We in the world of naming often blithely declare, “your baby, you choose the name.” It makes sense, right? I mean … the sleepless nights, the countless diapers, the tears on the first day of school (oh wait, that was me), the coaxing to take just three more bites, the countless miles driving to sports practice and scouts and music lessons, and … well, yeah. Of course, the parents choose the name.
But if you’re lucky enough to have loved ones in it with you – and if you’re raising a child, oh, how I hope that you do – then you know that this isn’t some epic one-woman solo flight. If we rely on the strong embrace of our community when it’s all too much, either in the ordinary dailiness, or in the truly tragic moments? When we have them there to celebrate the milestones and the victories? Then maybe there’s something to be said for taking kind and thoughtful advice on names from the members of our team.
And so I’m intrigued by this couple who let their family veto their top name choice – Becker – and substitute a new one instead – Parker. It sounds bananas, but then … this is their third kiddo. Maybe that’s the moment that you decide your extended family really should have some input, because they’re such a big part of your kids’ lives?
Maybe I’m much too selfish to ever go that route, but I wonder if there’s wisdom to it? Have you ever consulted loved ones about your child’s name? Like really asked, not just looked for a stamp of approval after the choice is made?
Elsewhere online:
Sometimes, the Mystery Monday names at the Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources just absolutely grab me. If you’ve never read through the DMNES, well, clear your calendar. And you’re welcome. It’s both scholarly and addictive. Sometimes it affirms what I think I know about language, and sometimes it proves me utterly wrong. They post Mystery Monday names on their blog, too – names they find in records, but can’t explain. Yet. This week’s entry really grabbed me: Josiere. It appears in the register of a Walloon church in Canterbury in the late 1500s. Names never cease to surprise.
Apple gets a lot of flack, but fruit names can be pretty awesome. Ava to Zeke has a deep dive into all the deliciousness here. I’m not sold on Quince, but Mirabelle? Yes, please!
For all the talk of names on kindergarten class lists, this might be the first piece I’ve seen on how names are changing at college. Naturally, the names reflect the student bodies of the institutions they attend. All kinds of fascinating. And I very much want to visit the campus of California’s Soka University, where the only name to repeat among their incoming freshmen class is Haruka.
I so want to say your name correctly. True story: I recently realized I’d been mispronouncing the name of the new girl in my daughter’s school for an entire year. She was too polite or too shy to correct me, and her father let it go, too. It was another kid who said, “Oh wait, Mrs. Sandel, do you mean NamePronouncedCorrectly?” And so I appreciate this column about exactly this struggle, found via Clare’s marvelous Scoop.it page, Name News. People deserve to be called what they want to be called, and I’m happy to make the effort.
Duana praises portmanteau surnames, and I am nodding my head along to everything she says. We often avoid making naming choices because we worry they’ll cause confusion in the future. But we really can’t predict how these things will play out. What we do know is what feels right to us at the moment we’re making our choices.
That’s all for this week. As always, thank you for reading – and have a great week!
Image by Alina Kuptsova from Pixabay
Speaking of college names, I recently finished a part time job working at a university bookstore. As part of that I had to look at student I.D.s. I wish I was able to mark down the names I saw. There were a lot of Coles, Joshuas, Emmas, and Madisons. Two that really stuck out to me were Aixa (which google tells me is a version of Aisha) and Rocket (which is very jarring to see on an almost adult man).
My sister and brother-in-law have kept the names for their kids (all 10 of them!) private until birth or adoption — with one exception, where my sister shared with me a girl’s name they were considering for their 3rd child, to get my professional onomast opinion. I came back and flat-out vetoed it — if you have a surname that cannot-be-spelled-from-hearing-it-alone AND cannot-be-pronounced-from-spelling-alone, the given names need to be something where people have a chance at at least one of these, and this given name was NOT one. Thankfully, that kid turned out to be a boy. 🙂 And for the next girl, they used the nickname form of the name they’d been considering, which I approve of whole-heartedly.
[And glad you liked Josiere — isn’t it pretty?!]
I don’t think you should ask the audience because then it’s like “Well my mum loved Grant but my best friend hated Grant but my best friend loved Luke but my brother brought up this mean person named Luke we used to go to school with” and honestly you could go in circles and circles with that. Also people don’t necessarily have the purest intentions “Does my sister hate the name Josiah or does she want to name her future son Josiah?”. I do however think you should phone a friend and I think that friend is either you , swistle , the name sage or sancta nomia.