I know!!!!! But I won't give it away. ;) I do dig it.

I have 2 names picked out with my husband, one for each sex, if we do ever adopt. They are both family names, but still pretty damn cool, if I do say so myself. I wont give it here, since I struggle to keep my mouth shut on others'ideas, and I wouldn't want the same back on me. :)

Abel? Amos?


I have a name picked out for a girl, should I ever have children, let alone a girl. It was my great grandmother's name. Both my brother and I were named after our grandparents. I was named after a grandmother that was not particularly beloved and my father's grandmother more or less raised him. It is a pretty old name and I have yet to meet someone with it.

Adam? Aaron?

I want a son eventually. Either Karim Jr. or Darnell.

Aristotle?

(No, but you just guessed my husband and his brother...lol)


Nope, none of you have it yet. :) It's uncommon, but not unusual. (I'll give a hint... it was a name featured in a Paul Rudd comedy not too long ago...)

I like bible names. If I'm ever blessed with a little boy, I think I'll give him the middle name Ezekiel, so I can call him Zeke. Dunno about a first name yet.

We've already decided if we ever have a little girl, we're going to name her Cynthia, after my best friend/MOH. Without getting into too much details, or morbid....she's sick, and it's just something we've decided we want to do.

I can't STAND last names as first names (Parker, Miller, Reid, Ford, etc) and I'm not particularly fond of gender neutral names either.

Help me Lord, I cannot STAND the cutesy spellings! I am speechless when I see educated people pulling out "Alicyn" and "Brittni" and the like. What are they thinking? Do you really think your child won't come up with a better way of distinguishing herself? I even know a "Liisa" with two i's...in other words, absolutely everything associated with her appears to have been badly edited. No thanks.

I'm with you. Both my husband and his sister have common names, which my in-laws decided to spell weird. His has 2 of the letters reversed from the norm. Even his middle name is common, with a weird spelling. It's a real pain to always have to stress the spelling during customer service/business transactions.

We had a near-crisis when his passport arrived with his name spelled the usual way...it had to be redone, weeks passed, and it finally arrived 2 days before a trip to Australia. We had to call our Congressman's local office to intervene with the passport office to get it expedited. My mother-in-law actually felt guilty about that.

Alan
Anson
Augie
Aldous

lol, you got it Sweet! Augie.

Aaaaaaaaand that's why I won't put my names on here. :) We're planning on giving a son, if we ever have one, my mother's maiden last name as his first name. 'Cause we think the name is damn cool. Plus, we love names that have personal meaning.

I'm guessing either you don't live in the South or you're frequently annoyed by the names of lots of boys. :D I'm not a fan of it for girls, but it seems very normal to me for boys -- if, that is, the last name in question is a family name. I don't see the point otherwise.

We were all about family names. I'm named for a great grandfather. My wife is named for a great aunt. My son's first name is for his grandfather, but he goes by his middle name -- a surname found on both sides of the family (my grandmother's maiden name, my wife's great grandmother's maiden name. My daughter is named for her grandmothers -- one grandmother's first name and the other's maiden name.

We are the same for names. All are family based. Oldest is named for my husbands Paternal grandmother, middle is name for his great-great-uncle and great-grandpa (my maternal opa), and youngest Baby Girl is named after my husbands middle name and his paternal grandmothers first name.

Quite the opposite. I'm about as southern as they come, but I'm just an oddball in this regard. Yes, I'm frequently annoyed by names of boys around here. That's why I like bible names so much.

I wouldn't have a problem giving a son a family name as middle name, but I sure wouldn't have him go by that name.

Very true, and that also seems very normal to me (though the first name could also be something like Anne/Anna, Jane or even (in the case of a cousin of mine) Nancy.

I should have noted this when I was saying it seems odd for girls to go by last names. I was thinking more of the Taylor Swifts of the world.

Names I like for future granddaughters which my daughter also likes:
- Amelia
- Dorothea

(Guess two of my favorite novels?)

One side of my family has a long tradition of naming boys with a biblical name and a presidential name. My eldest son's name - Jackson Peter - keeps up the tradition, and as mentioned earlier, also follows the southern tradition of using family names as first names. (As an aside, we are descended from Andrew Jackson's brother David, so there's that, too.)

I know a Lisa who spells it "Lissa" .. of course everyone pronounces it incorrectly at first. Most people assume it's short for Elissa/Alissa.

I grew up living behind 2 brothers whose middle names were each of their grandmothers' maiden names:

John Squire and James Clarkson. I think both flow nicely.

This surprises me. My mother and I were talking the other day about names from her generation (she's in her mid-50s) that you don't hear very often anymore... e.g. Nancy, Cathy, Brenda, Cindy, and MARY. I find it interesting that there are a lot of people in the south who are still being named that.

My mom's name is also uncommon - Joan. She was THRILLED when we went to this bar down the street from our house and one of the bartenders, who's probably in her mid-twenties, said that her name is also Joan.

My brother and I both have our parents' first names as our middle names. I was named after my grandmother and my aunt (who ended up having 2 sons - hence my mom feeling the need to carry on the name). My second cousin was then given the same name. Interestingly, none of us are/were called the same thing, and only my second cousin goes by our actual given name.

Now... I don't really know if I even want to have kids, but if I do, and I have a girl, I'd probably want to name her Haley. For a boy, I used to love the name Christian... but then a certain guy with that name totally ruined it for me. Haha

Same thing happened with Olivia. Used to love it.. and now, not so much.

With names like we're talking about, though, they don't go by "Mary," they go by "Mary _______." So, to go with one of KSUViolet's examples, Mary Carter Lastname would be called Mary Carter by family and friends. You still do find just plain old Marys here and there, but Mary ______ is probably more common.

Yep, my mom is a Mary _____. She has an aunt who was a Mary _____. I wanted one of my daughters to be Mary Charlotte, Mary Claire, or Mary Margaret. My husband vetoed.

Still.. Mary in any way, shape or form isn't common where I am.

Hm.. but Mary Katherine Gallagher is sounding better and better by the minute...

I'm named after three great-grandmothers. Both of my parents had a grandmother with the same name, and then they picked my mom's favorite grandmother for the other name. It's nice from a family heritage perspective, but I don't remember meeting then, I don't even really know my grandmothers (and barely know my aunts/uncles/cousins) so family heritage isn't something ingrained in me, and the names are old fashioned and often misspelled. It's also annoying to go by a nickname- trying to figure out when you have to use your legal name and when you don't.

Having said that, I do have a pseudo-adoptive grandmother (passed away several years ago) who I would consider naming a girl after- either first or middle. I'd change the spelling slightly, though. it's partially because I like the name, and partially because she's the closest thing I had to extended family growing up- even if I only SE her a few times a year.

One last comment on family names. My dad and bother have the same exact name. While technically my bother is 'the second', mail is just addressed to the name. You never know who it's meant for- even if one goes by a nickname, it goes back to the legal name/nickname fun I deal with. My dad's dad has the same first name, and now my nephew has that as a middle name. My dad was upset that his grandson didn't get to be 'the third'. I don't like that kind of pressure- or confusion.

One thing that will come into play for me when the time comes is international pronouncability. My husband is from another country and all of his family are there, so we need to ensure they can pronounce any names we'd choose. Some names that are fine in English don't translate well in another language or pronunciation!

And last thought. I know I'm not actually naming names, but it's hard! Especially for boy's names. I feel like for every boy's name there are 20 girls names to choose from. Girls names have so much more creativity. It feels like boys names are all either biblical or conquerors. As an agnostic I'd rather avoid an overtly biblical name, which leaves very few options! So in a way a girl would be easier- more names I like to choose from :) I do avoid girl names that are big names with an 'a' or 'e' or whatnot in the end to make them feminine.

This is the case for my stepdad and stepbrother. My stepdad says he regrets giving his son his name. So confusing! Even when my stepbrother visits and I try to address one of them, it can be quite confusing/annoying for them.

People ask why I refer to my stepbrother as ____ Jr., as I tend to do this even when they don't know my stepdad and/or he's not around. It's purely out of habit, because I know how frustrating it can be when they're both together.

How in the world does the quote say MC? For a second I was reading and thinking "wow that sounds familiar- wait, did I somehow repeat everything he said??" Ha.

One example of a name that wouldn't translate well for me: Ella. I absolutely love that name, but in Spanish it just means she/her. In Portuguese it only has one L- ela- but same thing. So given the Brazilian in-laws, it's off my list.

My daughter's name is Laurielle. It's a mixture of Laurel (what I wanted) and Arielle (what he wanted). and no...it's not pronounced like the shampoo lol
I also like the name Seraphina, Denisa (my daughter's middle name), and Evangeline.

You think? I've never found that to be a problem. To me, the bigger problem is that there is more than one nickname for my given name, and the one I go by is not as common as some others. People who don't know me (and even a few who do) inavariably assume the wrong one, which I really dislike being called. They get demerits for that.

I was trying to figure out the same thing. :D

This! I have the same problem. Growing up, I had many teachers who would assume I used the more popular/"older" nickname. It drove me crazy. Just assuming that someone even uses a nickname is ridiculous. Again, my second cousin has the same name and she doesn't use a nickname.

What also throws people is that my nickname doesn't start with the same letter as my given name. I even had one teacher tell me, "You can't do that."

:rolleyes:

On an old Kojak tv episode one criminal uses three names: Margaret, Peggy and Gretchen. Kojak mentions all 3 names are derivations of the same name. What you can't learn from television...

People are forever telling me that my nickname doesn't make sense because it's longer than my actual name. Who are you, the nickname officials? gtfo.

In my family there is a Mary Margaret (nickname Molly), a Mary Laura (called Mary) ,and a Mary Kathleen (another Mary), all under 15 yrs. old. Mary Kathleen's father said it honored his heavenly mother (Mary), his mother (Kathryn), & his godmother (Eileen). We also have a Kelleen (nn Kelly), and another Kelly. I like longer names that have nicknames.

If I had a daughter, I would have named her Zoe (no nn) or Anneliese (nn Elise). I also like Biblical names, but for middle names, although for boys some of my favorite names double up on Biblical names; like Matthias Stephen or Jude Elijah. Most of the names I like tend to be the more traditional Greek names like Alexander/Alexandria, etc. I have a friend from Greece named Andronikos; we sometimes make fun of his name and give him fictional nicknames. :)

I always love the "but where did that name come from" and you break down the legal name to show the nickname. Mine isn't that hard to figure out. It's similar to a girl name Jordan having the nickname of Dani. Jordan to Dan to Danny/Dani.

I have been surprised by the number of people who ask me about my youngest child's name.

"It's Liam."
"Oh, what an unusual name. Where did you get it? "
"It's a nickname - his name is William."
"How is "Liam" a nickname for 'William'?"
"Um, last four letters of 'William'."

It makes much more sense to me than 'Bill'- my husband's nickname.

My nickname isn't even an uncommon nickname for my real name, but many people question the first letter difference.

Although, now that there's a very famous person whose name and nickname are exactly the same as mine, I guess it's ok...

My youngest and a beer share the same nickname.

I have 3 cousins (all siblings) who are named after liquor. Bailey, Jack, Morgan.

I'd guess Miller...

2 random things..

1) Has EVERYONE named their dog Bailey, or is it just me?

2) My cousin got married to a girl with the last name Bailey. His last name is Converse. At their rehearsal dinner, the groomsmen received Bailey's Irish Cream, and the bridesmaids received Converse All-Stars.

I know a couple who are VERY against any form of consumption of alcohol - not even cooking with it. They named their baby Jameson, despite multiple people telling them it's a very popular whiskey. Not a family name, either - they just thought it sounded nice. To each their own, I suppose.

Had I ever had my own children that I could name, the girl would have been Gaines Elizabeth (family name) and the boy Dalton something for the dad.

However, there was that spell in the early 70's when I was leaning towards Phaedra for the girl...good thing I didn't have one then!

Anyone remember the comic strip "Snuffy Smith," the moonshine drinking mountain man married to Loweezy? They had a son named "Tater." My 3rd cousin's son was born the same day as 'Tater Smith and, kid you not, has it for a middle name. William 'Tater Pennington.