<p>I read my D’s name in a magazine article about two women who had their own design firm with two old-fashioned girl’s names combined for their business name. Both women had all boys and those were their favorite girl names. </p>
<p>I loved one of the names, an old Southern name, and was lucky enough to get to use it. However it is just one vowel sound away from a very popular girl’s name in the 80s, and my D has had trouble with people mispronouncing her name her whole life! They kept calling her name out wrong at our pediatrician’s office (for years!), and finally I said, “Look, she has been coming here her whole life and you are still calling out the wrong name. Write down the correct pronunciation on the outside of the chart, please!”</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have used that name if I had known what an issue it would be for her.</p>
<p>First name: His mom’s maiden name. Decided on almost instantly.
Middle name: Not settled until the night he was born, during a big rainstorm (Noah).</p>
<p>How about the guy who won American Idol - Phil Phillips? What were his parents thinking? I guess I could ask the same thing of Chris Christie’s parents.</p>
<p>It may also be worth checking to make sure that the name does not mean anything derogatory or insulting in any other language. For example, English speakers might get the wrong impression with respect to Vietnamese boys named to be heroic or lucky, or Vietnamese girls named for jade.</p>
<p>I have known a Mark Clark, and twins named Ronnie and Bonnie (with a brother named Donnie). </p>
<p>It’s also important to point out that one must consider carefully the benefits of changing one’s name upon marriage. I have a friend who had a boring last name but kept it over her husband’s much more glamorous name because Misty Thomas sounded a lot less like an exotic dancer than Misty Rivoire. The other lesson in this is to know the risks of giving your child a name that ends in “y.”</p>
<p>First names had to have 3 or more syllables, middle name 1 syllable. Combined with our 2 syllable VERY common last name, the result is somewhat musical and lilting (in a good way). For our first child, DH and I went through 3 baby name books with highlighters - yellow for him, blue for me. The goal was to have a list of “green” names to discuss. Result - 1 girl’s name and 1 boy’s name in green. I got to pick the middle name, and I selected Hope for D1. First name is classic but not old fashioned.</p>
<p>For D2, DH just wanted veto power (maybe he didn’t want to go through the books again!). I selected the name of a dear friend from childhood who passed away very young. Another classic but less common name. DH was responsible for the middle name. He made up a list and took it to work. Had everyone in the office vote and came back with 2 top contenders - Grace and Leigh. I think G names are harsh sounding so we picked Leigh.</p>
<p>Nice thing is, both girls have dopplegangers with same first and last names in our area. Their middle names are unusual enough (in use or spelling) to keep confusion to a minimum.</p>
<p>I come from a family of four sisters…our names are pretty typical except mine , which is similar to a more common name , which makes for most people who meet me, mispronouncing my name</p>
<p>Our middle names are the typical go to names of the 50’s and 60’s. My sister who is closest to me has the middle name Lou , but her first name isn’t Mary or Betty…glad it’s her name and not mine , but she loves it !</p>
<p>My middle name is the month I was born in…June and my mother admitted to me that she chose it because she was running out of names :D</p>
<p>Both my husband and I have names that are either mispronounced or in case , shortened . Why do people assume that a shortened version of the name is acceptable ?
As in " Hi . my name is Richard " followed by " Nice to meet you , Rick "…not my husband’s name , but it is pretty much the same . Drives us all crazy</p>
<p>^ I try to go with the idea that if someone introduces himself as “hi my name is Douglas” I would then try to remember to use Douglas. If I used Douglas and then he said “please, Doug” then I could use the more familiar form. </p>
<p>Some people either don’t use a nickname as an adult or only a few people they know use it. Throughout my life, only a few people have ever called me Lindy. Even H doesn’t. A few people have called me Lin, but I don’t really care for it. One lover called me Linda Lou, even though that’s not my name. He got a pass ;).</p>
<p>I work with an Edmond who does NOT want to be called Ed and a Drew whose real name is James, and I know several people who can identify a caller as a telemarketer because they address them by one name (“Barbara”) when in everyday life they go by another (“Sandy”).</p>
<p>We started in a similar place. We wanted to give our kids first names that were dactyls. (Anybody remember scansion from English–or better, Latin–poetry? A dactyl goes LONG-short-short.) We thought it would sound good with our family name, which is a spondee (long-long). We worked at that for a little while, until we realized that SEN-a-tor was a dactyl, as was MILL-ion-aire. Then we just went completely off the rails. </p>
<p>Our kids are lucky we didn’t name them Subaru or Sudafed.</p>
<p>^Never realized both my kids’ names were dactyls! We wanted 3-syllable first names, followed by 2-syllable middle and last names. They have a certain gravitas. :)</p>
<p>Cartera–I also wanted to name a daughter Caitlin because of Dylan Thomas’s wife. It was still kind of unusual when D was born in 82, though in the end we didn’t use it. But where did that flood of Katelyns come from since then??? </p>
<p>My D ended up with a first name that is vaguely Irish to go with her last name (more common in America than Ireland, but Irish-based). I loved the name since i was there when I was young (not Erin.) Her middle name is mine–and my brother’s, mother’s, grandfather’s, cousin’s, uncle’s, cousin’s kid’s ,etc back to the revolutionary soldiers from my family who had it.</p>
<p>My S’s is my H’s middle name (I liked but didn’t love it, but the name I liked better was mercilessly made fun of by MIL–yes, don’t tell people ahead of time–and this one rhymes with it; I really love it now.) His middle name was my dad’s who died when I was young. He was Jewish but happened to have an Irish sounding name, so it all goes together well.</p>
<p>I didn’t do it on purpose, but discovered S’s full name has the same number of syllables as “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.” </p>
<p>Our last name is long and unusual. Most people won’t even attempt to pronounce. Our children have common first names so they don’t have to spell them too.</p>
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