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
I actually wrote a college essay about my name and how it made me feel unique — not because it’s all that unusual itself but because I am the only person in my family not named after a relative. Four siblings all named after grandmothers and great-uncles, but my parents just liked the name Lily. I love my name, and my biggest pet peeve is when people spell it “Lilly,” which happens almost every single time someone writes it for the first time. It’s not short for Lillian! It’s a very pretty flower! Not the same thing!
I’m the only kid without a traditionally Jewish name as well, though my middle name, Esther, is Jewish. My youngest brother’s full name is Reuben Ellis (which I always thought sounded like a disease, but whatever) and we call him Ben, which is a shortening of Reuben I’ve never heard anywhere else. Obviously most people assume his full name is Benjamin, and are surprised to find out that it isn’t.
I have a good friend named Lili, a rather uncommon nickname for Elizabeth. I’ve only ever met one other Lily close to my age (22) but it seems to be gaining popularity in recent years. And I have never once met (or even heard of) a Lilly. So there.
i’ve always felt like i won the name game… as the last child and the only girl, my parents went really wild. i have two first names and two middle, blending my italian mother and british father into one little girl learned to sigh when initially papers. My name, you ask? Elisa Jane Lucretia Mary. I know. Yes, i know. I usually go by either elisa jane or janie, mostly janie since people find it difficult to pronounce elisa for some undiscernable reason. Also, i like it when people try to give me sympathy for the whole “oh, plain jane? poor you, your parents are so unimaginative” and i can rattle of the other names.
plus, my mother battled for a long time to name me cherry. i consider myself lucky that i escaped with non-stripper names only. (uhm… apologies to anyone named cherry who reads this)
My vote is for “Hester” coming back, although it occurs to me that “Prynne” would also make a perfect trendy baby name, if it isn’t already. I mean, it has the useless letter y, gratuitous repetition of a silent consonant, and a silent final e. What’s not to love?
Anyway, I fully expect to see my hypothetical future children sharing preschool space with a kid named something like Prynne Willoughby-Smith. Or Hester Rasgotra. (Gosh, I could do this all day. Remember Ramona Quimby naming dolls after brand names? Bendix Balthazar Bernstein! Kleptomania Chevrolet Purvis-Chenoweth! Sky’s the limit!)
I was renamed at the last minute.I was very nearly Victoria Bronwyn not Bronwyn Victoria. My Mum she looked at me and “Victoria just seemed to fit” The rest of the family outvoted her. Thank Goodness. I am neither a Vicky nor a Tori.
My (all older) siblings are Rachel Mary, Stephanie Jane and Matthew Digby so I could have had a more common name.
Bronwyn is uncommon most places, except Wales, but most people have at least heard of it. (Damn Aussie TV Soap) Occasionally I can find pens, but not any other merchandise.
My father is a Digby which is virtually unheard of as a first name, especially in NZ. My grandad was in the NZRAF in WWII and trained pilots. He boarded with a family who lost a son called Digby in the war and he named my Dad for him. It’s now a family name. my brother is Matthew Digby and my nephew Finn Nicholas Digby. I like it it’s a bit unusual but with straightforward spelling. I’m not against adding it as a middle name for one of mine.
I like the idea of my mum’s maiden name Daysh as a middle name for a daughter or naming a son Bertie, after my Grandad Daysh. My boyfriend hates Bertie though and I think it would have to be Albert, ’cause I don’t like Robert or Bertram and even if he never uses it he needs an adult name to fall back on.
I think kids learn to wear their names, and it shapes you. I am more attached to our Welsh heritage than my siblings probably becasue I do get “Bronwyn, Thats a Welsh name” a lot though when I introduce myself.
Name more likely to come back – Dorcas
I have to chime in, if only to see if we can get it up over 300 comments. There were 5 Nicole/Nichole variations in my kindergarten class, and that’s been pretty much the case ever since. Right now I work with Nicole T, Nichole P, and Nikki P. Since I was named after a family friend, I have no idea why the name was so popular in my general age group. Was there a TV show with a Nicole in the late 70s?
But you never know when you’ll run into a multiple. In my tiny hometown of about 5000 people, there were 2 girls in the same class all through school, both named Ginger. Last names? Airehart and Areheart. Swear to God. We knew them as Ginger (long hair) and Ginger (short hair), despite the actual length of their coifs at any given time.
My parents’ second choice: Margaret.
Which would make my nom d’internet “Mars,” I guess.
Greetings, fellow Lauras! My family calls me “lah-ra”; everyone else calls me “lora.” A brief effort, years ago, to convert everyone to the “lah-ra” pronunciation ended in frustration. Some tin-eared heathens said they couldn’t hear the difference; others insisted that spelling the name with a U means it has to be pronounced “lora.”
To this day–I am 34–I meet very few Lauras. As a kid I wished I had a more extravagant name but now I dig my moniker: it is feminine but uncomplicated and uncommon but not strange.
My mom, Peggy, once had to have her mother come to school with her to explain to her teacher that her name was just Peggy, not Margaret. Way to gut a kid’s sense of identity: tell her she’s wrong about HER OWN NAME.
Other Laura:
My brother is David Justin. It was almost the other way around, but there was some, er “discussion” on the way to the hospital. I think that’s probably close enough to continue with the bizzaro-ness, though.
My mother put her foot down on “Sarah,” which appealed to my father’s sense of humor. She didn’t want me living with a lifetime of “Sadie Hawkins Day” jokes. She almost went with “Healy,” which was her mother’s maiden name, and I would have LOVED that. I would totally have rocked that name.
My mom, God love her, picked a name that no one she knew had, and it was so unusual! I went to school, and you could have stacked the Kathleens by the dozen. (My mom picked up on the “Sadie Hawkins,” but managed to miss the KittyHawk possibilities. Can’t win ’em all.)
I have, in fact, come to the conclusion that Mom’s Maiden Name (or Gran’s/Nanna’s Maiden Name) offer both historic continuity for families, and some great possibilities for names, especially for girls. I would also have totally been fine with being called “Brennan,” or any of a number of family possibilities.
For parents in the Naming Stages, I would suggest one plain, one fancy. Name your boy Asteroid Mark, or Benjamin Danger, but not Asteroid Danger, so that he has a way out. If you have a daughter, give her Ruth Rose, in case she’d rather be Ruthless (although I’m really in favor of that Female Family Name continuing through the family line). Don’t pick names that spell something awful when only the initials are used.
And “Lili” comes out of Elisabeth by way of “Lilibet,” which I believe is an Austrian diminutive for Elisabeth.
I like my name, but for some strange reason, no one can pronounce/spell it correctly. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to answer to “Clara”. [And word on the lazy email people – it’s right there in the signature! Take the extra time to add the ‘e’!]
Worst name ever: I used to work at an inner-city library with lots of unattended children using the youth computers, and one girl signed in as (pronounced “sha-TAY”) Shit-a. It was her real name as far as we could determine. I think the youth librarian even went so far as to ask to see her school ID card.
My future child will be named Zombie Apocalypse Wagner. Because that’s unique!
[i]”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.”[/i]
Seriously? My son (age 13) recently told me he wished I had done that, “because it would be [i]cool[/i].” Heh.
My vote is for the return to popularity of Hester. It actually wouldn’t surprise me.
Just here to chime in with Laura and Bizarro Laura–I’m not Laura Elizabeth (I’m Laura Dianne), but my sister is Beth.
I’ve always pronounced it Lora rather than Lah-ra. When I was younger, lots of folks wanted to call me Laurie. Now that I’m a real grown-up, I guess they figure I really mean it when I say my name is Laura.
Born in 1972 with all the others. By high school I had gone to “Jenn” with the double N. That has helped; at least it feels slightly less cookie-cutter to me.
Isabel. Which I *hated* as a kid, when I wanted to be skinny and blonde and have an ‘i’ at the end of my name–I was a fucking moron when I was nine, what can I say?–and now am reasonably okay with. It’s better than the alternative, at least: my dad wanted to name me “Bathsheba.”
And I hang out with something like seven Davids.
Dad also wanted to name my sister Eustacia, which at least shortens to “Stacy.” And if we’d been boys, we’d have been Ezekiel and Obediah. (The man’s not religious. Just crazy.) Fortunately, we were girls, and my grandmother intervened.
I hate “creative spelling.” Hate. A large part of this comes from being in pagan/gamer circles, where every second Girl Whose Parents Don’t Understand Her has changed her name to Ravynwyng Moonchylde, but I also regard names ending in “i” with deep suspicion. “You went from me to Traci? TRACI?” actually got said to an ex, once. Dude had no respect.
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.”
Why do people insist on cutesy, infantalizing “eee” nicknames for women? I have one nickname: Gil. That’s it. And you cannot imagine how many times people hear my name and say: “Gillian? So, people call you Gillie?” And my reply is: Yes, some people have, but fortunately no one’s found the bodies yet.
In other news: FWIW, I love the name Dorcas. May she return forthwith!
To further the idea of bringing back olde-tyme names from literature, I will give 20 dollars to the first person who names their next son Dickon. (You know…from The Secret Garden!)
Personally, I love the name Bronwyn. I just think it’s pretty! And I realize this is most likely because of the Keeping Days books I loved when I was young. Did anyone read those? The main character was Tish (which was short for Leticia), but her older sister was the lovely Bronwyn.
Other girl names I’m seeing here that I love: Margaret and Claire. It’s kind of making me want to have a baby girl. I, uh, better get to work on that.
I actually kind of like Dorcas, if you can turn your ears off from hearing the chanting on the schoolyard for a second. Hester is just…not pretty to me. But you never know!
My choice for a girl’s name is my great grandmother’s maiden name. My mom almost named me this name, actually, and when I found that out I was SO MAD that she hadn’t (cheers to almost-Healy, upthread!) And when this anecdote came up in casual conversation with my husband early in our relationship, he fell head-over-heels for the name and has been a staunch and unmoving proponent of it, even when I have wavered. (It’s going to cause her some pronunciation headaches, and after all, there are a lot of great names out there)…but it IS a first name. Never cracked the top 1000, but it’s out there. And with the maiden-name thing, you are more likely to avoid a glut, and even if by some freakish chance a lot of people have the same idea, at least you have a good REASON.
Now here’s a quandary: My husband really really wants to name a boy Richard, after both his uncle and grandfather on his mom’s side, who both had a major impact on him and both died tragically young. Awesome…except I HATE the name Richard. I hate the nicknames for Richard even more, particularly, of course, Dick. Which is what his uncle went by (it was a different time). What’s a girl to do? Why couldn’t they have been named something nicer? Actually, I’m thinking the last-name-as-first might work here too, but it’s Norton, which…it’s growing on me, but I also kind of picture a little fat boy in a striped shirt and coke-bottle glasses for some reason.
Woah! Another Just Jenny! You might have to give me $20 some day!
In my first year of college, my dorm floor had seven pairs of people with the same first name and birthday. So, fine… we only had to write one name on a lot of birthday cakes, but we also had to develop qualifiers to identify people, a la “Dylan-who-got-the-nosebleed”.
My double was about five feet tall, leading to the slightly scarring “Little Steph/Big Steph” combo. That only lasted a few weeks before people abandoned the “Big” part, probably on the grounds that I’m… not, particularly. For the rest of the year we were Steph & Little Steph. Among the other pairs: Amy W. & Amy L., Tall James & Creepy James, and my personal favorite- Greg & Poo Greg.
On an unrelated note, one of my sister’s friends is named Gilgamesh, which sort of rocks. (he goes by Gill, though)
Is it possible that I’m the first Charlotte? Born in 1974 so I was always the only Char in school. When I was a teenager I met another Charlotte but she spelled it with an “S”. This was the first time I had met someone under 50 with the name.
I didn’t like it when I was a kid because I could never get any of the personlized school supplies. What I would have done for a ruler with my name on it! Now I’m glad I have an uncommon name. Although I do get annoyed by the people who think charbroiled or Charmin jokes are funny. I mean 8 year olds were able to come up with that I think an adult should be able to do better. And if I had a common name who knows what my nickname would have been. I went on a missions trip where we had 3 Marks in a 20 person group. There was old Mark, big Mark and Pastor Mark. I don’t think a group of women would have gotten the same nicknames!
When I went to college I decided I was going to be a Charlotte instead of Char. Within a week everyone had started calling me Char so I guess it’s final. Although I do have one friend that calls me Charlie.
Another Just Jenny….
My ex was born in England, and his parents were a wee tad romantic. When he moved to Toronto at 14, young Ben Thomas (NOT Benjamin) had no problems.
His brother Dickon, on the other hand, suffered a world of pain.
Other Lauras:
I’m curious, where do you all live? I’m wondering if the Lah/Lo thing is regional. I grew up in Maryland, where I was Lah-ra. In New Jersey, where I went to college, it was Lora, and then when I moved to Texas, I turned into Loooooooora (and sometimes Loooorie or Lao-ra).
I’m a Jennifer. My mom read Love Story while I was baking… ’nuff said, right? Well, my family does nicknames like nobody’s business, so in my lifetime I’ve also been: Jenny, Jen, Jenninifers, Ladybug, Punkin, Punkin Noodle, Skipper, Red, Goldilocks(strawberry blonde, so both colors are accurate–oy), Baby, Babydoll… I have settled for Jen because it’s near-impossible to misspell, mispronounce, or miss if I am being called.
Anyhoodle, the absolute worst time to be a Jennifer was the early 80’s because a) too many Jennys! and b) 867-5309(Jenny). Yes, it’s a song. Yes, it’s about a girl named Jenny. Whose number is on a bathroom wall, people!
Love means never having to say you’re sorry—my ass.
“My choice for a girl’s name is my great grandmother’s maiden name.”
Heh. If my parents had subscribed to this, my name would be Domecki or Kavitec. Or possibly Zelesko. Somehow it’s just not quite as lyrical for us poor oily bohunks.
Hester or Dorcas….both are awful, but Hester is probably the lesser of two evils. Hester’s pretty bland, but naming your daughter Dorcas is essentially saying you realized too late you shouldn’t have had the kid, can’t kill her now & are hoping the schoolyard bullies do it for you. You might as well just give yourself up as an accessory-before-the-fact. It’ll probably come back in when people start naming boys Elmer again (and no, that’s not a suggestion, ew – you’d have a horde of terrorized boys labeled “Glue Boy” or “Elephant Man” or something more imaginative but less subtle).
Pronunciation problems & issues of suggesting your own nickname…you’d think people could pronounce Kimberley fairly easily – 3 syllables, not-too-hard ones at that – but no. I once had a French teacher who absolutely could not get it & given my established hatred of being called Kim, started running through a list of names or words in French which were relatively close. It was a short list, and when he stopped on “concombre”, I knew I could wind up in deep trouble for a very long time & suggested “Killy” (as in Jean-Claude), which he accepted. I actually liked it, but it didn’t take – “Kim” can be a hard tumor to excise from the collective brain of your classmates after 10 years together – but still occasionally use it as an online alias.
I went to a very small midwestern college, with a total population of 500 students. My junior year, there were 14 Sara/hs on campus…5.6% of the female population!
For identification purposes, every other Sara/h took (very different than being given) a nickname. I can’t remember them all now, but we had Star, Bear, Sunny, Cher, SarahBev, Andi, PsychoSarah, SC, and SarahWarner.
And then there was me. I was so famous, I didn’t have to have a nickname!
I was almost Brooke, until my dad put his foot down because “what if she talks a lot?”
Which is very insulting but also turned out to be a good call on my dad’s part.
Not too many Megans in my classes growing up, although it is spelled strangely all the time. Occasionally it even involves i’s, but only if the person doing the spelling is very creative.
The only real tricky part of my name is that I go by my middle name. All the women in my family do, it’s some sort of tradition. I always get called the wrong name in roll-call, but that’s not so bad. However, when people ask my middle name, and I tell them Megan IS my middle name, they always get very, very confused. They think I’m Megan Megan _____, or they ask the always-infuriating, “So if Megan is your middle name, what’s your REAL name?” As if Megan is an imaginary name that I thought up. And I constantly have to evaluate if a document is important enough to warrant the use of my first name, or if I can get by with Megan.
Fun story: I went to a boarding school for high school and lived in a dorm. My roommate’s name was Anne Katherine, and my name is Kathryn Megan. We both go by our middle names; she is Katie and I am Megan. However, the doors were decorated up for move-in day with our names as Anne and Kathryn. It took FOREVER to get that straightened out – I thought we’d never find our room!
I had such a love affair with the whole idea of the nom d’internet from the very start because I desperately desired escape from a name that is unique on its own and invites a constant stream of disbelief that it’s real/lame jokes when paired with my last name. Only now that I’m older and *slightly* less whiny about the potential for being teased have I untensed a little and started using it more often. On first meeting anyone who starts in about Ronald Reagan loses brownie points, but anyone who correctly identifies it as King Lear’s daughter gets hugs.
(My last name is Kennedy. Yeah, I know.)
(Hi Nomie!)
My husband’s family followed the Jewish tradition of giving the kid a name with the same first initial as someone in the family who had passed on. So, when it came time for him to be born, they were at “F” for his grandmother. His parents couldn’t decide on a good “F” name that they didn’t hate, so they named him Frederic but call him Rick.
Fast-forward 21 years to me dating him and I start calling him “Freddie.” Now my family and my friends call him “Freddie” while his family and his friends call him “Rick.” When we’re in mixed company, we have to take a head count to decide what his name should be for the evening.
To make things easier for me, I just refer to him as “What’s-his-name.”
My parents (who gave my sisters and me the lovely names of Georgia, Gretchen, and Johanna, respectively), had some friends who collected funny names from the obituary pages. My favorites? T.J. Cucumber and Wig Sprinkle.
“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.”
Yeah, my mom is of 100% Irish heritage, so she wanted to give me an Irish name… and just happened to give my sister basically the same one. I’ve been telling her so for years, but somehow she just refuses to believe me. The best part is that my sister was supposed to be named Colleen, but Mom shot that down because Caitlin and Colleen sounded too “Bobsey twins.” At least the Bobsey twins got their own names, as opposed to variations of the same one!
My dad’s side of the family is also big on sharing names. We have three Williams (Uncle Bill, Uncle Billy, and Uncle Billy’s son Billy/B.J./B), two Matthews (my dad, who goes by Matt, and my cousin, who… also goes by Matt), and if my dad had gotten his way, there would’ve been two Annas (my aunt, and I’d have been the second) or two Ritas (my grandmother, who died when I was four anyway so there wouldn’t have been much confusion, and me). Plus, my aunt almost named my older cousin Caitlin — I don’t think my mom would’ve saddled me with it too had that been the case, but I can’t say for sure, as my cousin got called Christina instead.
I’m a looong, long way from having kids myself, but if I ever have a daughter, her name will be Jane. Say what you will about it being plain, but I guarantee you she will be the only one in her class not called Madison C. or Brooklyn W., or how-do-you-spell/pronounce-that? …Can you tell how much I hate the current naming trends?
Am I the first Cynthia reporting in? I named myself in the 3rd grade (long story short, my Korean name is virtually unpronounceable by Western tongues and I like it too much to hear it mangled), after a long deliberation between Cynthia and Sylvia. In 4th grade, people started calling me Cindy, which… no. 5th grade rolled around and there was a Cindy Juo in the class so people stopped trying to call me Cindy.
However, my 9th grade bio teacher decided to refer to both Cynthia Wong and me “Cynful” in class. It didn’t stick to Cynthia W., but I got stuck with Cynful, which got shortened to Cyn. Which is great because I love “Cyn” and all, but made for some confusing moments during high school and college because I was super religious evangelical Christian girl going around being referred to as Cynful and/or Cyn. Hee. And I can always tell who’ll be my true friends when they refer to me as Cyn without prompting. And if someone calls me Cindy? Then I know that person will be a thorn in my side and the type of person to annoy the hell out of me.
Every other Korean girl that I knew while I was growing up was named Grace. Seriously. Grace, Jennifer, Sara/h, or Elizabeth. The boys were all named Peter, Paul, John, or David. Now that they’re having children, the daughters are all being named things like Madison or various incarnations of Kirsten/Kristen/Kristin, and the sons are all being named Carter, Sean, or Ian.
Best named kid I’ve ever come across:
D’Artagnon Debow… nn’ed “D.A.” Great kid, awesome name.
Love this thread, I love to see all the name nerds popping out. Count me in that group too. My name “Tricia” (not Patricia), I’ve always hated it, and usually go by Trish. I can’t believe how many times people a) assuming I’m really named Patricia and then b) shorten it without asking to Pat/Patty. Urgh.
Hey, I’ve also got the slightly less common spelling of a common name. I pronounce it the same as Karen, but I’ve had to argue with folks who insist it’s pronounced differently. Which, it is, on OTHER people. You have to love the people who will argue with you about your own name. “Oh, gee, you mean I’ve been pronouncing my name wrong for the past…three decades?…Bite me” Because I don’t care.
I never had another Karin/Karen/Karyn/Caryn in any of my classes growing up. I was always lumped together with all the girls named Kelly, Jennifer, Heather, and Melissa. I guess after a bit, we all just blended together.
I have two sons, they both have relatively common names, and both have the most common spelling of those names. Sure, my oldest is already dealing with the fact that he’s not the only little boy with his name, but he seems to be doing ok. I think.
I suppose it’s better than Chance which always reminds me of cute little puppies (golden retriever puppies). Or Track, which was the name of a little boy who came through my line at work. “Track, like the car” his mother told me.
Or the trend where people have to have all of their childrens names…match. And not in ways like Connor, Caitlin and whatever the third was…but, “oh dear, our first born has a 2 syllable first name that is an element and a 3 syllable middle name that is a virtue and we must name second child in the same manner, lest he be scarred for life!” That’s just too much extra work for me.
But who am I to talk, we didn’t do the “what crappy nicknames would this one generate” with my second sons first name. I guess I’ll start saving for his therapy now.
(My middle name has an off spelling of a relatively common name too. My mother just can’t spell)
My sister is a Laura Beth. My parents were trying to be creative by naming her after their little sisters. Yeah, that didn’t go so well. It seems the majority of Lauras in the US (and on this board) have either Beth or Elizabeth as a middle name.
My brother is now dating a Rachel. It should be against the law for a brother to date a girl with the same name as one of his sisters. I’m dreading the day they get married and she hijacks my full name.
Common names at my school? Michael, Jeff, Jennifer and Katie. Even though I didn’t love my name, I was quite happy to be one of only 2 Rachels in my 500+ grad class. It certainly made life easier.
There are two girls in my niece’s grade named “Trinity.” The Matrix has a lot to answer for.
Loved that Dad prevailed, because Natalie (while delightful and enjoyed by me) was unusual enough growing up, but without the beatings that Mom’s choice “Toi” would have generated.
Years later when I found out I was adopted and had a completely different name at birth, I was dumbfounded. Not the glam, slightly soap opera-ish name I’m used to but something distinctly English countryside librarian! Too odd!
I once had a discussion with Daniel of TWoP as to who had it worse in the “songs with your name in them” department. I had to suffer with Starship’s “Sara” (which, in addition to being annoying in its own right, didn’t spell my name correctly — not that it stopped people from wailing it to me after a beer and a half, like, ha ha not), but he claimed the repeated renditions of “Danny Boy” were much worse.
Guilty. My children:
Geoffrey, Jennifer, Lauren, Taylor, Austin and Dylan.
This whole thread has been totally hilarious for me.
A) Because so many of the names people are thinking are different/cool and are going to name their kids are actually on trend/horrible so these kids in 25 years time are going to be having the exact same moans like their own parents have about their names. Priceless.
To incriminate myelf in this I nominate: Edith or Harriet for a girl (these will be on trend shortly so I will have to change them, damn!); and I have no boys names because Harry is already popular :-(
B) I have one of the more complicated names for non-gaelic speakers there are, and I’m pretty laid back about it. I could never understand why people took others getting their names slightly off as a huge affront – it happens, and it happens to me all the damn time lol
And now for the therapy..
My name is irish gaelic, though I was born in Australia to parents who just liked the sound of it = “Sha-vaughan” or “Shi-vonne” depending on your australia/irish or american accent. Other names on the table were Zoe or Myfanwy – which is welsh, roughly pronounced “mi’fam’way”. Dad vetoed Myfanwy as no daughter of his was going to be called “My-fanny” (fanny has a slightly different anotomical meaning in Aust/Brit than it does in the US. Instead his money was on Siobhan, which can be mispronounceced thusly: See-Oh-bahn, Sigh-barn, shi-ben, see-oh-ben, sha-bahn, and once “soy-bean” (now my friends will recognise my comment – hello!).
And you know what? I wouldn’t change it for the world. I would have hated to have been of the 3 Lauras, 4 Catherines, 2 Jennifers, 2 Traceys, Charlottes, Anne-Maries I went to school with. I love the way it looks written down, especially in Arial font. It provides an instant conversation starter/ice breaker when I introduce myself and people stumble over it, prompting spelling discussion etc, because I take it all with good humour.
Though I have to say, one of the stupidest things that get said to me about it is “Wasn’t that hard for you to spell as a kid?”. Huh? When you learn your name and begin spelling none of it make sense, so how the hell was I supposed to know SIOBHAN didn’t match to english language sounds? I don’t recall any of the kids having a problem with it, only the silly educated teachers :-p
I live in the US now, and the name doesn’t seem to be on the radar over here. Home in Australia I actually started elementary school with two other girls named Siobhan in other grades, but none highschool and I never ran into another one at university, though with 40,000 students I’m sure there was one hiding out somewhere. People have always met another Siobhan so its out there. It’s quite a popular old school in Ireland, I think middle aged ladies tend to be named it from vanity googling, as my surname is very generic irish too giving me some web anonimity.
Though lots of people in the US have told me they know my name, but they are actually thinking of Chiffon, Shevonne, or Shevawn, which are there in spirit but not actually my name ;-)
And yeah, when I order a coffee i say my name is Mary.
Is it possible that I’m the first Charlotte?
I love the name Charlotte. When I was a kid I had two dolls name Charlotte and Emily. I wasn’t actually naming them after the Bronte sisters, I just liked the names (I loved L.M. Montgomery’s heroine Emily Starr). I used to want to name a hypothetical future daughter “Arwen” because I thought it was a beautiful name, but Peter Jackson and Liv Tyler had to go ruin that one for me.
I like some flower names for girls (Lily, Rose, Holly, Heather – although that one’s very common now), and I love the name Ian for a boy, which I understand is a Gaelic version of “John”. So, don’t name your kids Ian John or Jonathan Ian, I guess? (I went to school with two brothers who were called Robbie and Bobbie, but they were Indian and I think their Indian names were actually a lot different from each other.)
I also had never met anyone besides my grandmother named Mary until all at once I had two roommates with that name. They became “Irish Mary” and “Canadian Mary.”
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 sister and I both have apparently-hard-to-pronounce Gaelic names, but at least she got a normal middle name. Mine? Is Siobhan. It sounds beautiful but it looks ugly, and it trips people up nearly as much as Deirdre.
Thanks to whomever upthread (I’m too lazy to go and look) pointed out that Meredith was a man’s name in Wales. I knew the name is Welsh, but never thought about it as a man’s name. My grandmother (who named my dad) told me it was a male name in Scandinavia, and I never bothered to research further. Bad librarian.
“Austin, Chance, Dakota, et al.” (it was the late 90’s and apparently every single newborn boy was slated for the rodeo circuit).”
Hee — there’s a girl in my daughter’s Kindergarten class named Chance, and she tells everybody “Call me Afrosheena” because she hates her name. As my husband said, some children are just destined for an alternative career.
My sister and I both have apparently-hard-to-pronounce Gaelic names, but at least she got a normal middle name. Mine? Is Siobhan. It sounds beautiful but it looks ugly, and it trips people up nearly as much as Deirdre.
I think my name looks beautiful and sounds ugly :-) lol
Vivian is certainly due for an upswing, following in the media-fueled footsteps of Tammy, Alexis, Crystal, Dylan, Bailey, and Madison. But we promise never to mention *Pretty Woman* around them.
Lily — The murder victim in the first season of *Veronica Mars* was Lilly Kane. So now you know there’s at least one.
As two Lesleys have already pointed out, there are never that many of us in a school, as is also true of my sister Holly. But until mine moved away, Holly’s best friend was Leslie and my best friend was Holly, and Saturday afternoons were complicated at our house.
And I can’t believe that there have been this many comments and no one has mentioned “Kaylee.” That name and it’s many, many alternative spellings must make up 50 percent of the girl childs born in these parts.
“Its” many, many alternative spellings…. Dammit.
I was named after the book “Christy” by Catherine Marshall. (One of these days I’ll get around to reading it.) And no, it’s not short for Christine or Christina. It’s just Christi – thanks for asking.
You may have noticed that the spelling of MY name does not match that of the book I was named after. Mom was still out from the C-section and Dad screwed it up. *sigh* He still calls me C.C. – my middle name is Colleen. They obviously weren’t going for a nice flow when they chose my name.
Oh, and I cannot tell you how many times I have been catapulted to a higher state of being by someone typing my name as Christ. I mean, I’m good and all… but not THAT good. hee
*peers up at the people who were slamming ‘Hannah’*
I’ve always liked my name, really. Asides from the fact that it’s very easy to turn into ‘Hannah Banana,’ anyways; I’m not all that fond of bananas, as a result.
I was born in 1988 – just between the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s. There were several Sarahs in my school (at least two I recall off hand) and a number of Rebeccas, and a handful of Stephanies and Rachels. I was the only Hannah, though, up until high school…and even then, there was only one other one!
As to ‘just missed being named that,’ I found out a little while ago that my parents had *planned* to name me Anita. After I was delivered, though, they decided I didn’t seem energetic enough for an ‘Anita’; in my defense, I was still loopy from the anesthetic they’d given Mom!
Bizarro-Laura, I was born in Missouri to a Missourian and a Chicagoan and have since lived in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and now Georgia. I suspect “Lora” is a more southern-ish pronunciation.
I love “Lao-ra” (Spanish pronunciation) and “Low-RAA” (French pronunciation) but of course don’t get to hear them frequently.
Also, in a world of Laura (Eliza)Beths, I’m an outlier: Laura Ellen. The only other Laura I remember from school was a Laura Lee.
“To the Caitlin…that’s my sister’s name, which is Irish for Kathleen…”
I’m the Caitlin above, whose parents wanted to give me an Irish first name to match my last; their original thought was to name me Kathleen, until they discovered Caitlin, and preferred it.
My father’s name is Sean (his younger siblings are Deirdre, Sheila, Maura, and Kevin, all good Irish names), yet despite the celebrity of Sean Connery as James Bond, people have had trouble with it. Ex., Caller: May I speak to, uh, See-ann?”
On the creative spelling front, the Social Security site tells me that last year, Caitlin was ranked 207 among girls’ names, but Kaitlyn was 41 [sigh].