the naming of children

[piranha]

somebody on my flist talked about the names she had planned for her children back before she even had them, and asked what we would name our potential children. my thoughts vered sideways from the question, so i didn't make this a comment because it could be misunderstood as being critical of her choices, which it isn't meant to be. besides, it says something about me that belongs in my own journal.

it's an interesting thought experiment, because i name animals after an impression i get of their personality (which means the strays i take in often go for a while without a real name of their own, being called "little black cat" or "mangy dogface"). with children i'd be expected to give them a name right away, before there is much personality. that seems all wrong to me. :) also, naming children after personality traits would be a) confining, and b) make them targets for unmitigated teasing. i have more sense than that.

i don't know that i ever played that game of giving names to my future children, but then i've also been decidedly child-free for the last 30 years. but even when i hadn't determined that this would be the right choice for me, i didn't play with names for children (i did so for myself). i was more worried about it than excited because names are important, and i didn't want to stick a child of mine with a name zie hated. i think now that i'd pick something with meaning to me and a hopeful meaning for the future of the child, a name that's not immediately easy to make fun of, a name that sounds good to me (aurally, i mean) -- that's how i picked my own names (minus the "not being easy to make fun of", because i don't care). and then i'd make it very clear to the child growing up that it was mostly a placeholder, and that zie could pick zir own name anytime.

there are names i like, but i don't know that i'd name a child that way -- it feels too much like i am trying to fit the child to the name, instead of the other way around. guinevere, for example, is a beautiful name, but man, i have it so strongly associated with artur's guinevere that i shudder at the thought of bestowing it on anyone, even a cat, *heh*.

Comments

[ailbhe]

I picked names I liked before Linnea was born - a boy's name and a girl's name. We did it before the birth because the naming of children is a random matter and can't really have much input from the child anyway. I wanted first-middle-last names, and last was going to be hisname because of Family Politics, so first and middle were to be Irish and Swedish. First also had to be pronounceable in Ireland, England and Sweden. And spellable. And abbreviateable to at least one other thing to make it easy for the child to choose their own nickname later.

Donal Evald Collier and Linnea Niamh Collier were what we came up with. I hope she keeps Linnea. She can shorten it - all her toddler friends call her Nea, and it can be Linn later, which is nice and normal-sounding for a British school. But if she decides to change it, well, that's up to her. She doesn't have much choice over what happens to her for a while yet, really. Might as well give her the choices she *can* have.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

both her names are names i like, especially linnea. of course now i can't use it for any cats, though. *grin*.

i also like how her entire name flows; that's something i pay a weird sort of attention to.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

My older daughter grew disaffected with the name we gave her at birth and started using Grace a few years ago. I've made an effort to accept it with good ... grace. It's kind of difficult, since all of my memories of her growing up involve the name we gave her.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

just imagine what it'd feel like if she had a sex change operation. :)

it's always interesting to me, the things people attach to. my memories of people don't really feature their names very strongly. i mean, somebody's name is part of the memories, yes, but that's just a little tag, and i can have many of those tags attached to somebody -- just like their looks change over the years, their names can change (and indeed, for some of them their sex has changed). for people i know online, there are often multiple name tags because their online handles and offline names can so easily differ, and people don't always have the same handle from one online venue to the next either.

it was quite hard for some of the people who knew me before i changed my name to make the switch, which is quite hard for me to understand, because i was so very much not pleased with that name, ever, and it was a great relief to shake it off. they were much more attached to it than i was.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Some of my children's young friends have changed their names, sometimes repeatedly.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

I plan to campaign to have one of my nieces named Aerin Amelia, but that's just because I'm a dork and I've loved that name since I first encountered it. Of course, I also plan to try to convince the sister to name her firstborn Rimmalama, but that's for a completely different reason, and dependent upon her marrying a man with a specific last name.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

Rimmalama

is his last name dingdong? sorry. :) that's ... too easy to make fun of. it's not like kids won't find some silly rhyme anyway, but this is a name that would keep giving ridicule until well into adulthood, rimming llamas and all.

aerin amelia is much less problematic. you could always take it yourself if none of your relatives are willing to succumb to the lure!

[(Anonymous)]

too easy to make fun of.

You see my plan!

Combined with my last name, it becomes dirty, and combined with another last name it becomes positively obscene. She can always change it later, after she comes out of the haze of painkillers. I just want the sweet taste of victory first. (We each owe each other public embarassment for pranks pulled. <3 my sis.)

you could always take it yourself

That would require

1.) changing my name, which I'm too lazy to do

2.) having a kid, which, no

3.) adopting another cat

Option three it will probably be.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i have pretty much always thought about what i'd name kids, but it has changed wildly over the years. (i'm just not even telling you what i was going to name kids when i was eight. it was kind of scary.)

right now i have a few names that i'm tossing around, and we'll see what my kid ends up named. right now i'm the only one with a vote on it, and if things stay that way, she could end up staying named what she was named by the care center (in some countries we call them orphanages, in others, care centers, apparently) personnel or she could end up named after my grandmothers (the current thought) or she could end up named the thing it becomes immediately obvious to me that she's named when i see her.

one of my favorite things from a book when i was little was that one of the grownup characters in the book was pregnant, and had a little baby boy. she and her husband met him and decided that his name was happy william. that is a totally fabulous name. it's not one i'd give a kid personally, but i found it very pleasing.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i'm just not even telling you what i was going to name kids when i was eight

damn tease!

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Years ago friends of mine were presented with their newborn infant. They had picked the names out in advance. To the nurse's deep consternation the conversation went like this:

Him: Well, hello there... David?

Her: (regards newborn fixedly) Is this David?

Couple exchanges a long look.

Her: Dear, I don't think this is David.

Him: Hello, little guy. Who the heck are you?

Nurse jumps in to show them the id bracelets and confirm this is indeed their infant.

Him: Oh, no doubt about it, he's ours all right. It's just we were expecting David and this little guy isn't David.

After about 36 hours they realized that this baby was Christopher, and the paperwork was duly signed (to the great relief of the nursing staff). Two years later they had another boy, who did turn out to be David. Luckily they hadn't given away his name.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*laugh*. that's hilarious.

i hope for their sake neither offspring ever change their name. :)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Heh, and with kids you have to be careful of giving them names that will get them beaten up at school. :D

I'm with you on the naming of unknowns ...

[nitoda]

I have two kids, now adult, and we didn't name either of them until they were born. Our daughter was given a middle name after a loved grandma of her father's who died while I was pregnant, but her main name was what came to me when I met her for the first time. I couldn't imagine giving a name to someone I hadn't yet met, even if I had been intimate with them for nine months, so to speak. I'm not sure where the name we chose came from ... and it has always seemed appropriate. My son's name, on the other hand, we realised after he was given it, came from Stranger in a Strange Land. Which is quite appropriate too, given that he has eventually, as an adult, been diagnosed as an Aspie. :-)

[lizw.livejournal.com]

We picked three potential names for each of our kids and waited to see them for the first time before we decided on one. That seemed to work well. I agree with you about trying for something that sounds good (both on its own and with all the names together) and doesn't have obvious teasing potential (although the local kids did manage to find a pun for our eldest's name all the same - never underestimate their creativity!)

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

I don't name animals before we spend time together, either, and they have a chance to tell me their names. I thought I'd have more trouble with Mr. X than I did --- I was expecting to need to spend some time with him before figuring out his name.

But, somehow, Alexander Jasper is what floated to the top, as we threw names around in the last months of growing him. (We didn't know his sex at the time; it just happened that way.)