Just for Fun:

Start suggesting baby names First (and Middle)… I’d like to hear some ideas about what you’d name a child, especially if you have a reason why you like a particular name. Serious or silly – I’d like to hear them.

I’m not saying we’re going to use any of them, but I thought it’d be neat to hear what names you’ve always liked (or didn’t like), or what you’ve named your own children, and how you came up with the names.

For example:
Polly (Ester): Sounds like a synthetic fabric popular during the 70s (silly and mean – would never actually do that)
Helen: My grandmother’s name.
Issac (Oliver): My father suggested this for me (in jest) while I was still in the womb. He had his hand resting on my mother’s belly at the time, and I kicked him – just to be sure he know my thoughts on the matter.

Ready, set, go!

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Robert

Robert Belknap has been writing online sporadically since 2001. See the colophon for more details.

14 thoughts on “Just for Fun:”

  1. aaarrrggghhhh~! you beat me to this! I was gonna! 😉

    (simpsone says you’re a dirtyratbastard for it…)

    So, for boys, we have 2 names picked out… William James, or possibly Daniel Alexander. But our female names got shot down. I had picked Lydia Alvira, or Avalon LaVerne (simpsone’s and my grandmas). My sis vetoed Alvira and LaVerne right off, but suggested maybe Dorothy Avalon. I’m not a fan of Dorothy, as people tend to pronounce it Dorr-theee, which I want to avoid. So, on girls’ names we’re stuck.

    We named Eli Samuel because Eli is my gr-gr-grandfather, and Samuel is simpsone’s.

    I’m fond of family names but we seem to have lame girls’ names in our families.

  2. I’m fond of family names as well – currently toying with the idea of choosing a “unique” first name (not strange, just not a common family name from either side) and then using a family name for the middle. (I’m currently quite partial to Helen as a girl’s middle for example.)

    Looks like you have put a lot more thought into this than we have so far.

  3. we’ve had 3+ years to do it in, babe. some of these names are ones we thought up for Eli, had we not chosen Eli. We’re just stuck on the girls’ side of things. For example, in my family it’s taboo to name someone some name that another relative already has. So, we can’t name any of our daughters Wendalyn, because there’s already a living Wendalyn Simpson in the family. And, we can’t name a son Richard, but we could name one Robert Richard, because my dad’s not Robert Simpson (altho Robert Richard is kind of…an odd name…reminds me of trains for some reason).

    Also, in my family it’s tradition to use family names. Eric’s family doesn’t really have a ‘naming tradition’. Some of them have family names, others only have a family middle name. I really liked Lydia as a first name until tonight when Eric made a chlamydia joke…Names we’re not going to use: Emily, Ruby (most of us didn’t like her so well), Patricia (icky), Ada (too short)

  4. We have a tradition in my family that the first born son gets his fathers first name as his middle name. So should I ever father a son his middle name would be Benjamin.

    Thomas is a nice male name IMO, and shortens quite nicely to Tom. I also can’t think of much that can be done with it in the way of abuse (kids are cruel, if you call a child something out of the ordanry they will get picked on for it 🙁 )

    Chloe is quite a nice female name, as is Ellen.

  5. You can’t have these ’cause they are for my kids, but this is what FanBoy & I came up with:

    Rose Beth
    Luke Bates

    Zhaneel

  6. Names you can use (because I promised my ex-fiance I’d never use them – they were for they hypothetical kids we never had):

    Moira Kathleen
    Duncan Alexander

    yeah, we were on a celtic binge… that feels like a *long* time ago.

  7. I’m currently into long English-sounding names: Katherine, Elizabeth, Jonathan, Michael. For myself “John” and variants are right out (there are two Johns in my immediate family) but I like the idea of “Dolores” as a middle name. I like continuing to pass down names but don’t like the idea of starting such a tradition.

  8. @7 – weren’t you just saying that you don’t know Spanish?

    I’ve always considered “Dolores” an unfortunate name – its literal translation is “pains”. I suppose if it were a difficult delivery… or if you wanted to say, “Yes dear, pain is your middle name”

  9. Dolores is my mothers name, and was her mother’s name as well. I used to feel that by all rights I should have been a Dolores, that I got stuck being just another stupid Jennifer and having to share my name with every other girl I met. I’ve since decided that my name suits me and managed to move in circles where I am the only jennifer.

  10. I am having a problem finding decent female names in my family tree…the ones I like keep getting shot down as “too archaic”, “too weird”, or “I knew an ‘X’ once, she ruined that name for me”. any suggestions???

  11. Lexi, at the end of the day I think the best advise it to pick a good name that you and your partner like and hang what anyone else thinks.

    Your child will grow into their name and put their own unique stamp upon it, as we all do. Don’t worry too much about past associations.

  12. Yeah, pick a name you like. And don’t bother telling people about it. If it works for YOU and you don’t have any weird associations with it, then that’s all that matters. Funny story – our friends named their baby Iris Ayako – They liked the name Iris, and Ayako is dad’s mother’s name. When she was born they called to tell their parents the name……the response from mom’s mom – “ohhhhh didn’t you know about cousin Iris (goes on to story of the cousin nobody talks about)”……the response from dad’s mom – ” you know Ayako means Iris in Japanese…….”

    Hehe. So the moral is, it’s a good name, and funny things happen no matter what. So pick what you like.

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