What did you (or would you!) name your kids, and why?

[Dingleberry]

My son is William Stevenson: we just liked Will, and my name is Steve, so "Steven's son" = "Stevenson." However, the boy is commonly referred to by my gaming group as "Zoltan the Destroyer."

We have a second boy coming in two months; we have a list of potentials, but my wife and I strongly believe that you shouldn't finally decide the name until you've seen the child. We recently got the old baby name book out again and were surprised to see that "William" wasn't even on the short list for our firstborn.

 

[Tiberius]

I'm partial to Cassandra should I ever have a daughter. I'd just have to remember to listen to her if she became a priestess of Apollo. Also to warn her about guys named Agamemnon. They never turn out well.

 

[Treebore]

Rhiannon, because it is a good welsh name, and is the title of a great song.

Michelle as her middle name because that is my wife's church name.

Bran, because it means Raven. Not Brandon, because that means little raven, at least for the welsh.

Roderick as his middle name because that was my wifes Grandfathers name, the one I would agree to, anyways.

Michael Patrick, because we decided to be a little more conventional and we like the Saints that have those names. Plus they have cool alternative/old meanings.

 

[Nyaricus]

You're my hero, Nyaricus. Well, for about the next thirty second at least.

A word of advice: If you name you kid Donald, make sure they they *like* the comparison to Donald Duck *before* they set foot in school. That, or just call 'em Don from when they are little. I was in grade 6 before I finally got over this and embraced my fowl heritage, thanks to my cousin.

So, your name is Donald then? Well, my grandfather on my mothers' side can beat that: his name was Donald Macdonald. I have no idea how much he must've been heckled in school with that (or what his parents were thinking!) but in any case, I think the nick-name DonDon has a certain ring to it, doin't you? (I have no idea if he was nick-named this, but still).

Also, what is "no plant" rule with Rowan? I must be missing something.

In my preamble, I said for choosing my childrens' names (when I get there!) that I wouldn't name them after plants. I like the name Rowan, however, which means "rugged" and/or "reh-haired" (it's a hardy tree with red berries, see here: link) and it sounds similar to, but not the same as, my name - which is nice.

cheers,
--N

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I wanted a conventional name for my son. No name doodling with frakked up spellings either.

We named our son Christopher. Why, well, it's my middle name. Plus, we gave my son my father's first name as his middle name, Stanton.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I wanted a conventional name for my son. No name doodling with frakked up spellings either.

We named our son Christopher. Why, well, it's my middle name. Plus, we gave my son my father's first name as his middle name, Stanton.

How the heck do you pronounce your last name anyway?!

 

[Fiery James]

I've got two girls, Amy Shannon and Erin Keely.

We went with Amy and Erin 'cause my last name is Bell, and anything really fancy or exotic just looked extra odd next to something as simple as "Bell". Also, we wanted short names for them so that they could (in theory) learn to spell their names fairly quickly and not have to spend 15 minutes with a million letters. (That worked out well! When they started learning their names and printing at daycare, they'd have to sign in every morning, and they could do it in a minute, where some of the other kids with the 37-letter names would take 10 minutes and use up the entire page...)

We went with Shannon and Keely 'cause we like to pretend we're Irish.

I was named after my father, and my only caution is that it does lead to a lot of odd telephone calls and screwed up mail (and, if you had my father... bad credit for you!)

- James

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

How the heck do you pronounce your last name anyway?!

It's been mispronounced my entire life and I've gotten used to every different way. I just resigned myself early on. It was fun during my high school track career as I stood at the starting blocks when we traveled to another school for the event. The announcer would always mangle it in interesting ways. In high school I was called "Anderson" so many time it was almost expected, for some reason people at University get it correct almost all the time. Very interesting.

We don't even know how our Norwegian ancestors pronouced it for certain.

So more or less we just Midwestern-ized it. We tell people the 'd' is silent, everything else is intuitively pronounced. We ourselved even bounce between two sounds for the 'A'. As in how an American would pronounce 'Anderson', or alternatively as one pronounces 'annul'. In both cases we put the emphasis on the first syllable always but always respond to someone mangling it every way possible.

A conventional last name is not something I had a choice to bestow on my son.

 

[megamania]

I'm a believer that names direct / influence us in some way. I thought about the most popular and smartest kids in my school and came up with a list. My wife also. As it turns out, several names over lapped-

Timothy and Kathy

Tim's middle name is based off of wife's dad's name- Clifton.


Cathy's was just a nice ring to it-

Timothy Clifton Farrell and Kathy Ann Farrell

 

[megamania]

If my husband truly got to pick names he has joked for years that our kids would be named: Fire, Skye, Grave & Wind (among others). Why, you ask? Because our last name is Walker.

If my father had named me I would be known as Apollo or Eagle. I was born during the Moon landing (July 23, 1969).

Instead I was named after the country my grandfather was born in and their national saint-

Andrew Scot

Yes- 1 "T" as in Scotland.