Midtown Humanity On Parade, Vol. 2
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on May 29, 2007 – 5:48 PM333 Comments
Little girl: Hi Mom, so guess what, at school today, after lunch? Dylan? Got a nosebleed.
Mom: Which Dylan?
What I love about that exchange: 1) to a child, a classmate’s nosebleed is above-the-fold, 48-point-type, no-time-for-pleasantries breaking news; 2) the child in question has more than one “Dylan” in her class. What I love even more is how these two aspects become one, because from now on, the Dylan who got the nosebleed is…the Dylan who got the nosebleed. If Dylan invites this little girl to a pool party, her mother will no longer ask “Which Dylan?” or “Dylan R. or Dylan J.?”, but rather, “Dylan who got the nosebleed?”
I have now typed “Dylan” so many times that it looks misspelled.
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Tags: city living
It’s kind of funny, with regards to the Jen/Jenn/Jenny/Jennie/Jennifer thing. I have given up on trying to make people call me by anything specific any more.
* My parents called me Jennie. I can’t get the rest of the family to stop calling me that, even though I got sick of it in first grade. I have given up on trying to make them stop.
* One of my aunts (and the rest of her immediate family) all spell it as “Jenny,” which annoys the crap out of my mother. Again, she can’t get them to stop it. I don’t even bother trying to.
* Some people call me Jennifer. I usually sign off/introduce myself as Jennifer, though I will answer to that or Jen equally by now.
* Some people are very much in the “You’re a Jen” category. They’re very decisive on that. I am all, “Whatever.”
* Some of those people are very insistent on spelling it “Jenn” because they love double n’s. I don’t abbreviate it with double n’s because if you’re abbreviating, why not go for the gold, but I’ll answer to that as well. It’s kind of odd to see my boss signing me off as a Jenn on stuff all the time, though.
At this point, though, I don’t even answer to any variant of that being yelled at me in public. I always assume they don’t mean me, and usually they don’t.
My husband was named after two uncles, Jonathan and Paul. But instead of a first and middle name, his parents combined them so his first name is Jon-Paul, and he has another name for his middle name. Growing up everyone called him Jon-Paul, but when he got to college, introductions went like this: “Hi, I’m Jon-Paul.” “Hey Jon, nice to meet you.” He got sick of it so now he’s JP.
I’ve always liked the name Sheila because it’s common enough that people recognize it but not common enough that I meet many people with the same name. Although most of the other Sheilas I’ve met have been Indian. I asked one why that was and she said it was a good name for children of immigrants from India because it was an American name but the sounds were familiar to relatives back home. Go figure…
As one of the teeming Lisa masses, there were *always* multiples in every class throughout school so i just got used to being “lisa d.” Happily, it rolls off the tongue rather nicely, “lisadee” and it even sounds kind of cute. I don’t remember really caring about it as a kid other than the fact that the slot for my name on the personalized keychain/pencils/stickers rack was ALWAYS empty.
It was quite a jolt when i got to college though. I attended an extremely large campus but managed to acquire “First name only” status. (y’know, Madonna, Cher…) Turns out that in the Electrical Engineering department at that time there were just about 8 women undergrads. Total. If you said “Lisa” eeeeverybody knew who you meant.
I’m in my mid-40s and have always, ALWAYS hated my name. Given the Jewish tradition of naming in honor of the deceased, if I had to be “saddled” with an R name, I would have much preferred the much “cooler” (to me) Rachel or Randi/Randee. Instead, I got a “Bubby” name that was never included on the stickers, pencils, mini-license plates, etc that my friends had and I coveted. By the time I decided that I didn’t really mind being called “Ruthie” (and that I kind of prefer it to what I perceive as the more austere and ill-humored “Ruth”), I was an adult and pretty much no one called me that anymore, aside from one or two friends who just fell into it spontaneously.
It wasn’t until I met my son’s doctor a couple of years ago that I met another Ruth who is my age! As a kid in the 60s, I went to school/camp with a passel of girls named Amy, Lisa, Ellen, Michelle, Susan, and Donna. And, of course, the various permutations of Linda/Lynda, Sharon/Sharyn, Debbie/Debby, Stacy/Staci, Laurie/Laura, and Wendy/Wendi. The boys: Lots of guys named David, Tom, Steve, Jeff, and Jon. Most of the names I remember then were neither overtly biblical, nor overly trendy; I guess in our suburban existence, it was “edgy” to stick a rogue “y” where it had previously not ventured before, or to substitute an “i” for a “y” at the end of a girl’s name. (Heh, at that time, the “coolness” factor was magnified by being able to substitute a heart or a flower for the dot over the i.)
My son, on the other hand, was born in the mid-90s. He and his friends could do a roadshow of Bible Names Today: Aaron, Josh(ua), Ben(jamin), Matt(hew), David. Alex, Jared, Justin, Max, and Ethan also seem to be very prevalent. And of course, the ubiquitous Dylan (though my son has only one close friend with that name). Girls names for his peers, overall, seem to be of a similarly traditional (though not necessarily bibical) bent: Samantha, Hannah, Sarah, Kate … with the occasional Meaghan, Jolie, Jordan, and Marissa thrown in for good measure.
We (the husband-unit and I) actually changed how we pronouce our son’s name subsequent to naming him. This explanation will most likely only make sense if you live in or are familiar with the speech of the mid-Atlantic US, but please bear with me. Most people in these parts pronouce “A-A-R-O-N” as “AIR-in”. Okay, fine … until we repeatedly had people telling us how cute our little girl “ERIN” (which is apparently pronounced the same way ’round here) was. So, we went to a more biblical pronounciation: Aaaah-ron (which – around here anyhow – rhymes with “Baron” and “Karen” and “Darren”). Of course, the problem with changing the pronounciation is that the kid doesn’t exactly walk around with a phonetics key on his shirt. Teachers, friends, and even some relatives still persist in pronouncing it AIR-in. Even after hearing us and him pronounce it. Repeatedly. But, hey, it builds character and flexibility: My son nonchalently responds to pretty much anything close to his actual name, LOL! (Hmmm, maybe our also-rans Adam or Max would’ve been easier??) Interestingly (okay, to me), he knows several other Aarons/Arons, and more of the parents chose to pronounce it “our” way than the typical way. And he has lots of pencils with his name on them!
Finally: I’m finding it interesting how people don’t seem to be as … concerned about “matching” the last name to the first name as they used to be. I’m pretty amazed at how many kids named Ryan, Shaun, Mackenzie, and Rory have last names like Cohen or Steinberg or Wong, LOL. Melting pot, indeed!!
This really HAS been therapeutic – who knew that I (and, apparently, so many others) would have so much to say about names. :-)
Happily, I narrowly escaped being named Priscilla. My grandmother lobbied long and hard for Priscilla but my mother rebelled. Yay Mom!
Even though my brother’s name is John and we grew up in the era of the dramatic reading of “Marsha-John-Marrrrsha-Jooohn,” we felt no real negative effect. I do, however, rue the day when Jan Brady had her little sibling jealousy meltdown on The Brady Bunch and exclaimed, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” Every time someone trots that old tired one out, I just look at them and say, “Gosh, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that.”
There was only one other similarly named girl I went to school with K-12. She was Marcia. But to differentiate between us, she became known as C-I-A Marcia. I hope this unduly didn’t affect her career choices.
Kate2: “Amongst many other reactions to people’s posts, one thought just came to mind – does anyone know if their parents intended to name them something & changed their minds before The Point Of No Return, and have they had any thoughts about that alternative?”
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Before I was destined to be Meredith, my mother opined to my great-grandmother that she liked the name Jessica. My ggm replied: “Jessica? I wouldn’t name my cat Jessica!” Thankfully my mother is tactful enough that she didn’t respond.
In hindsight, I’m glad I got a more uncommon name, not that’s there’s anything wrong with Jessica (I know a few very nice ones!). Heh.
I’m one of the few Rachels that I know. I could have been a Heather, but my great-grandmother (also Rachel) suggested that the first great-grandchild be named after her, so there you go. Had I been a boy, I would have been Jeremiah Bullfrog D_____. Yes, after the song. Damn hippie parents.
My daughter’s name is Jillian Scarlett, which I think is unusual enough that she won’t have to be Jillian Z. I wanted to name her Minerva June after my grandmother, but my husband wasn’t having it. Had she been a boy, he was really pulling for Vladimir but… no.
I went to school with Crystal, Christal, Crystle, and Kristal. Also Christine, Chrystyne, and Kristine. Lots of Angies, Sara(h)s, Michelles, Heathers, too. My best friends were Michael (a girl), Brannon (also a girl), Janice, and Teri. We also had a Sunshine and a Fashun in our class.
I love the name Meredith, although as pointed out, it is hard for children to pronounce. It never had a “heyday”, but it’s not outlandish or unfamilliar either. My big fear is that Grey’s Anatomy is going to cause a spike in little Merediths.
Lesley: yes, that’s basically how I pronounce it, kind of like “DEER-druh” but with that short vowel sound you mentioned. It’s amazing the number of people who ask “Why does it end with an ‘e’?” Uh, because it does? What the hell? There’s also a Canadian Olympian who’s named “Deidra” and the day after she won something I had so many people say “Oh, like your name!” Yes, exactly, except not.
The best thing about visiting Ireland was not having to spell it out for anyone.
“And in the tiny mountain town I went to junior high in, there was a family named “Barr” – the daughter’s name was Kandy. I can only imagine the horror she went through in high school”
I once met a girl named Dawn Stairs. She apparently didn’t think there was anything weird about that.
“Though, as other people have pointed out, I did yearn for bike license plates, pencils, and keychains that had my name splayed across them.”
I used to long for those things too. Now whenever I go looking I always think of that Simpsons episode where Bart is like “Oh come on, Bort?” and then there are two Borts in the shop. Heh.
There were lots of Sarahs and Jennifers when I was in public school (and the Sarahs were often “Sarah Jane” so the middle name thing didn’t work). In my year in highschool there was a Chrissy, two Kristies and a Krista. There have been three Kristas come through my office in five years.
Growing up my best friend was named Julie Katherine and as I was Julia Catherine, we confused everyone for a while. But other than the two of us, there weren’t too many Julias running around. Now however, I’m Julia Anderson and work with a Julie Anderson – the number of e-mails I get for her is astounding.
When we were pregnant with our 2nd girl we tried really hard to find an unusual name (our first daughter is Kaitlyn Dianne which we thought was original at the time). We settled on Eliana (pronounced EL-ee-ana) Grace. Shortly after her birth we met (within a year) Ella Grace and Elliot Grace (girl called Ellie). And we’ve had numerous people tell us that they know someone else with the name Eliana. Dang.
Add me to the list of people who longed for personalized stuff whilst growing up. I knew exactly one other ‘Leah’ during my childhood–she was the (usually) drunken live-in girlfriend of my Uncle Norman. Ish.
Since then my three kids have known 2 Leahs between them, a massive surge in Leahs-I-have-known during my lifetime.
My Catholic mom and agnostic dad have no good reason for chosing such an Old Testament name. I have recently converted to Judaism and picking my Hebrew name was a no-brainer.
What fun during the Sunday school lessons of my youth when the story of Rachel and Jacob was being told! “. . .and so Rachel’s father fooled Jacob into marrying Leah, the UGLY sister. . .” Thanks to Anita Diamant for retellling that tale with a rather more flattering take on my namesake.
Hey Tina! I feel your pain.
My dad’s name is Meredith (I guess, somewhere, in some Scandinavian countries it’s a man’s name.) When I was born, my Dad and Grandma convinced my Mom to change my name from Emily to Merideth. The mayhem that ensued from that still resonates 30 years later.
Aside from Mom getting creative with the spelling, I was mistaken for my dad so often on paper it got to be a family joke. However, it was less funny when a glove wearing doctor walked into my first OB/GYN appointment at age 13 and asked if I was ready for my prostrate exam.
A few weeks ago my mom, after a few sangrias, told me she never liked my name and wished she had kept Emily. Thanks Mom!
A couple of people have mentioned having their names involuntarily shortened at work–my mom has the opposite problem. Her given name is Sue, which is fine for everyday work, but she has more than once seen her name “formalized” to Susan on reports.
I like my name–I’ve only met a couple of Lucys my age, though I think it’s getting more popular here in the US. One multiple name not many people have mentioned is Alex. There were four in my sophomore Spanish class, and two were boys and two were girls. We ended up with Alexander, Alex, Lexi, and Alexa.
One of my best friend has four young children and counting. I think she did the best job of unusual names that are cool without being overly trendy.
Asher Nathaniel
Gianna (pronounced Gee-Ah-Na).
Xavier
Kieran
Another friend has a one-year-old named Avery Joshua. I love it.
I have picked out Miriam and Gabriel for my children, should I ever have any. I’m thinking Sophia (too trendy for a first name) and Dante (Yeah, I’m a big epic poetry nerd. The kid will be lucky not to be named Virgil or Homer) as middle names.
I have now posted more to this topic than to any other. On any blog. EVER.
Ahem.
It’s amazing the number of people who ask “Why does it end with an ‘e’?” Uh, because it does? – Deirdre
I think it’s because many people think of Irish/Scots names as “English” (die, Sassenach invaders, die!) not realizing they’re actually Gaelic. My dad’s name is Iain, and it was constantly misspelled Ian. He once had the following conversation with a customer service rep at Diner’s Club:
Dad: Hi, this is Iain *** and I’m calling because you sent me my new card, and my name’s misspelled.
CSR: Let me see…ah, yes, we have it as I-A-N.
Dad: Right, but that’s wrong. It should be I-A-I-N.
CSR: No problem, we’ll change it, but the correct spelling is actually I-A-N.
Dad: Excuse me?
CSR: Your name is supposed to be spelled I-A-N.
Dad: No, it’s not.
CSR: Yes, it is.
Dad: NO, it’s NOT.
CSR: I am a retired English teacher of 30 years, SIR, and I happen to know that that you cannot have THREE VOWELS IN A ROW in an English noun.
Dad: THAT’S BECAUSE MY NAME’S NOT ENGLISH, YOU STUPID BLOODY BITCH!
And don’t get me started on the EYE-an trend. It’s EEE-an, people. Yo, even the brothers who took over Malcolm from us know how to say it proper. Show some respect, or I’ll beat you about the head with my sporran.
I graduated high school in 1973. There were three other girls in my graduating class named Dayna. We were all known by our last names.
My name is super-unusual (though not unheard of in North America, as facebook has taught me). Given my middle eastern last name, my parents wanted an authentically Irish first name to reflect the two cultures. (I was almost Grainne, pronounced Gron-ya. I am not kidding)
Today I love it. But what’s amusing to me now is that, as a four year old, evidently the name scarred me enough that not only did I lobby for a name change (to ‘Megan’) but when my parents announced the name they’d chosen for my newborn sister, I pitched a fit.
“But Shannon is a NICE name! She CAN’T have a more normal name than me!” Four years old.
So they called her Sheena.
Deirdre: One of my best friends in elementary school was Deirdre, spelled and pronounced like yours. She was constantly called “DEE-dree” or “DEER-dree,” and it probably was spelled wrong all the time. She had reason to be on the local news recently, and her name was misspelled in the paper, and the reporter butchered it during the newscast.
And on a whole other note, I can’t believe I forgot to mention the very best part of my name in my last post: if I change my name when I get married, my mother-in-law and I will have the same name. AWESOME. Just what every woman wants, right?
“My dad’s name is Meredith (I guess, somewhere, in some Scandinavian countries it’s a man’s name.) When I was born, my Dad and Grandma convinced my Mom to change my name from Emily to Merideth. The mayhem that ensued from that still resonates 30 years later. ”
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Meredith is in fact traditionally a man’s name . . . in Wales, which is where the name originates and where it is sometimes spelled with multiple ‘d’s (Maredydd or Meredydd). It’s a frequent patronym too. ‘Meredith’ and ‘ap Meredith’ are often surnames.
We didn’t have the problem so much in high school, all the folks with the same name seemed to run in different circles, plus we had the whole prep school call everyone by their last name thing going on.
It really came out in college though, for the first year everyone had an adjective attached to their name. Eton Ed, American Dave, Piss-head Rob, Evil Chris, Row Jo, Sleazy Pete, Squeezy Pete etc.
My name is Laura Elizabeth. My parents intended to call me “Laurie Beth” which I am quite happy to say never stuck. It is pretty much the least apt nickname for me, ever. It would be second only to “Frilly Pink Girlypants Eyeshadow Bunnyrabbit McGee”. Or possibly “Tipper”.
I guess I am anal-retentive, but it’s Laura–Lah-rah, with two “a”s. I hate when people pronounce it “Lora”, or call me “Lauren” or “Laurie” or “Lori”. agggh.
And then there my great uncle, who will only call me Lucy.
Thanks for the thread! I haven’t done a lick of work all afternoon!!
I like my given name well enough–Kelly. Not that common, but not crazy unusual, and no silly spelling. However, my great-grandfather was a little put off–he informed my mother, “you know, she has to LIVE with that name!” Understandable, since Kelly just wasn’t used as a first name for most of his lifetime (He died at 94 in 1981). I plan on changing my last name to his someday soon, which will make my initials K.C., which I really like.
I went to school with a girl who had the same first name as all of her sisters–Mary. They all went by their middle names. Why not just give all your daughters the same middle name instead?
I went to college with a Kelly Green. Not cool. Went to high school with an Athena. Very cool.
I dated a Kelly (a guy).
If I was a boy, I was going to be Kevin (same with my sister, Kathleen). My mom later met a woman named Kevyn and was bummed that she hadn’t known it could be a girl’s name.
And at work, we have a fairly small group, but we have 2 Heathers, 2 Melissas and 2 Sarahs.
My stepsister’s kids are Finnean, Colin and Phelan. That last one is a girl–pronounced fay-lin. My other nephew is Quinn. Another nephew is Paul, named after my grandfather. I like all of those names. Feel free to steal them.
Name I can’t stand? Amy. And I know at least four. Ugh. Sorry to all you Amys out there.
And the weirdest name thing? There’s a guy in my work building with my first AND last name. My last name isn’t very common–what are the odds of that?
I am a retired English teacher of 30 years, SIR, and I happen to know that that you cannot have THREE VOWELS IN A ROW in an English noun.
What? That’s crazy. Of course you can.
Gaiety. Queue. Paean. Naiad. Beauty. Queen.
No wonder she had to switch away from teaching.
I’m an 18-year-old Caitlin Marie, and my name is one of the reasons why I absolutely abhor kreatyv spellings. My mom actually, to this day, insists that she picked my name to be “original” — she’s so proud of herself for saving me from being Anna or Rita like my dad wanted, which frankly I would have preferred. From preschool onward, there was always a Kaitlyn or Katelyn or Kaitlin in my class, but I didn’t meet another Caitlin until high school, when I started going by Cate (yeah, I was into kreatyv spellings at 13, but at least I wasn’t in a position to inflict it on anyone but myself). To this day, few people can spell my name, ever after numerous corrections, and it’s been mispronounced as Catalin or Cathleen a few times.
I’ve always really envied my sister, Cathleen, who goes by Cathy; she’s 14, and the only one in her school, which is my former high school. When I went there, in my class of 117 alone there were two Caitlins and a Kaitlyn. I’ll concede that the Mikes and Robs had it even worse, but at least their names were easy to spell.
I was one of 5 variations of Katherine, Kathleen, Catherine, Katie, or my own spelling, Kathryn, in my Catholic kindergarten.
I remember that no one had ever called me Kathryn until kindergarten and I wasn’t completely convinced it was actually my name. I was also offended that I had to learn to write it out for all of my papers instead of Katy. My mother tells me the story of the day I came home from school upset and told her that I wanted to be called Jill. She asked me why and I told her simply, “it’s easier to spell.”
My parents tell me that I was named Kathryn so that I could have a “professional” name some day and not have to go by Katy, even though that’s what they always intended to call me. Now, in my late twenties as a professional I still don’t use Kathryn. I’m either just “Katy” or “Katy K”, or “Katy-with-a-Y”.
One ex-boyfriend tried calling me Kathryn because he wanted to have a name for me that was “special”, something that no one else called me. I finally made him stop by explaining that all the people who know and love me best call me Katy and it’s only people who are strangers who use my full name. If he wanted me to think of telemarketers, government agencies, and bank forms when whispering to me in dark, he could go on calling me Kathryn…
I guess there is reason he’s an ex.
My best friend in high school was also named Stephanie. Whenever we did partner-projects together (often), we put “Stephanie Squared” on our papers.
The best name popularity tracking tool EVER is this one:
http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html
You can track girls names, boys, or both. There’s a spot in the upper left where you can enter letters or parts of names to limit it, and you can see the relative popularity of any given name over the last century. I’m addicted to it.
“I was always the only Elena in my class, and I liked it that way. Though, as other people have pointed out, I did yearn for bike license plates, pencils, and keychains that had my name splayed across them.”
My name is Kara, and I’ve rarely met another – never in school, which I liked. If I have kids, I want them to be the only ones in their classes with their names (without going into Mingus territory). There’s one other in the company I work for, but she’s in another department. My great-aunt just got me stationery for my birthday with my name on it because she rarely sees anything with it (or with the alternate C spelling). I NEVER had a license plate with my name on it. My grandmom gave me a keychain with my name carved in wood that she had made, and I still use it (she gave it to me years ago). The most popular girl name in my class (class of ’98) was Katherine/Kate. We had about four, in a class of 75 kids. I’ve known a lot of Jennifers over the years too.
Elena is one of my baby name choices – I’ve always liked it. I think it’s elegant. I also like the name Jordan, but only for a girl. But I’m also into family traditions (my mom and I have the same middle name, and if I have a daughter, she’ll have it too) and I’m fascinated by what names mean and whether people live out their meanings, so I’d totally be the kind of expectant mom with three baby name books.
Name I can’t stand? Darryl. My apologies to any who may be reading.
My wife had a baby on May 19. We went with Quincy, Quinn for short. Turned out to be a good name for him, in that he was 11 pounds, 5 ounces, so now I can sing that Mighty Quinn song to him.
Anyhoo, I hope it doesn’t end up like my name. My parents didn’t know anyone named Eric and there were 6 in my high school class of 150. I lived with two others in college.
My parents had never heard my name before – they just knew that they wanted to name me after their friend Ken. He said, “Oh, you’re going to name her Kendra?” and they said, “Um….yes!” There was one other Kendra in my high school, and one in my college graduating class. And then at my first job – two Kendras and a Ken in a group of eight.
My parents had the brilliant idea to name me a nickname, thus a life filled with the “What is your real name?” has plagued me. I think my name is plain but it does suit me,I suppose. I rather like my middle name, margaret better, so much so that itis also my confirmation name and now my friends call me kate margaret margaret…
I’m a David born in the ’70s, so, yeah. One year my soccer team (everyone-plays league) had five Davids, including me. The coach loved it, though — all he had to do was yell, “David, get the ball!” and half the team took off running.
Any ideas about this? My boyfriend is named John. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are all named John (different middle names) and they are all only children.
There is some pressure from the family that if John and I marry and have a boy that we’ll name him John too. I hate this idea.
Don’t get me wrong, I think family naming is good (I share my middle name with my mother and grandmother), but not for first names.
I don’t want a kid of mine to have to deal with the whole, “older one or younger one?” issue or have to be called his middle name and then have to explain all the time. I also think that children are not mini-mes and they have their own lives and identities.
Has anyone here bucked a family naming tradition like this?
First of all…love the name Dylan. One of my friends named her daughter, age 8 months, Dylan, and everyone assumes she is a he…until they see her of course.
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But isn’t the whole “I gave my girl a BOY name aren’t I smart?” trend way over?
Or was I just hoping it was so?
I have a “Matthew” (aka Matt) in 3rd grade. He’s one of one two Matthew’s in the entire school.
Apparently yesterday’s saturation is today’s “eh, not so much.”
For us, he was just 3 days old and nameless and we succumbed to the blatant lie that we couldn’t take him home without filling out the birth certificate.
“Matthew” seemed sturdy and unlikely to roll off the lips of anchormen reporting on the latest serial killer or belltower sniper, yet dodged the horror of being one of those low-rent types bestowing a “trendy” name on their child ala “Austin, Chance, Dakota, et al.” (it was the late 90’s and apparently every single newborn boy was slated for the rodeo circuit).
What’s in a name?
Years and years of therapy if your parents aren’t lucky.
I was only Sara T. for two years in grade school, but I know tons of Sara(h)s about ten years younger than I am. And in my last job, I changed my name to Sara Beth because there was already a Sara in our group of seven. Then I found, for some reason, that I couldn’t answer the phone without saying “Serra-Bay-uth,” which made me sound like I’m southern. Weird.
When we named our son, I went to a site where you can get people’s opinions about your name choices, so I could find out what people might think without having to hear my friends say stupid things about a name we might end up using. Good move…I thought Sasha was a great boys name (and it WAS, once), but it’s apparently nearly always given to girls now. So we went with James, which has turned out to be surprisingly unusual. If you don’t count the 47-or-so adult Jims we know, that is.
To the Laura above: you are bizarro-me. I am Laura Elizabeth, called Laura Beth by parents (to separate me from my mom, also named Laura), and I pronounce it “Lora” (although it bugs when people spell it that way) though I’ll answer to Lahrah too.
If you have a brother named Benjamin David I’ll flip.
“My parents tell me that I was named Kathryn so that I could have a “professional” name some day and not have to go by Katy…Now, in my late twenties as a professional I still don’t use Kathryn.”
Ditto me (in my late 30s) with Elizabeth/Beth. I’m only Elizabeth on my license, passport and tax returns.
For the apparent hordes of us out there who could never find preprinted personalized doohickeys growing up, I just had a moment you’ll appreciate. At a hobby shop I visited this weekend, they had a little rack of keychains or some such…with a stack of ORDER FORMS for “other” names. Brilliant.
Of course it cost three times as much ($4.50 instead of $1.50) but there was a time in my life I would not have cared.
I forgot to mention…my sister’s crazy in-laws and what they named their kids.
The first is Benjamin Danger. So that when he grows up he can say “Danger is my middle name.” Yes – that was really their reason. And the daughter has been named Barbara Doll. Yep, that’s right…Barbie Doll. I just….have no words for this.
And I used to work with 2 sisters who came from a family of 5: Annette, Suzette, Nanette and Yvette. Youngest was a boy named Rex Arthur II. *sigh*
I was born in 1965, and I was always the only Sarah in my class (there were only about 5 in my whole school) until I reached college. My theory: I went to college in a much more ethnically diverse area than the state in which I grew up, a lot of my college classmates were Jewish, and Sarah, which is in the Old Testament, was a traditionally Jewish name.
OK, I’m in grad school, so I couldn’t resist doing some research, and here it is: According to a Notre Dame University historian, a “1938 German regulation required those defined by the Nuremberg Laws as Jews to take on another name if their given names were not sufficiently ‘Jewish.’ Women were to add ‘Sara,’ men ‘Israel.’ ” http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/bergen_033001.htm
Now, of course, the Sarah population — whatever the religious affiliation — outnumbers lab rats.
Mom had wanted to name me Melissa. Thankfully, Dad didn’t like it — it’s one of those trendy names that became dated. The parents agreed on “Sarah” from the Bible (though we later discovered another Sarah back a ways in my dad’s family).
My middle name is Elizabeth. For a long time, I wished it was my first name. Why? Lots of cool nicknames — Liza, Beth, Betsy, Liz, etc. — as opposed to Sarah, which has spun off only “Sally.” Nothing against that nickname, but I’m just not a “Sally”!
My sister’s first name is Caroline, after one of our great-grandmothers. I’ve always loved her name, though if I had $1 for every time someone pronounced it “Carolyn,” I’d be typing this from my yacht instead of my office now.
I’m old enough that in my elementary school, there were Davids and Michaels everywhere. No one else had my name, however.
My parents were going to name me Michael David if I were a boy, but instead I was a girl and got Marcy.
I’m also old enough that there were Susans and Bettys everywhere. If my brother had been a girl, he would have been Elizabeth Susan, but he was a boy and instead got Scott, of which he was the only one.
Odd how with each kid, my parents picked an overused name and a very rare one, and then ended up with two kids with rare names.
“It is pretty much the least apt nickname for me, ever. It would be second only to ‘Frilly Pink Girlypants Eyeshadow Bunnyrabbit McGee’. Or possibly ‘Tipper’.”
This I totally understand. I hate being called “Mandy.” I will kill the balls out of the next person who tries to call me that. I am not a “Mandy.” I don’t mind “Manda,” given to me by a high-school friend. “Camanda” is from my HS band director. I don’t know why he decided he liked that better than calling me “Amanda,” but it stuck. Permanently.
I find this “Caitlin = unusual” phenomenon to be interesting. The first Katelyn/Caitlin/Kaitlin/etc. that I ever met spelled her name “Caitlin.” Since then, I’ve met only one in that name-group who didn’t spell her name “Caitlin.” She spelled it “Katelynn,” which always seemed bizarre to me.
My kid’s daycare is awash in Finns and Noahs. I like both those names, but sheesh.
Half the boys I dated were named Chris, and few boys I skipped over too.
Name trends are fascinating to me. My name was unheard of when I was a child in the sixties and seventies. I literally never met another person named Abigail. There was Abigail Adams and Dear Abby. Now it is one of the top ten girl names, with all kinds of odd spellings.
I still sort of regret not naming my son Ptolemy.
I’m an Andrea, and first met another Andrea in high school. I hated my name in elementary school because it was so close to Andrew, and I really didn’t need any help feeling ungirly. I haven’t met many other Andreas since. But I have met an Andreas, and he’s a really nice guy.
Once I grew up, I liked my name. Especially since my mother’s second choices were Jennifer (whew, dodged that bullet) and Dierdre.
A woman at work named Cynthia goes by the nickname Syndi. Completely annoys me each time I have to type it. Creative spellings are obnoxious.
Hee, this thread is great! I keep thinking of a Dorothy Parker short story entitled “The Custard Heart,” with a character nicknamed Gwennie. As Parker writes:
” Her mother had named her Gwendola, and than, as though realizing no other dream would ever come true, had died.”
So many people seem to name their kids after some dream life they wish they had had…
Wow Sars, betcha didn’t know what you were going to start with that post didya now? I’ve laughed SO much reading this. (I especially love the girl who called her little brother ‘Mr. Bum’ – so much more ‘to the point’ than Mr. Stupidhead don’t you think!)
Anyway, I think my folks did pretty well – until they got to my little sis anyway. I’m Barbara, next sister is Valerie and they were both very recognisable and spellable but still we were the only ones in school (in Ireland). THEN, I moved to the U.S. and discovered that Barbara was in the top 3 names in the 1940s and it’s a ‘middle-aged lady’ name over here. Yeesh! (It’s also never shortened at home a fact which really threw me off when everyone suddenly wanted to call me Barb cos…no.)
Next sister is Bronwyn – (Hi Bronwyn upthread!), which is rather unusual everywhere still. (Although in the 80s a character in an Australian soap popular in Ireland and England had that name which did lead to little sis having an easier time with folks pronouncing it properly).
(It’s also no accident that we all have 7 letters in our names! Parents are mad.)
Glad this last post spawned so much discussion, since I haven’t had two seconds to post anything else the last few days.
I’m pretty sure “Sadie” is a nickname for “Sarah” (it’s the one I broke the “you can’t nickname yourself” rule for), and “Sissy” I think is one also, although my only source for that is “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.”
I checked the SSA name thingie, and Sarah wasn’t even in the top 10 the year I was born, if I recall correctly, so maybe it was a New York/New Jersey thing; we had a lot of Rachels and Rebeccas and Naomis, too.
I don’t know what the motivation was for “Sarah” on my parents’ part. My great-grandfather had a sister named Sarah, so it is in the family, but…my great-grandfather had four sisters, and based on the one photo I’ve seen of all of them together, Sarah was the ugliest one. Beat out some stiff competition, too.
One final thought: which name is more likely to make an unwelcome comeback — “Hester” or “Dorcas”?
(Come on. You totally read “Johnny Tremain” as a kid and were like, “DORC-as? Really?”)
I went to school with a girl named Tabitha. Her mother’s name was Dorcas. What is most interesting about these two names is that they both mean the same thing (one is the Greek version the other Hebrew). Regardless, I somehow doubt that Dorcas will really be coming back into fashion anytime soon. :)
246 comments from a name discussion. Love!
My favorite is when I worked in a bookstore/cafe and we had a whole bunch of double names, at least four or five. My favorites were the two Chrises, both with the last initial G, so one was Ga and one was Gr (I think). Personally I called them the Nice Chris and the Not As Nice Chris.
At my work we also have Erich (often called Er-itch) and Eric, and in college Erik and Eric (Eris). Plus, the six Matts in the same dorm in the same class. One insisted on Matt, one on Smack (…I don’t know) and the others were always their last names. Oh, and two of them were rooommates.
Oh, and I forgot to mention:
College: Big Steve, Medium Steve, and Little Steve.
And my cousin’s name is Dylan (boy).
And…I was almost a Sarah! I think it’s a perfectly nice name but I’m glad not to be one of the millions of Sarahs born in the eighties. I’m just not a Sarah. I’ve met about four people my own age with my name, one a boy, although the SSA site says it’s been in the top 15 for a few years now, so they’ll be popping up eventually.
This is the Sarah who posted upthread about thankfully not being Ozro William the 5th (or Ozarina Willemina). To the Caitlin…that’s my sister’s name, which is Irish for Kathleen so it is amusing that you and your sister have essentially the same name. In Ireland, they would pronounce it “Kahch-leen”, or as my Irish cousins call my sister, just “Kahch”. I have no idea how to spell that so you can hear it, hope it worked.
Some names in my family, which I am happy not to have inherited:
Orlando C. Troxel
Mildred Euphemia Valiquette Accavallo