Have you given your kids fantasy names?

[Elf Witch]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!

Thank You

 

[prosfilaes]

A friend of mine named her daughter Alora after the baby in Willow.

I'll add my voice to those who have problems with common names. There's been constant confusions all my life with there always being multiple Davids no matter where I go.

Frankly, what people will like and dislike in their later life is a little unpredictable. I've got a certain resentment towards my name due to my feelings about the oriental king that first held it, but I don't know how my parents could have foreseen that.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Incidentally, our youngest son is named "Logan"

Interestingly, I just heard on the radio that Logan is one of the 10 most popular names to give to boys this year. I guess a lot of guys are closet X-men fans. I'm sure there's a REAL reason for the popularity, but you likely dont have to worry about kids being saddled with the name, there'll be tons of them.

 

[Contrarian]

Interestingly, I just heard on the radio that Logan is one of the 10 most popular names to give to boys this year. I guess a lot of guys are closet X-men fans. I'm sure there's a REAL reason for the popularity, but you likely dont have to worry about kids being saddled with the name, there'll be tons of them.

The Social Security Administration has a page where you can look up the top 1000 baby names (in the U.S.) by year. They don't have 2006 numbers up yet, but there's a script that shows the up-and-down over time for individual names.

None of the purely fantasy names are common enough to show up those numbers, but "Logan" is. According to the SSA, Logan barely made the top 1000 until 1976 (The new X-Men debuted in 1975, by the way), when it moved from spot 934 to 790. As of 2005, it's #26. I'm not saying that's proof, but it is kinda weird.

A few other "real" names that show suspicious increases in popularity: "Willow", "Xander", and "Trinity". (Other "Matrix" names aren't popular enough for the top 1000, but they exist!)

 

[lukelightning]

"SheeTa'haid" reminds me of a name my sister saw in college. I won't pass the filters on this board. It's pronounced "shih-THEDE", but spelled "Sh*thead". I have a feeling her parents were iliterate or somehow didn't read her birth cirtificate after having someone else write that down.

You do know that's an urban legend and your sister was, in fact, telling a tale. Check Snopes.com for a debunking of that.

I have a friend who says he knew that exact same girl, at a different college. Unless there is one in every friggin' college in the US, you know it's gotta be a legend.

I'm a librarian and sign people up for computers. I can tell you that there is not a name in the world that would surprise me any more. Airedale, PregNancy, SheeTa'haid (I'm SERIOUS) and more have passed through our library's doors.

I bet you are the same guy who's cousin woke up in a bathtub of ice, missing his kidney, and also knew a nurse who was in the room when they removed the gerbil from Richard Gere's butt.

If this is a sign in sheet, people are likely to write fake names. Mike Hunt...has anyone seen Mike Hunt?

When I was in medical school, a young mother, spying the contents of her tray of 'clear liquids', named her newborn twin sons Oranjello and Lemonjello.

Did you go to the same medical school that performed the de-gerbilling?

Snopes.com debunks these name legends.

 

[lukelightning]

I was almost able to sneak in Luke. My wife and religious father-in-law were like "oh like from the Bible". I grinned and said yes then the wife tattled on me and said really loudly "oh no! He wants to so he can say "Luke! I am your father"

I get "Luke, I am your father" all the time. I just pretend I have no idea what they are talking about. "Star Wars? Is that something like Dancing with the Stars?"

 

[billd91]

Seriously, it's the first time I hear that name for a human instead of of a mythical creature. On the other hand, it's better than some of the other critters that fill our fairytale books, like cockatrice, basilisk, cyclops. I wonder whether there are any children called Unicorn. At least Griffin sounds like a normal name.

I guess you could smuggle Hydra under the radar, too.

This rather underlines some of the comments I made earlier. Just because you've never heard of the name being used, that doesn't mean it's not without an appropriate history. My son even has a namesake (actor Griffin Dunne, born in 1955) and the name is well known in Wales (as a variation of Griffith).

And, believe it or not, Hydra does show up as a name among girls... according to baby name sites on the web.

 

[Merkuri]

You do know that's an urban legend and your sister was, in fact, telling a tale. Check Snopes.com for a debunking of that.

I have a friend who says he knew that exact same girl, at a different college. Unless there is one in every friggin' college in the US, you know it's gotta be a legend.

Well I'll be... I'm not usually pulled in by stuff like that, and neither is my sister. We both read Snopes all the time. Thanks for pointing it out.

Regarding Logan being a popular name, it's very common for baby names to reflect popular actors or characters from that year's movies. I believe I'm a victim of Nicole Kidman's sucess.

 

[solkan_uk]

One of my players named his first son Alexander and the second son Arthur. Another player named his daughter Raven.
Anyone else?

Now maybe they're rare in America, but I know several people with Arthur and Alexander as names (my middle name's Alexander) and I did know a Raven at one point...
My only daughter is called Alexia Victoria Mercer - picked in part because I loved playing the Witchfire Trilogy for Iron Kingdoms, and in part because it's a slightly archaic but still acceptable name.
Working in an IT department you get to see all sorts of usernames. Though few are fantasy related... I particularly like Wayne Ankers...

 

[occam]

My oldest daughter's name is Aenea, named in part after the Dan Simmons character.

I had a friend in college whose middle name was Goldberry. From what I understand, her parents were hippies in the '60s, and apparently very into Tolkien.

Not fantasy-related, but a friend of mine heard a father calling his son at a Gas Pipe in Texas like so: "Harley David? Son, get over here!"

I used to have a manager named Jim Kirk. He was born long before Star Trek ever came out, and it annoyed him to no end that his name had been hijacked by the popular culture. Even a veiled reference to the starship captain was almost a firing offense.

Working in an IT department you get to see all sorts of usernames. Though few are fantasy related... I particularly like Wayne Ankers...

One of the other UNIX admins on my team is named Ted Estes. The username standard is first initial, last name...