On the history of the Name Game
The (New and Improved) Name Game
This misplaced topic was the first place I posted suggested names for my daughter.
It's a bit of the story after that.
Originally, Tigger (the mother) chose to leave the naming process to me, but "Grace Katherine", my longstanding choice for a daughter, grated on her nerves somehow. When she used the phrase,
You can save it for a child you want, I lost my temper and pulled the name off the table. She has a dubious gift for speaking her mind according to the worst possible combination of words. She did not mean it the way it sounds, but you know ... if it's that big a deal then I'm not even going to argue.
So she handed me a copy of Lansky's
35,000 Baby Names and I sat there putting together the list that appears in the aforementioned topic.
That the family has reacted poorly is an understatement.
Tigger does not like my first choice,
Najam Nadira because she is somehow too embarrassed to attempt to pronounce the simple word
NA-jam or
NA-zham.
Back to the drawing board.
And the decision is now almost completely removed from my hands.
Everybody seems counting on the idiots who will make fun of various names. Even Tigger now wants to give her a "normal name" because if the child's name "stands out too much" people will be cruel.
You know? I
refuse to bow to those people. Why don't I just get the Top Ten Child Names for Girls list from the end of last year and take a poll of my family on which name they'd like. I just remember being one of four people in my grade with my name when I was in sixth grade, which wasn't bad considering we had about fifteen Jennifer's, a horde of Michelle's, and a half-dozen Sean's. So I'm not real anxious to name my child Jessica Christina or something utterly common. In addition, Tigger, who wants a "normal" name, is now advocating Soap Opera names, which is so far on my "absolutely not" list that I'm starting to question her fitness as a mother. (Seriously, but the need to name her daughter "Greenleigh" because it's in her favorite soap is disturbing and merely the latest in a series of minor offenses which tells me that her heart, unfortunately, is not really in it.)
But the list:
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Najam Nadira: from the Arabic:
rare star or
precious star.
•
Ceres Ananda: from the Roman and the Hindu, approx.
abundant bliss (Ceres was a goddess of abundance, fertility, and, of course, farming.)
•
Tifareth Viridis: adapted from Hebrew and Latin--
green beauty.
•
Emma Cleyre: from Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre, anarchist writers.
•
Grace Katherine: my original choice, which has stood for ... almost twelve years. Now shot down for reasons unclear to me. Grace is my maternal grandmother's name, Katherine an arbitrary name that equals "Katie".
•
Ellie Grace: my own mother's suggestion. Either she doesn't realize that she's recommending that I name the child after her ("Ellie" is a derivative of my mother's middle name) or she really thinks I'm that stupid. There is a feminine derivative of my father's names, but I'm not employing those either.
•
Kamea Maya: I had been looking for the simple word "Kame" (KAH-may), but it didn't turn up in Lansky. But, in seeing Kamea, I had the wicked notion of naming my daughter Kamea Maya. I can't remember exactly what these names mean, but I do remember being happy that I was satisfied with the definitions. In addition, the wicked part is that the name intentionally mimicks
Kamehameha, namely a Hawaiian warrior-king, but in this case a wink and nod to
Dragonball. Given that I've ruled out TV names, I don't expect this one to hold up. But I'm enchanted with the rhythm of it.
•
Rhythm Erthe: the only note here is that the spelling of "Erthe" comes from an old poem in early English that plays on five definitions of the term "earth". It's not likely, but it's a name I'm actually "threatening" to put my foot down on if people don't stop telling me to give her a "normal" name.
I mean, my name is Brian. My best friends anywhere is John, Corrie, and Mo. My brother is named Drew. The mother of my child is named Jennifer. My parents have common names, Tigger's (Jennifer) parents have common names. Looking through the family, there are now at least three Jim's, a David, a Daniel, a Heidi, a Laurie, a Sue, a Chris (female), a Jeff ... I mean, Tigger has even suggested "Nicole", which name I object to on two grounds; (A) it's common, (B) we both, in our history together, slept with Nicole. (I mean, come
on ....) A bunch of people I know have started to call each other random names in order to break the monotony: there's The Goat (a friend of a friend), Doctor Nick, Wiz, J-Love, A-B-A (Abie-ay), Dragon, Jhereg (despite my Sciforums handle, that's me), Coriander, Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, Alley Cat, and "Lester" (don't ask, it's a
long story).
My fantasy football league? Brian, Drew, Chris, Brandon, Abe, Scott, Trevor, Dave, Tony, Sharon. (Sharon has no funny nickname yet, I don't know if Chris has one, and Scott's pet name comes from another social circle with which I am not acquainted.)
We even have a "Slim Shady" in our midst (Bob).
Point being, people eventually get tired of their names. We all trade them in at some point for something more interesting. I'm not talking about the affectionate "honey" or "babe" or anything like that. I'm talking about responding to different words than your name as if they were your name.
And so, with a glut of common names in my life, and a trend toward re-identification, it seems to me that one of the things I can do is to give my child a distinguished name.
I hope to name my child with words that have some meaning in general, strong meaning to me, and are distinguished and distinguishing in their nature.
In the long run I've got nothing against any name. But I don't want to name my child Britney Beyonce, you know? Sadly, people are pushing for "normal" names.
And if that happens, and if my child ever asks me why we named her what we did, I will honestly tell her that I wasn't allowed to give her a different name.
Heck, that's probably more than you or anyone else cared to know, but there you go. And that's just the short form.
thanx,
Tiassa
