<p>mathmom–I’m sure Aunt Hattie is sad that her name wasn’t used.</p>
<p>Well, my boys would have been Elizabeth Marie (and would have been called Beth Marie - from Little Women - and both our moms are Marie, so that was easy) had they had that x chromosome.</p>
<p>Maybe a granddaughter.</p>
<p>Same number of names for each - first, middle, last… And none of them are gender neutral.</p>
<p>I use my original middle name instead of my maiden name as my “married middle” name, because both my last names (maiden and married) start with an H and are of Germanic derivation, and it sounded too German using both those.</p>
<p>Still (mildly) mourning Beth Marie.
:-)</p>
<p>I have two girls, who would have been named Dale and Payne if they were boys. I also liked the name Kellen for a boy, but H shot that down…since I don’t think his brother will ever get married the surname ends with his generation (at least the American branch, but there are male cousins in the UK)</p>
<p>Bengal - Somewhere in Time is the BEST movie!! I watched it being filmed on Mackinac Island while on a 4-H exchange…</p>
<p>Rachacha – what a fun memory for you! Yes, it is a good movie, and a bit similar to a couple of my favorites – Timeline and Frequency.</p>
<p>kid #2: My son was doing some assignment on names the other day and asked what his name would have been if he had been a girl. When I told him it would have been “Jocelyn Rae,” he said, “Cool.” I was happy to have his approval. Maybe he can use that name someday.</p>
<p>kid #1: if my daughter had been a boy, we would have named her Bronx Mowgli.</p>
<p>mom2three, I agree - Beth Marie would be a good name for a granddaughter… Maybe she and little Jocelyn Rae can be friends.
;)</p>
<p>Rachacha - Kellen and Dale are great names!</p>
<p>My parents had names of for both genders picked out for me before I was born, and my brother ended up with my “male” name! </p>
<p>Also, a friend of mines mother was so convinced that he and his two brothers were going to be girls that she only picked out girls names. So she ended up with three boys named Randy, Jodi and Jami. Their youngest brother (Ryan) was named by his oldest brother who wanted another “R” name in the family. Interestingly enough the mother’s name is Billie.</p>
<p>If my son had been a girl, he would probably have been named Marianne, after my mother (although a final decision was never necessary, because we knew in advance). I’m afraid that none of the male versions would have worked. Mario? Not with our last name. Marian, like John Wayne’s real name? Nope. So we picked an entirely different name, although we did give him an “M” name (Michael) as his middle name. We wanted to use Mark, but that was my brother-in-law’s middle name, so it was taken. My son never, ever, uses his middle name anyway, so we might as well have just used “M”.</p>
<p>oldest twin D has a name that when spelled differently is male. At first she was going to be the boy derivitive if she had been born male but at some point during my pregnancy her boy name changed to something equally spunky and strong but totally different. </p>
<p>The other two had markedly different names picked depending upon their gender. Never found out the sex ahead of time. Always wanted that “Its a _________” surprise though my mother’s intuition called the sex of all three.</p>
<p>Ooh - fun thread!
My parents had planned to name me after an ancestor who was hung during the Salem witch trials. Our neighbor convinced them at the last minute that the idea was silly. My given name is pretty boring, and they still ended up giving me a boys’ middle name (Scott), but I like it better than Martha Allen…</p>
<p>My high school boyfriend had a first name, a middle name, a second middle name (not a family name) and a last name.</p>
<p>He went by his second middle name, I have no idea what his parents were thinking.</p>
<p>We had a boy’s name picked out and then had two girls. Both girls are incensed that we would even consider giving a child that particular boy’s name, so I guess they are glad they are girls.</p>
<p>I worked with someone once who went by his middle name because he didn’t have a first name – only a first initial. He had one of those hard to spell Polish names as a last name.</p>
<p>Mentioned this one before probably, but my H. ran into someone at a business deal who was a third-generation Egbert (first name). He admitted that he always disliked his name, but had nonetheless followed family tradition and named his son Egbert as well.</p>
<p>My mother is still disappointed that none of us named our daughters after her. Wynona is a nice name, it just didn’t strike us for our D’s, though.</p>
<p>My name was supposed to be Kevin David (dad’s name) K (my last name would’ve been my mom’s maiden name). But when I turned out to be a girl, they decided to give me the name Kate. Since my name would’ve been Kate Ka— (it’s a REALLY distinctive last name I’d prefer not to give away), they decided to give me my dad’s last name instead.</p>
<p>I kinda wish I would’ve had my mom’s last name, but it’s also the name of a beer so I have a feeling I would’ve gotten made fun of. But it’s a cool last name lol.</p>
<p>Don’t know what I would have been if I were a boy, but the girl’s name I was almost given was Ellen. Pretty name, and just as nice as my real one, I think.</p>
<p>We didn’t know the sex of our children before they were born, so we just had one of each ready to go. We ended up only needing one girl name, and when I think about the ones we didn’t use, I am glad we only had one girl! Or maybe our taste would have changed after child #1 anyway.</p>
<p>They all had middle names that they never used, but you have to do it to recognize the relatives you want to honor/remember.</p>
<p>I have known people who had one name picked out that works for either sex. Saves a lot of trouble and arguing.</p>
<p>Taylor
Jamie
Reagan</p>
<p>etc.</p>
<p>^^ha ha lspf72…I suggested Wynona for a granddaughter because it is an American Indian name that means first born daughter and goes very nicely with their last name. No way! They gave her her mother’s middle name which she has changed.</p>
<p>Lucky you, to have grandchildren already :)!</p>
<p>I would have been (my dad’s name) IV had I been a boy–it was a precondition of my father marrying my mother that he be allowed to pass on his name, even though my mom is Jewish and traditionally wouldn’t name after a living relative. However, he’d changed his mind about keeping that tradition going by the time my brother was born, so he’s not IV either!</p>
<p>Would have been kind of interesting to be “the fourth,” but the middle name that comes along with it is truly awful, so I’m glad to have dodged that bullet.</p>
<p>Not sure if more than one middle name comes from a certain region…Both my sons have the basic first, middle and last name. I took my husband’s last name. Oldest son has husband’s first name as his middle name. S2 we couldn’t agree on a name so I named him after MY favorite baseball player and local racecar driver.
If they were girls #1 would’ve been Shannon Marie (Marie being my MIL first name) and #2 would’ve been Kimberliane.</p>
<p>Off the OT, but my vote for unusual name of the week goes to Plaxico Burress, the football player here in NY who recently shot himself in the leg. Every time I hear his name it makes me think of an oil or pharmaceutical company…!</p>
<p>I know I’ve eaten at Plaxico Mexican Restaurant (although it may have been Tampico, now that I think about it).</p>
<p>My father insisted on that old fashioned naming technique of using the first names of the paternal grandfathers (for a boy) and paternal grandmothers (for a girl). I was the oldest and escaped that edict. How? I was born prematurely and was in the hospital for the first month of my life. I guess they didn’t want to “waste” the name on a baby that might not survive. So my mother got to name me whatever she wanted (which turned out to be a very popular name during that time).</p>
<p>My sister got stuck with “Lillian” and has never let me forget her sacrifice–she ended up taking a bullet that was aimed for me.</p>