Thursday, March 24, 2011

Let's have a chat, shall we?

One thing you may not know about me:

I adore talking about names.

It's a huge passion of mine, one I'll explore in great depths for vast amounts of time if given the chance.  I don't have to be pregnant or really even know anyone who is, I'll talk your ear off regardless.  There's actually a name for crazies like me: a name enthusiast.  Now that I am currently (all too) heavy with child, it's tottering between a healthy level of infatuation and an unhealthy obsession.  When I was stuck in the house with my fellow-name-enthusiasts sister and mother during a blizzard this winter (gotta love that northern Indiana snow), we seriously talked about baby names for three days straight with only this book to keep us going (which is, hands down, my very favorite baby name book ever). 

Anyway, the point is, I love taking baby names...but, unfortunately, my husband does not. at all.  So, that's where you come in, dear readers.  I do so want to hear all about the names you love or abhor or the ones that left you just plain confused.  I especially want to hear about names that you adore but are unable to use for one reason or another (stubborn husband, anyone?).  Those are the ones people are often most passionate about.  I also want to know your naming style.  I promise you that you have one, you just might have to think about it for a bit.  Anyway, help a poor name conversation-deprived pregnant girl out, won't you.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours...

First off, I have a somewhat of a vintage, yet recognizable naming style.  This is obvious by my three oh-so-lovely offspring.  My son, Ezra Emil, and my two daughters, Georgia Marie and Scarlett Caroline.  *sigh*  I do so love their names.  As is obvious, their names are definitely on the older side of things (or, as some might imply, the dusty/moldy/old people side of things :P), but I love them regardless.

As for names I love: Be warned, these names are only the tip of the iceberg.  I could go on and on in this one category.  Anyway, for girls, I love Cecilia, Delia, Tallulah (my husband staunchly refuses to even consider that one), Vera, Lucy, and Virginia (fear of high school teasing combined with the already-used state name rules that one out)...and Cherry.  I know, I know, that last one is a little out there, but I've loved it since the first time I read The Outsiders in 8th grade English class. Boys are a harder for me as I'm just pickier with them for some reason.  Regardless, for boys, I adore the names Theron (hubby insists it sounds too girly...an issue he has with a good chunk of the names I like), Archer, Emmett, Bennett, Forrest, and Gideon.

abhor: Mostly, I hate any names that are obviously kre8tiv.  They're like a really awkward teenager who is just trying too darn hard to be unique and mysterious.  gag.  I also am not a fan of names that hit their peak in the mid-80s.  I guess I just don't get why people would name their child something that they (the parent) heard 50 million times all through grade school.  So...you name your daughter Brittany or son Jason and I might raise my eyebrows a bit.  That's totally just me, though. (although, I suppose I did use the middle name Marie for my eldest daughter.  In defense, I plead the Family Name excuse.)

confused by:   Here's a good example for y'all...I know someone who knows someone who will be naming their next daughter Kimarie.  yep, that would be a completely made up name and not a particularly attractive one at that.  Is that petty of me to say?  c'est la vie.  I just don't get it.  I have full respect for different naming styles.  I promise do.  I realize some people are all nature-y, some love meaning-based names, etc...but I just don't get a completely made-up name.  According to my source, this name is the combination of 2 different names which, frankly, just kind of makes me roll my eyes.  Refer back to previous intentionally mysterious teenager comment.

Well, it's nearly eleven and I still need to wind down before I can go to sleep (blogging makes my brain wake up, for some reason...although the frozen cookie dough probably didn't help much either), so it's time for me to bid y'all adieu.

Don't forget to comment! (or else this post was, frankly, a little pointless)

ps-in case you haven't yet discovered it, this is one of my very favorite websites on the planet.  I swear if naming had a nirvana, this would be it.

10 comments:

  1. Ok, you know I love a good baby name talk, too. I have, I kid you not, 5 different notebooks in which I keep name lists. Obsessive? Maybe. And I love nameberry.com, from the writers of Beyond Ava and Aiden. Their lists are awesome.

    First off my list of names I love but am not allowed to use (and yes, I am pulling these from my various lists): Dagny, Reeva, Zella, Ryann, Randalyn, Eileen, Twyla, Emmaline, Lyla, Adelaide, Moira (I'm seriously going to sneak this one in, maybe as a middle name), Cullen, Harrison, Ford, Davis, Barrett, Lewis, Walt, Clyde, Leland, Jed, Morris, Reuben, Byron. Or anything -son, which is one of the drawbacks to having a Norwegian last name.

    I'm keeping my favorites to myself, but if you really want to know, I'll email them to you. You know how protective I am about the ones I intend to use, since I'm petrified they'll catch on and loose their uniqueness :)

    Basically, I love older, uncommon names. Something nostalgic, but not popular enough to be stuffy. I also like names that are traditional surnames, like Barret and Byron. And I seem to have a strange tendency for names that begin with E or G. So don't hate me if all my girls have names with E and all my boys with G. Just know it wasn't planned :)

    Ok, so I'm confused by the whole city thing. Brooklyn? Paris? Britton? Just seems a little too.... gimmicky. Or naming your kid one thing, but calling them another. I get naming him William and then shortening it to Will as time goes on or per his request, but naming your kid Archibald with every intention of calling him Arch just seems strange. Why not just name the kid Arch in the first place? What's funny is that my mom named us names we could shorten, should we choose to, and neither of us did.

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  2. Oh, you so need to call me if you need a name talk fix. My mother used to live in dread of what I would name my children. I have a VERY traditional naming family and a love for unusual old names. But when it came to my kids I actually went traditional - but usually with a little twist. I wanted to give my oldest child three names - husband vetoed that one, but I did sneak that last name in for another child.

    My husband has a family that loves unique names and he loves botanical names. I had to veto a few of his. Oak for a boy, anyone? Rosacea or some such thing for a girl. I thought it and Xitholalim sounded like diseases. But then, I also turned down Azalea and Willow.

    He turned down Adalee for me, although he might have been convinced if we had had another girl. I know - it's a totally made up name that you might think is crazy, but it was in honor of a mission companion I loved dearly, so, there you go.

    I always liked the name Brennan for a boy, but didn't get to use it.
    And my husband refused to go along with the French names I loved for girls. Mirelle and Aurelie. Which would have been pronounced all wrong here anyway.

    And I am an advocate of naming your kid something longer and then maybe shortening it. Really, because if they ever become a doctor or lawyer or president I think they have the option of using the more formal sounding name. But then, I don't like to shorten to something too informal. I had a cousin whose name was William and went by Billy his entire childhood. Most people now call him Will, but he's still Billy in my head.

    I used to have huge notebooks full of lists of names. I would have had to have had a couple dozen children to use them all up. So now I just like to talk about them.

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  3. Will you please come up with a name for my baby? I HATE coming up with names - it was so easy with Isabella (I like the old traditional names too) but I can't come up with a name for this poor boy! HELP!

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  4. lol, My biggest thing is that they are "strong" names and that my kid isn't the 20th kid with that name is his class, so basically I stay away from the top 20 of that year. Fot his little girl we are thinking Ginnylynn or Lorelei, if it is a boy I want Grant Allan, but really, I let my husband win, by the time i push that kid out and am ready to leave the hospital, i just want the kid to have a name. Yep, my first two are traditional with Kevin and Cameron but they are both strong and not gonna be two of them in their class...lol. Good luck!

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  5. You're so funny, Whitney. I love your kids names, they are unique but not annoyingly weird. ;) (sorry, pet peeve) I've never been huge on long lists of names, but that's probably because James and I were killing time at church when we were first married and came up with 5 names that we agreed on for our kids. We've used 2 of those so far. Logan and Caleb both came out of that list. Roman was a random choice that we got from a friend's son. We figured if we had a 3rd boy, then he was super determined to come down and not be a girl, so he needed a strong name and Roman was about as strong as we could think of. :)I'd also always wanted to name a boy Wesley, but Wes She**** sounds weird so we used it as a middle name. :) My bro-in-law is named Westley and that's pretty cool too, I think. Our girl names are getting pretty wishful, so feel free: Amelia (shortened to Millie, it's a family name that's been shortened to Amy and Millie over the last 100 yrs), Sylvia, Arianne. I've always loved Hazel too. For boys I love Gavin, Liam, and other European/Irish names. (I can't think of anymore now.) I'd love to chat names with you anytime, so just let me know when you need to empty your brain so you don't go nuts! :D Good luck!

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  6. I love names, but I stick with simple. I don't like to go too crazy. I'm not sure what my naming style is, but Ian and Kenya came about with the pure love of the names. This third child has been much more difficult. Brian vetoed my favorites and I his, so it took us a while to come to a conclusion.

    I like Jason, Jace, Jacob, Landon and he liked Ryan, Rylan, Chance (can you say "Here boy"), Kyle.

    We finally decided we liked a name we could both agree on: Trae David. Who knows, it may change before we have him, but for now that's what we like. :)

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  7. What a fun, fun post!! I may not be on my "A" game with this comment though, because right now my boys are screaming at me to "find them" because they have hidden themselves when I said I needed to give them haircuts. The logic in that, don't worry....there is none. For when I do find them, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth because it actually will be time for said haircuts. Soooo, my name additions right now are Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber. There now, I feel better. I'll come back when I have the warm, mothering feeling that comes with picking out a name for your unborn child. Let's just hope they don't follow in their cousins' footsteps because I might reeeeallly be suggesting Dumb and Dumber...

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  8. Steph cracks me up! I wrote a big long response yesterday and it apparently never published and now I'm too lazy to write much more. Let's just say I agree with you on a lot of stuff, I don't like things that are obviously creative, I don't like taking a normal name and trying to make it "special" by spelling it differently, and I think nature names such as "Gravity" are weird. (Yes, I saw this as a real name suggestion in Parents magazine).

    I seem to like traditional, classic names and don't really seem to mind if they are popular or not. If I like it I use it.

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  9. I have found that my generation, those who grew up in the 60's and 70's have very "creative" names. Some a bit to creative I must say.
    Aubrey was from the rock group Bread, Dallin from Dallin H. Oaks, and KeLei came from a neighbor who was named after a cat from a cat show. My mom was always wondering what I was going to name my children. Had Keys been a boy we would have name her Denzil Reese, after me and my husbands best friends in college. consequently she was glad she was a girl.
    I loved the name Kjaereste, it's Norwegian for love, but I couldn't go for naming my child love. plus people would have massacred such a pretty name. pronounced share es tee.
    I've never been much for the traditional names, took me some time to get use to Lillian.
    I like Bentley, Aspen, Xandra, Zander. different names but easy to pronounce. I really think the name needs to fit the child. Names like moon unit, Dweezil, peek a boo, and Soleil Moon are a little to out there for me.
    whatever the name, the child needs to be happy with their name. So far my kids haven't complained.

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  10. Personally, I adore your kids names. I agree with you on pretty much all of your naming opinions. We were this || close to naming our Phoebe Scarlett, actually. But Phoebe is Phoebe. It fits her. And we were seriously so close to using Vera as Phoebe's middle name but went with Elva (Grandma Lifferth's middle name) instead. I still love that name and if you use Vera before I get another chance, I just might cry. Not to detract you from the name or anything. It's beautiful.

    The one drawback of Phoebe's name is that I get the impression that people think the creators of "Friends" made up the name, because I've been asked many times if I liked that show. I still love her name.

    One name that we can't use but I love is Norah. After being Bridgett Jones, I just can't bring myself to name someone Norah Jones.

    Also, I knew a girl whose name was: Alison Wonder Landes. She went by Ali. I would too.

    One thing I don't understand about names is mixing names. I just read a parenting magazine article that talked all about it. Like Lilliana and Ella, then changing it to Elliana. Or Rene and Esme and making it Renesmee. (I guess that is from Twilight. I don't know. I've never read it.) It just makes things confusing.

    Anyway, totally random. But props to you for liking good names.

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