Wednesday, February 01, 2006

What's in a name?

I'm looking around my living room for something to blog about.

Kiss Me Kate. No, sends the wrong message. Kiss Me Cade? Ew. Who would name their child Cade? And have I mentioned I'm biased against all names beginning with C? Chad, Corey, Cade, Kyle. Okay. I know Kyle doesn't start with a C. But Boyfriend 1's name is in there, along with all his brothers. And I strongly dislike all of those names. Except Corey. Corey for a girl, after Corey Flood in Say Anything. Not that I would never name a child after a movie character. A book character, that's a separate issue. I think all my children should have literary names. The list right now is Beatrice (Much Ado about Nothing), Bailey (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), and Elizabeth (which is my nom de plume as well as my middle name--so does it still count as a nom de plume?). Apparently I'm having only girls, no man child. (Congrats to the Fobs, by the way.) All the male names I like have connections to men in my life and I have a feeling that any man I marry would have issues with me naming a son after another man (not related). Wouldn't you? (If you're a male. If you're not, feel free to reverse the situation and then proceed to tirade.) Hell, I'd have problems.

I just decided to add the name "Esme" to my girls list. Still no boy names. Except Gideon--which would be after a mentor/professor, so it's still weird.

I do like the idea of having a background to your name, rather than "Mom and Dad thought it was cute/liked it/did it to spite Grandma," which I believe is the reason for the flood of Tiffanys and Tiffanis and Brittanys, Brittneys, and Brittanis I went to high school with. My mother feels the same way--all of our names are laden with meaning and history. This feeling, however, spills over to how she feels about her yet-to-be-born grandchildren (at the rate I'm going, they're going to be a long time coming. Good thing there's LaLa and Jeremiah, and Sven and his waiting girlfriend. And then there's the Jester who at 15 has enough dates lined up once he's turned 16 to keep him busy for a year. That's only about 5-1/2 years before he marries one of them and makes Mom happy). At the top of her list is "Riley," which I insist is a dog's name. She hates the name "Beatrice"--"Bailey" and "Elizabeth" are okay. Maybe I should add Brunhilda to the list so that Beatrice suddenly won't seem so bad.

6 comments:

FoxyJ said...

I really, really don't like the name Riley, or any other names that are more "trendy". I also think that a name has got to have some deeper meaning to it. And, I think that grandparents should have no say in what their grandchildren are named. My parents are still going for Ruttiger, mainly just because years ago they decided that they would pay $500 to one of us to name our child that. I just told my dad that we're going to see how big our tax return is, and then we'll talk.

B.G. Christensen said...

Thanks for the congrats, eg. What do you think of Timothy or Thomas or Theodore or Efraim or Enoch or Christian? Or, for that case, Ruttiger?

ambrosia ananas said...

I like the name Beatrice because I worked with this fantastic, spunky little lady named Beatrice at McDonald's when I was in high school.

One of my favorite McMemories is of Beatrice, a frail woman with diabetes, a Pacemaker, and poodle-tight gray curls, and Tio, a big, barrel-chested Argentine of about Beatrice's age. She didn't speak a word of Spanish, and Tio spoke no English, and they'd frequently argue good naturedly, with Beatrice shaking her finger and demanding that Tio do this, and do it right now. Tio would answer in low, booming Spanish, remonstrating her for her nagging, and shaking his finger back at her.

Beatrice died one day, and I couldn't go to her funeral because I had to work. So we missed the funeral and tried not to cry as we served up the cheeseburgers.

Aislin said...

Cheers for Beatrice. A fairly important consideration, however, is whether you could stand her being called "Bea." And there is Maude Bailey to be considered. I completely approve the use of the last name, rather than the first. On general aesthetic principles.

Tolkien Boy said...

The point of this post is that you hate me and everything I represent, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

my mom hated the name we chose. then my sister told me that only after all her moms (in-law and step) hated a name, that it was the right name.

they have a daughter named jane austin. good thing the last name is an "in". my dad thought that was some horrible thing. they call her janey. i love jane, and i love jane austen, so i love jane austin too.

and i like your blogs.

 

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