?
Posts: 628 | Registered: Nov 1999
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quote:But--and especially male persons of Hatrack please tell me--would he be totally crucified at school?
Your kid's going to be crucified at school anyway. Children are cruel.
People always say that kids with odd names get picked on more, but that has not been my observation. Kids that are easy to pick on get picked on more, regardless of the name.
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I agree with mr_porteiro_head. If you teach your kid to not let people get under their skin, they probably won't get picked on as much as other kids who react to teasing.
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Fyfe, you also need to realize that if you name your child Indigo people will assume his parents are hippies. I'm not passing judgement on that, but it's gonna happen. Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Sharpie: Those who are having trouble with the difference between Aerin and Erin -- do you pronounce merry and Mary the same way?
posted
I had a moment of amusement not long ago when asked, after three pronunciation demonstrations, if my name (top three the year I was born) is a common one in my country. The guy looked very distrusting when I said yes, it is.
posted
A lot of us hear a significant difference between merry and Mary. The 'e' in merry is closer to the 'e' in bell. Like meh . So it's like saying eh rin, rather than air in.
I'm sure there are regional differences. Accent does play a part.
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I can do the difference between Erin and Aerin ... but I don't, unless I'm really concentrating on it. They naturally both come out as Aerin.
I'm another one who was given a slightly unusual name - there were a dozen Jennifers in school but no Jennas - and hated it as a kid, but now I like it. As a child I could never find anything with my name on it. Now suddenly there are all these Jennas everywhere. And it kind of bugs me. Go figure.
But I gave my kids perfectly normal names, although I tried not to use ones that were VERY common - my girls' names are a couple of hundred down the list of most popular, but my boys names are pretty popular. In fact my oldest's turned out to be the #1 name in the year he was born - and yet still, somehow, we don't know any other kids with his name and he has never been in a class with another one. Lucky, I guess.
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I have a sister named "Erin". Her name, and everyone else's who is spelled that way, has always been pronounced "Air-in" by everyone I've heard say it.
I would not name a child Indigo.
quote:ketchupqueen, I've been wondering for a while now how you pronounce that name. And for that matter how you spell it - is it anglicized?
What name now?
rivka, I was speaking more to sub-community, I guess. For instance, I know several Teancums. Teancum is not a name you meet every day, but many people who are frequent readers of the Book of Mormon don't bat an eye when they hear it. So it's more normal within the sub-community we live in. There may not be acceptance of it at school (although the youngest one I don't think had any problems, he went to such a heterogeneous school that there were a lot of names more unusual than his), but at least one group in the child's life will find it pretty normal, and it provides kind of a sense of cultural pride. (I've also known five Moronis. Personally, I think that's a little too teaseable-- just drop the "i" and you've got "moron." *winces*)
I have mostly had my kids' names, at least the first names, picked out since before I was married. (Yes, I talked them over with my husband.) In Emma's case, I had it picked out since I was 14. I was peeved when it became the number 1 or 2 name for girls for, like, the three or four years surrounding her birth, but decided not to change my naming preferences just because it got popular (like I didn't stop listening to old-timey and bluegrass music when O Brother came out just because all of a sudden half the country decided it was cool.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Another crude name story... My mother teaches 1st grade and she once had a Vietnamese girl in her class named Phoq Wen (spelling may be wrong but it is close to that), pronounced as a curse word in English making the phrase even worse. My mother tried to pronounce it differently but was repeatedly corrected by the parents who just didn't know any better.
I named my daughter a classic name we love (Julia) and her middle name (Ellen) after my grandmother. We are now trying to have a second child. We will name a boy my maiden name (a common first name) but we are stuck for a girl. Her middle name would likely be Virginia which is a family name but not one a particularly like or would use as a first name. Contenders are Annabel, Claire, Eleanor, Madelyn, Laura, and Charlotte. I would prefer not using another J name or even the J sound so Jacqueline and Georgia are both out even though I love them (I would NOT use the mn Virginia if I used Georgia anyway). Caroline, Katharine, Sarah and Meredith are also out since they have already been used in my family. Any other suggestions?
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See, I don't think that certain names "fit" a certain child, although there is usually some changing of the middle name some time in the third trimester.
I was always resentful that I got my mom's last name for a middle name (although by HS I felt better about it and even liked it.) The result is all my girls get pretty middle names. No last name middle names for them! (I wouldn't be opposed to it for a boy. I don't think that boys usually use their middle names for fairy princess names in their games.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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My favorite girls' names all seem anachronistic these days: Penelope, Cynthia, Katharine (NOT Katie, Kat or <shudder> Kitty), Lynn, etc.
I also LOVE Japanese girls' names: Sayuri, Akina, Hana, Yumeko, etc. Sayuri is my favorite, but I doubt I'll ever put it to use as a first name given the American tendency to butcher pronunciation of any Japanese word involving an R.
Middle names: Anything that isn't Hawaiian. I used to want to give my future child a Hawaiian middle name to incorporate a part of my cultural heritage into their life regardless of where we end up living, but it's way, way overdone and people tend to be unable to even approximately pronounce Hawaiian middle names.
I have no favorite boys' names. Any future sons I have will be named practically at random, or by their mother.
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KQ, I have a good friend whose daughter is named Maggie, only it's Magdalene. I really liked that.
Sometimes they call her Mags, which is even cuter.
About the old-fashioned names: when I was a young single woman, "Emma" was such an old-fashioned name. I had a senior citizen friend named Emma and that's what I always thought of. "Emily" was the hot name. But a few years later I had 2 friends name their babies Emma, and later that same year Rachel (Friends) named her baby Emma, and now it's like #1. So you never know which names are going to keep sounding old-fashioned and which are going to become new again.
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Demonstrocity, I want a Maggie (Margaret), but my husband thinks it's too old-fashioned.
How is Sayuri pronounced?
I'm ok with Maggie, although Margaret is too unfeminine sounding a name for my taste.
Sayuri is pronounced, approximately, Sah-YOU-ree; the important part is the R and the way the American accent overblends consonant & vowel sounds. The "R" is a Japanese R; short of actually verbalizing it, the closest approximation I can give you is that it's pronounced similarly to the first R in "Ricardo" in Spanish or the R in "Rotoli" in Italian. Even that doesn't quite capture it correctly, but it's as close as I can get to explaining. Posts: 246 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I love my grandmother's name, Evangeline, and her friends usually shorten it to Angie. If one day I get married and have kids, that's the name I want for a daughter.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: See, I don't think that certain names "fit" a certain child, although there is usually some changing of the middle name some time in the third trimester.
I had chosen the name Amber for my first daughter, but decided when I was two weeks overdue that I didn't like it and chose a different name. The night before my second daughter was born, my sister called and asked if I had another girl (this was back in the day when you didn't KNOW what it was going to be) if I'd name her Amber. I told her I didn't think I would. But when she was born, she just LOOKED like an Amber. She had strawberry blond hair and the name just "fit".
It still fits... she's the amber-est person I know.
That year and the several around it were big years for Ambers though. She always had 2 or 3 Ambers in her classes, and her younger sister's two best friends were both named Amber. Mine was the only one with amber colored hair though.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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Natalie's name changed at the last minute, she was supposed to be Emily but when she was born on Christmas Day when wanted something to comemorate that without being too cutesy with something like Christy or Carol. We got down to Noel and Natalie, and I just liked Natalie better.
So, when my second daughter was born we gave her the name Emily because we still loved it. And yes, it's very popular and there's lots of Emily's around, but gosh darn it, it's the perfect name for her. Her name came from Emilia, Iago's wife in Othello - my favorite Shakesperean play.
We went to Biblical names for the twins, and while Abigail has certainly gained in popularity, she's the only Abigail we know that is called Abigail. The rest are Abby's. Daniel is the only Daniel we know in our circle of friends, church, and neighborhood. Odd. I would have thought there would have been more Daniel's.
At any rate, middle names, except for Emily's, were all family names. Natalie's middle name is the same as mine, Daniel's is Wesley for his father, Abigail is Abigail Rose for her great-grandmother Rosa. Emily's is Catherine simply because I loved the way they sounded together.
One thing that I've noticed with popular names is that when there's more than one kid with that name, they usually either call each other by the last name or make up nicknames. There are two Emily's in her gymnastics class, and the coach calls her Ward, or Happy. Ward because the other Emily's last name is a lot longer than ours, and Happy because Emily never smiles. She says it's because she is busy concentrating.
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My name is pretty unusual. I have never met anyone with the same name as me. I have never seen my name before actually. In high school, we watched a movie on the Doner party and one of the Doners quoted had a similar name and my friends were so all excited because this was the closest to my name they had ever seen (they decided I must be named after her and teased me for a while after that). But my name also has a relatively common shortening, so I can choose how to introduce myself. I have always been pretty happy with this.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Belle, I still love Emily. I've wanted to use that name since I was seven. Funny, I had two girls and neither of them ended up being "Emily" - it just wasn't right. But I love that name.
And I didn't know "Natalie" was a Christmas name. (Although I do have a couple December friends named Noel and Holly.) Could you explain?
Oh - someone up there mentioned Peanut - I do have a Peanut! Not his legal name, though. Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Natalie to commemorate the Nativity, JennaDean.
As for names fitting after birth, I know some people feel that way, and I can picture it happening, but just not to me. I have gotten strong feelings both times about what will or won't fit during the pregnancy, usually toward the end. Bridget was going to have a not-Gaelic middle name, but I started feeling really strongly that I wanted this child's name to honor my Irish heritage. She ended up with Niamh, and she seems to have all the "Irish-looking" genes-- reddish, curly hair, very very very pale skin (not skin that immediately tans like her sister's), blue eyes that are getting bluer instead of darker, the list goes on. So as I wrote the other day, we seem to have given the right child the Irish name-- but I chose it while I was pregnant, I had a very strong feeling that it would be right for her. I dunno, it just seems to work that way for me. I don't know if the name fits the child or we see the child the way we want to to fit the name. *shrugs*
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:I have gotten strong feelings both times about what will or won't fit during the pregnancy
Me too, every time.
Although with my first, I had a dream near the end that we had the baby and started to name him what we'd decided and suddenly I felt like, "My goodness, that name is entirely too long for such a tiny person! What were you thinking?" Fortunately that went away when I woke up. Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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