View Full Version : Naming children, pets, etc.
Baby names have been on my mind lately, as I am pregnant, and I always think it's interesting to hear why people choose the names they do for children, pets, even homes and boats. What was the process like for you? What names did you choose? Do you still like them? Is there a story behind the name or did you just like it?
My kids are Cheyenne, Isabella, James and Travis. My cat is named Moonshadow but we nearly always call him Shadow.
Cheyenne was a name Zach really liked and I had a really beautiful dream about Wyoming, so we went with it. Isabella's name came from a poster for the movie Nosferatu starring Isabelle Adjani. My sister, who had just found out she couldn't have more children, helped me name her. We decided Isabella flowed better with our last name. James is named after the coolest great uncle anyone ever had, Crazy Uncle Jim. Travis is named after a friend of Zach's. He was quite insistant and since I had put my foot down for Bella's name I let him have it. I like the name, but it was really Zach's idea.
Shadow came to me pre-husband and kids. His name was Moon, but my boyfriend at the time wanted to name him Shadow. The kitty followed me around all the time and I kept thinking of the lyrics from the song, "I'm being followed by a Moonshadow." That was it.
Names we are considering for the new baby are:
Boy:
Joseph Michael (my current favourite)
Colin Michael (Zach's current favourite)
Girl:
Charlotte Rose
Mary Alice (used as one name)
Siri Kathryn
Tell me your naming stories!
catherine
10-15-11, 11:06am
OK: Here's mine, and the theme is: My husband is a very nationalistic Scottish-American, so EVERYTHING we name has to have SOME Scottish element in it; ergo:
James Jr.: We wanted a "junior" so he was named after his dad
Ian: Obviously Scottish, we essentially stole the option from my brother-in-law to name any future children he has after him (he's Ian too, but hasn't had any children)
Cameron: My favorite name of all the kids--first thought of it when I saw a picture of Ronald Reagan's extended family and noted it was his nephew's name.
Brittany: OK, not Scottish, but came about when I wanted Elizabeth and my DH wanted Prestwick. We came to a stalemate. I borrowed a Baby Name book from my hospital roommate, made a list of all names I liked, and had DH pick from that list. He picked Brittany because it had "Britain" in it, kind of. Brittany was NOT the super trendy name it turned out to be, so that was my most disappointing pick. She now calls herself "Britt" which is a bit more sophisticated.
Dogs:
Laddie: Scottish MIL came up with that one. Also, my DD was in Lassie, so that was a take-off on that.
Nessie: After the Loch Ness Monster, which wound up being a great name for her because a) she's black and spooky looking and b) she LOVES to swim.
Stella, I love the names of your kids, so I'm sure you'll come up with something cool! The ones you've already mentioned are really neat
When my ex & I adopted our daughter in Guatemala, she was 22 months old and had been named by her birth mom, so we kept that name. In honor of her Godmother, we made her birth name, Mariana, her middle name, and gave her Rosa as her first name. She has gone by Mariana her whole life. We wanted to make sure she had a Latina name that could be Anglicized as she chose, so both names have that potential. In high schoolher good friends called her Mar, and still do. When she was little, we called her Marianita, and she shortened it to Mita when she first started talking, which is what I still call her. I love all her names! She's now married and a mom.
Float On
10-15-11, 11:32am
Our 1st son is Ira Weston. DH's father was Ira Wendell, and there go a lot of Ira W's back thru the line. Weston was a dear friend of DH's. We've always used his middle name and he hates it if anyone shortens it to Wes or West.
Our 2nd son was going to be James Easton, but while I was in labor I couldn't stop thinking about the name James being shortened to Jim or Jimmy and I dislike both of those names so for some reason I came up with Alex Avery. Alex says he wishes we gone with James Easton so I've told him that if he legally wants to change his name we can do that.
Never got to use our girl names but I find it funny that after we picked the first names for girls those names soon became very popular, even if we'd gone with them their middle names would of set them apart a bit; Madison Lyle and Hailey Kyle.
Pets:
Registered horse names are always a combination of their lines some I can remember: Fresh Air Hannah, Susie Pacific, Starbuck Bay Boy, others I can only remember their nicknames: Penny, Coco, Fred, Stone, Babe, Cribber, Red.
One cat I had we named in world geogrophy class: Zanzibar
Dogs: Female (I was 4 and asked what kind of dog is she, dad said she was a female beagle so the Female stuck), MaeMae, Molly the Colly, Surefoot SugarCreek Rosaletta Lee aka Rosie (only registered name I remember of any of the hunting dogs), Levi the Golden Retriever (my best dog ever), Tom and Jerri (we still have TomDog, the boys were apparently into the Tom and Jerry cartoons when the pups were dumped on my dad's road).
Currently my last two chickens are named Coon and Bait (because all the other chickens have been attacked by coons and dogs). I don't name the meat chickens, but if I did they'd be Baked, Fried, Stewed, Grilled, etc.......
iris lily
10-15-11, 12:30pm
OK: Here's mine, and the theme is: My husband is a very nationalistic Scottish-American, so EVERYTHING we name has to have SOME Scottish element in it...
I named my first cat that I got as an adult "Murdoch" for that reason.
My daughter's first and middle names came from much-loved family members. Her first name is a variation of that of my favorite aunt, who died at a young age but with whom I shared many travels. Her middle name, Louise, was that of my husband's grandmother, my maternal great-grandmother, and my paternal grandmother's aunt who sponsored her in the U.S. when she immigrated. All important women in our family.
My cats have had all sorts of names. Currently we have Tinkerbell and Sylvester - they both came from shelters with those names, and my daughter wanted to keep them. Previously we've had Astrid, Ruby, Kitty, Kiwi, Oskar. I like to give my cats people names that aren't very common (hence Astrid, Ruby, Oskar). Kiwi had bright green eyes. Kitty was a very beautiful, unusual tortoiseshell with strong red tabby stripes. I adopted her as a kitten and couldn't tell what her personality was until she'd been called Kitty too long to change it. Oskar was a hilarious cat. He knew his name very well and if you said it even in passing while he was asleep, he would swat his tail a few times. We used to try to trick him by saying similar words in the same intonation as his name - like ostrich, for instance.
Stella, it's funny you should mention Mary Alice as a possible name for your baby. We had a cat named Mary Alice when we first got married. I named it that because my husband kept saying he wanted to name a girl Mary Alice when and if we had kids. At the time I didn't like the name so I thought if I named the cat this he certainly wouldn't want to name a daughter after a cat! :0! I have since become fond of the name and think it's a fine name for a girl.
10 years later we named our daughter Caroline just because we loved the name. Still do!
Bastelmutti
10-15-11, 5:22pm
Both of our DDs' names are from my heritage. The root of DD1's name is the same as roots of words for wisdom, wise, wise person. Her middle name is my paternal grandmother's first name. DD2's first name is a name from my culture we liked, and her middle name has the same root as the word for good fortune. DH wanted them to have first and middle names from my side since they have his last name. Most of his family has fairly to very common names with a last name that is common enough that he meets people with his exact name.
We have a cat named Milo (I named him - he just seemed like a Milo) who knows his name. He turns in response. If he's resting, his ear twitches back when we say his name.
Miss Cellane
10-15-11, 5:23pm
My mother's best friend in college was named Mary Alice. Her nickname was M'Alice. Just a word of warning, there.
Bastelmutti
10-15-11, 5:23pm
I like to give my cats people names that aren't very common (hence Astrid, Ruby, Oskar).
My grandma did that, more or less - she had Paulina, Martin, and Melanie. My aunt continued the tradition with her cats!
IshbelRobertson
10-15-11, 5:29pm
Traditionally, in Scotland, children are given the names of earlier generations. The naming pattern goes something like: first son, named for paternal grandfather, first daughter, maternal grandmother, second son, maternal father, second daughter, paternal granny. If more children then named after brothers and sisters of the parents.
That's why I have my name and my children bear family names, which are basically traditional Scots names. It's hell if you are trying to learn your genealogy, though!
Mind you, in Scotland we have our fair share of Kylies and Britneys nowadays. I blame TV!
Our pets carry Scots names too - we have always had Scottish terriers, cairns, westies or Aberdeen (now called Scotties) - Hector, Hamish, Aengus, Maeve, Flora etc.
Miss Cellane
10-15-11, 5:55pm
Traditionally, in Scotland, children are given the names of earlier generations. The naming pattern goes something like: first son, named for paternal grandfather, first daughter, maternal grandmother, second son, maternal father, second daughter, paternal granny. If more children then named after brothers and sisters of the parents.
That's why I have my name and my children bear family names, which are basically traditional Scots names. It's hell if you are trying to learn your genealogy, though!
Mind you, in Scotland we have our fair share of Kylies and Britneys nowadays. I blame TV!
Our pets carry Scots names too - we have always had Scottish terriers, cairns, westies or Aberdeen (now called Scotties) - Hector, Hamish, Aengus, Maeve, Flora etc.
Oh, my goodness. So that's how my parents came up with our names! My paternal grandfather was Scottish. My parents followed your outline, with the exception that as the oldest girl, I was named after my paternal great-grandmother, my mom's mother having forbidden anyone to use her name in the new generation. My baby sister did get our paternal grandmother's name, though.
It also explains why I have 5 cousins and a brother all with exactly the same first and middle names.
Mighty Frugal
10-15-11, 9:59pm
We have two boys. Had I had a girl her name would have been Chloe. I didn't really have a boy's name I loved so I let dh get his first choice which was 'Ben'. He is kinda named after the baby Ben on Coronation St (Curly's son) this was back in 2004. My dh said he just liked that name-haha..so we tell our son he was named after a soap opera baby
Our 2nd son is named Andrew. I wanted Sebastien but what do people shorten that too? And before you tell me you won't shorten it, I will tell you that everyone shortens names, so what would you shorten Sebastien with? Seb? Bas? ick...so we gave that as his middle name.
The weird thing about Andrew is my dh wanted to name our child (if another boy) after the baby his maternal grandma had who died at 3 months of age. When his granny was dying she asked her grandson to put the only pic she had of her deceased son and his birth certificate in the little purse that would be buried with her. So, to honour his memory we wanted to name him after this deceased baby uncle.
Dh couldn't remember his name-thought it was Henry or Stanley...so we asked his brother who told us it was 'Andrew' (well, the Polish version) and ours mouths dropped as at that point we were debating between Andrew and Nathan...how weird!! So of course, we named him Andrew-and I like both Andy and Drew!
Zella is our younger cat. She is named after an aunt of DH called Graciella. Everyone thinks her name is Zelda, but we always call her Baby.
pony mom
10-15-11, 10:57pm
I was named after the Sinatra song Nancy with the Laughing Face.
My horse's registered name is Zamid. His breeders thought they named him Zarmid and called him Zar. When I bought him and saw his registration papers, I liked the name but Zar is easier. Usually I just call him Sweet Pea : ) My first horse's register name was Tolson, which I kept. But aka Honey Bunny.
My dog was named Gemma. Always loved the character Gemma Palmer in the UK series Solo, played by Felicity Kendall. It was also a combination of my cat, Ginger, and my grandmother, Emma, who died around the same time.
My cat was Ginger--I was into movie musicals and Ginger Rogers at the time.
My betta fish have all been males, named after my current celebrity crushes or faves: Mick (Hucknall of Simply Red), Derek (Jacobi), Rickman (Alan), Flair (xbf's fave wrestler), Liam (O'Maonlai of Hothouse Flowers), Matt (the Urban Gardener). My current one is Mitchel, the vampire character from Being Human, played by hunky Irish actor Aidan Turner. My next one may be called Anderson (Cooper---OOH he's so cute).
maribeth
10-16-11, 12:03am
DD's Granny and Grandma's names both start with P. Granddad and Papa's names both start with J. So she got the initials P.J.
domestic goddess
10-16-11, 12:56am
When I was expecting dd, we didn't know if she was a boy of a girl. Good thing she was a girl, because we didn't have a boy name picked out! DH and I had decided on her first name, but hadn't picked a middle name, when his mother suggested we use Lee, since it was my middle name, her middle name, and sil's middle name. I said "I am not naming my daughter Sarah Lee!" In spite of the fact that "nobody doesn't like Sara Lee", we finally settled on the middle name Rachel.
Our dogs were named Sobaka (Russian for "dog") and Willie. Willie came to us with that name, and it suited him. Cats were Koshka (Russian for cat), Bridget (dd named her),Casey, Kennedy, Lincoln. DD has a cat named Purple Kitty. DD's best friend gave dgd1 2 kittens for her 3rd birthday; one had a pink collar and one had a purple collar, hence Pink Kitty and Purple Kitty. Pink Kitty has gone to her maker, but Purple Kitty is still with us.
Wildflower
10-16-11, 4:50am
I am currently crazy about the name Lily and named our new puppy Lily Rose. Also a very cute name for a little girl. :)
Stella, you're pregnant again! :0! The fertility gods must have smiled down on you again. ;) Congrats!! :D
goldensmom
10-16-11, 7:06am
Our 1st son is Ira Weston. DH's father was Ira Wendell, and there go a lot of Ira W's back thru the line. Weston was a dear friend of DH's. We've always used his middle name and he hates it if anyone shortens it to Wes or West.
Our family looks to past family members for names, especially Ira (love that name) and Asa. Biblical names are another source but the first choice is family names. Maiden names are often used as first names and generally for middle names. My middle name was my mothers maiden name and now that I am married, my middle name is my former surname. Another thing we do is look at a list of recent most popular names and skip those.
Our dogs register names include our kennel name and some tie to their ancestry but their call name usually comes from a personality trait and most times has nothing to do with their registered names.
We've had A LOT of cats over the years ... at one time we had Dudley, Fancy, Phoebe, Barney, Bones, Marvin, and Puffin. Also, at various times, Schwarzundweis (or however you spell it) because she was, duh, black and white, Maxie Boy, and so many others I can't remember them all, more's the pity. Because of the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" there were a million cats named "Cat", and we had one too. Right now we have Cinda (Lucinda), Oscar, and Albie, and a stray we're feeding, Orange Kitty, because he is.
Kids are Joseph and Jerold. Can't remember why we chose that spelling, but I'm not fond of it anymore. We just probably wanted another "J".
Growing up, I had relatives named Boat and Dock (yep). And some other really odd ones I'm not going to post so they can keep their privacy. :-D ....
Fun thread! We went non-traditional in the naming of our children. i.e. Not naming after relatives/family. I simply fiddled with names and when I hit upon a combination that appealed to me/DH, baby got a name! No pets in our lives.
goldensmom
10-16-11, 9:57am
Fun thread! We went non-traditional in the naming of our children. i.e. Not naming after relatives/family. I simply fiddled with names and when I hit upon a combination that appealed to me/DH, baby got a name! No pets in our lives.
Interesting method....fiddlin'.....I like it!!
I fiddled with the first two. My 2nd son has the middle name of Stuart and if you ever saw his picture you would think it apt. In fact, he rather resembles Prince Harry when they are both in cammies.
Our third son was given a combination of family names: William for my brother, father, grandfather and DH's great grandfather and Lee for my DH (middle name), MIL (middle name), and grandfather (first name).
our last family pet was a rabbit, October J. He was a brown and white dutch-rex mix, with soft velvet fur and he kinda looked like a hot fudge sunday. he loved to snuggle and eat. LOL
to me, he looked like the hills around our town in october -- the brown of the trees and the first snow on those leaves. his brown had golden and red and orange hues when the sun shone one it, and to me, it was like that first snow in october. That town was the first place where i ever experienced a real, snowy winter (and love it), and it really just was part of my heart. October is also my favorite month (northern hemisphere anyway). J just flowed nicely with October, and he was a most beloved rabbit.
Our son is named Hawk Octavian.
The red tail Hawk is one of our totem creatures (for both DH and myself), but we had no intention of naming him after that, we just loved hawks and honored our totems. You could say it's happy coincidence that we have these totems AND that our son is named Hawk.
When I was 3-4 months pregnant, people were pressuring us to read baby-name books, so i started online and we discovered that it was a truly horrible way to come up with it. It wasn't for us. so, we ditched it, and figured the name would come to us.
I already had several names on my list -- mostly old fashioned ones. Violet and Ruby were my top choices for a girl (my great-grandmother's name also), and for a boy, I really liked Dashiel and Jasper. DH didn't like these old fashioned names, but had no specific suggestions. I wasn't terribly attached though.
So, one day, we were driving down the road, and it just came to us at the same time: "the baby's name is Hawk." I got on board with that right away, but it took DH several months to decide. This is just how he works, and it's infuriating. LOL!
We had no middle name, until August -- near his birth. I find it fascinating that it happened then, but I wanted to honor October J, who was a very mystical being in my life. So, I came up with Octavia, if the baby were to be a girl, and for a boy, Octavian. Interestingly, it's also the name of the first emperor of Rome, something that Hawk seems to intuitively know, because we've never talked about it.
Whether the baby wa sa boy or girl, we were going to name the baby Hawk, and then it was a matter of attaching the gendered second (middle) name, but we were also happy to just give our last names because his name is SUPER long.
And thus, Hawk Octavian.
treehugger
10-17-11, 12:38pm
Names are very important to me. I have an uncommon first name and I feel that helped shape my identity. So, I like this subject.
No kids for us, only pets. First of all, I want to say, that there is certainly a whole hell of a lot less pressure when naming animals. They don't care what you call them, their friends will never make fun of them, and it won't hurt their chances on future job applications. ;)
Our first dog was a pound puppy who came with the name Maggie. It suited her, so we kept it. Apparently Maggie is one of the 10 most common dogs names, and I don't normally like to follow trends, but we only found that out later. We often called her Mags or Mary Margaret. :)
We had Mags for 14 years and were devastated when she died, so after a year to be ready to adopt again, we went a completely different route and got a rescued racing greyhound. I wanted to give the new dog an "M" name to honor Maggie, so we picked out a list of male and female names and when we met our new hound (we hadn't specified sex on our adoption application), it turned out to be a gorgeous white female with a brindle patch on her head. One look at her, and I knew she was a Mandy. It gave us a tiny bit of trouble at first because we would call her Maggie some of the time, but, 4 years later, she is indelibly our Mandy girl. If she had been a boy, I think she would have been Monty. She came with the lame racing name Zoned for Glory, which was so not true for her, having run a total of 3 races and lost them all. We also call her Princess and Baby Girl.
Geryhound adoption #2 came about a year after we got Mandy. We were at a meet & greet [event where we crazy greyhound people hang out in front of Pet Food Express and introduce greyhounds to potential adopters] and the hosts had a sweet brindle foster who spend the entire 3 hours with his head in my husband's lap. And that was that. We took "Pat C Damon" (racing names are uniformly awful) home on a trial basis to make sure he and Mandy got along (Mandy is an ALPHA) and it was, "Oh you live here now? Ok, let's go play." So, we started thinking of names. Our last name is Italian, so we decided we wanted an Italian male first name for the new pup. I hit the internet and came up with a shortlist of Bruno, Enzo, and ...I can't remember. As soon as I mentioned Enzo to my husband, he told me he liked it and it was Mr. Ferrari's first name. We already knew our new dog was a champion, with 193 races under his doggie belt. So, Enzo immediately suited him.
For our first kitten (a grey and white short hair, now 17), I decided on Ophelia. I was on a Shakespeare kick and I figured that cats are kinda nuts anway. It turned out to be a self-fullfilling prophecy, and whoa, that cat is nuts. And cranky. But, she hasn't drowned herself, so that's a plus.
2nd adopted kitten (a beatutiful buff tabby, who is now 13) was going to be a girl. A coworker had a litter at her ranch and we were planning to go adopt one when they turned 8 weeks. But at 1 day over 5 weeks, coworker announced her husband was planning to drown the kittens, so we had to go get ours immediately. Turned out, we fell in love with one of the males and he's the one that went home with us (all the other kittens had homes forthcoming, thank goodness). Tiny little pale beige puffball rode home on my lap as we discussed what on earth to name him. My husband had told me about thinking he was going to get a little sister named Angela when his mom was pregnant when my husband was 2.5, but instead she brought him a baby brother. DH was so disappointed and wanted to know where Angela was. Thinking of that story, I started calling the kitten Angelo, and it stuck. He gets called Monkey a lot though.
By the way, my husband is a Jr. and from the start his parents always called him by his middle name. He hates having his legal name different from the name he goes by, and he hates being a Jr. So, even if we had had children, we never would have named a boy after DH.
My name came from a baby book before my oldest brother was born. He was a boy, and then the 2nd child was a boy, too. So, finally, for their 3rd baby, my parents got to use the name Kara.
Kara
(rhymes with Sarah, in case anyone has ever wondered)
Bastelmutti
10-17-11, 1:45pm
for a boy, I really liked Dashiel and Jasper.
How funny! My stepdad had rabbits named both of these names. Strange coincidence...
When I was 20 and pregnant, I was really into traditional names, spelled the traditional way, heavily influenced by the Bible. So my son is David Joseph. The Joseph part is actually from my brother-in-law, who was kind enough to let me and my husband live in his house when we were newly married and penniless. If we had had a girl instead, she would have been Wendy Rose. The Wendy is from a friend from school who had moved away years before (and who I have finally found again through facebook), and the Rose is for my grandmother. We're not having any more kids, so it's a shame the name Rose probably won't be carried on in our family.
Now that I'm interested in geneology, I wish I had known at the time that my husband's great-grandfather's name was Calvin Ray. That would be a good name for a boy, and you don't see many people named Calvin nowadays.
Pet names: My old cat was named Yoda, which I would tell people was a misleading name, because he was actually on the dark side of the Force. We would call him Chunky. My other cat's name is Tabitha, because, well, she's a tabby cat. If she had been born a few months later in 2005, I would have named her Katrina. But once I name a pet, I can't get myself to change their name, even though she obviously doesn't care.
Funny name story. I grew up as Julie Jackson. My dad bought two hunting dogs whose registered names happened to be 'Julie' and 'Jackson'. My brother loved telling his buddies that he was going out to the kennel because he needed to feed Julie Jackson!
One family name on DH's side that I refused to use....Zorababble. When one of the kids complain about how hard life is, I tell them, "It could be worse your dad could of named you Zorababble."
I had a friend who was at the grocery store and when she got back to her car she heard a kitten meowing. It was coming from under the hood of the car next to her. When the owner came out she rescued the injured kitten, got it to the vet and adopted it. She named her Malibu because the car was a Chevy Malibu.
My sister found a very cold, wet and skinny cat in the parking lot of a local Irish themed hotel where we went to see an Irish choir perform that night. He was a golden cream color so we named him Bailey after Bailey's Irish Creme.
jennipurrr
10-17-11, 5:08pm
I've fostered so many pets that at some point I figured I'd run dry in the name department. I probably have had 30 or so over the years. Walton was found at walmart. Cleo was when those Ms Cleo commercials were all over the place. I really was running dry...I had a Frank because he had blue eyes, then I had a couple of other ones with blue eyes and I was so out of ideas I named them Sammy and Dean.
My oldest cat is named Jonas because I found him the day I was going to a Weezer concert...then the Jonas brothers hit a few years ago, ugh. My now husband had a roommate who was selling things on ebay in 2000 and this is also when the Sopranos show was popular. A check for ebay came in the mail from Mr. Bruno Salvatore about the same time as DH got a dog and thus we have Bruno. We have a Chihuahua that we found after he was hit by a car. My DH called him a "speed bump" and it kind of stuck but I thought it was a bit horrible, so I changed it to Speedy. My other pets came with names from the shelter.
goldensmom
10-17-11, 8:49pm
<Float On> started it. This is a story of confusion when a person and pet have names of the same genus. As a child we had a dog named Daisy. My mom had a friend named Pansy. One evening, when Pansy and her family came for dinner, my mom told me to go feed Pansy. Pansy, the person, looked puzzled and thinking Pansy could feed herself I fed Daisy, the dog.
I named my daughter Anika Marie; years previously, I had been teaching ice skating classes and one of the little girl's name was Anika and I thought it was so pretty that I knew I would use it years later when I had a girl. The husband's side of the family was thrilled because they hailed from Finland and that is such a northern European name. We pronounce it Ann-ika, not On-nika because she is a total mid-western girl. It wasn't popular at all when she was born in 1992, but I keep running into that name more and more with girls a little bit younger than she is (nineteen).
We had sister cats at one time and named one Monkey (she was polydactil and had amazing grip and could use her opposable (sp?) thumbs quite well. I don't remember exactly why, but the sister cat was named Chester; the two names flowed well together. And we rescued one kitten at a Pilot gas station outside of Chicago while traveling and named her "Pilot" of course!
Charity--we had a under-the-hood rescue cat once, too. His name became Homer (my husband thought my father's middle name was appropriate). We had him for 17 yr! He was a tough old guy.
Our current kitty is CeCe. That was her name at the shelter. She was 3 and had just had a litter of kittens. My favorite pets as a child were Bruno (canine mix) and Burrito (gray kitty).
My daughters: Rachel Fay (Fay was my grandmother) and Keely Diane (husband chose Keely and I loved Princess Diana). It's funny, if we'd had a boy we were going to name him Ross, but we had Rachel. AND THIS was WAAAAY before "Friends" came along!
I love this! You all have some great stories!
As of today the girls have started lobbying for the name Theodora for a girl, Teddy for short. Part of me likes it and part of me thinks its very long. I don't know why. It's not actually any longer than Cheyenne or Isabella in number of letters and it's the same number of syllables as Isabella. It still sounds long to me though.
I like Theodora, it's quite nice. :)
iris lily
10-18-11, 11:29pm
I love Theodora. I would never have thought of that, but now that you said it, I like it.
Kathy WI
10-18-11, 11:47pm
My mom had a friend named Theodora and they called her Theo.
I didn't get to choose my son's name, because he was 3 when we adopted him, and already identified with his name. His birth name was Vadim, which is not very common even in Russia, so we decided to keep it as a middle name and give him a new first name, and eventually he could decide. Our last name starts with D, and we didn't want his initials to be VD, so we thought there should be another name between the V and the D. What we chose was Aaron Vadim Alexander D____. He still goes by Vadim as always, and it's kind of a drag having Aaron as his first name on school forms, insurance, etc. because it gets confusing sometimes. He likes his unique Russian name and doesn't mind spelling it or correcting people's pronunciation. It's not a name I would have chosen, especially since I never heard of it before I knew about him!
i love Annika, preferring the spelling Anneke, and the pronunciation Ahn-neh-kah. :)
catherine
10-19-11, 6:32am
<Float On> started it. This is a story of confusion when a person and pet have names of the same genus. As a child we had a dog named Daisy. My mom had a friend named Pansy. One evening, when Pansy and her family came for dinner, my mom told me to go feed Pansy. Pansy, the person, looked puzzled and thinking Pansy could feed herself I fed Daisy, the dog.
That's great! So funny. I have a similar story. My mother had a dog called Andy. Her husband's name was Fred, but everyone called him Spike. So one day when one of her friends came by to visit with her 8 yr old daughter, my mother overheard the daughter ask her month, "Mommy, why is the dog's name Andy and the man's name is Spike?"
goldensmom
10-19-11, 6:52am
I love this! You all have some great stories!
As of today the girls have started lobbying for the name Theodora for a girl, Teddy for short. Part of me likes it and part of me thinks its very long. I don't know why. It's not actually any longer than Cheyenne or Isabella in number of letters and it's the same number of syllables as Isabella. It still sounds long to me though.
Yes, Theodora. I have friends who are twins, Theodora and Isadora, so classy - Theo and Izzy, so cool.
IshbelRobertson
10-19-11, 7:35am
An in-law of mine is Theodora, but has always been known as Dora, to differentiate between her and her Aunt.
iris lily
10-19-11, 10:12am
Out of the 23 pets we've had over the past 22 years (yes, that's right! 23!) I counted them up and we've named only 4 of them.
All of the dogs, every one of them, came to us with a name but I did change the name of one of them thinking that the world doesn't need yet another bulldog named Tank. He became Mugsy. The cats--we named the strays and the kitten we got 22 years ago, but most of our cats came to us from other people and they already had names.
Even the foster dogs we've had usually come with a name. I counted up the fosters we've had over the past 24 months and there have been 14, of which we've named only one, "Maybelline." And I chose that name because the county shelter had called her something similar, can't remember now what name they stuck her with but it was awful.
At one time we had 3 bulldogs with flower names: Rose, Daisy, Petunia, all adopted as adults and they came to us pre-named. I have a photo somewhere around here of the three of them with flower circlets on their heads, each with a circlet full of "their" flower. Oh it is precious! ha ha. I am getting weepy now, thinking of those bulldogs. I miss the big bulldogs and after this batch of Frenchies die, I'm going back to the real thing, English bulldogs. Fortunatley I get my big bulldog fix with the fosters we take in, and Also Maybelline comes to stay with us every few weeks and I love that.
Theodora is growing on me. Apparently they are friends with a caterpillar named Theodora, called Teddy for short. This amuses me. When I was pregnant with Travis they wanted to name a girl baby Matilda after a squirrel they were fond of.
Iris if you can find that picture of your bulldogs in their garlands you must post it!
My German Mom wanted to name me Heidagard-Gertude Marie (I can picture myself spending my life in blonde braids, deirndel dresses, bulging boosoms, and probably carrying giant beer steins while doing the Chicken Dance!). My sister's name was going to be something even worse - Waltrout (sp?) after her best friend growing up. But she choose to name us after trees instead - Linden and Laurel. My brother had the fortunate german name of Mark. No kids myself but would probably go with a long, somewhat traditional name that could be shortened in various ways. Like Evangelina - Evan, Angel, Lina, Angelina, Angie, Eve, Eva, etc...
Pets I've had recently: dogs: Snarls Barkley (aka Coco), Jake LaMutta, Latte, Cody, Hef (with his three blondes - me, Latte and Snarls), and Cero Mackeral.
cats: Mister, Missy, Bear, Frodo, Scaggs, Zarina (Zar)
Miss Cellane
10-22-11, 6:18pm
I was almost named Hepzibah, after my mother's favorite character from a book. I ended up with plain old "Anne" which is boring, but didn't get me teased on the playground.
Loving all the entries!!!
Mrs-M, I think you are a romantic. :D
Zoebird. Darn it all anyway, I think I am too! :laff:
First dog: Dutch (already named by former family)
2nd dog: Lark (herding dog and ourfavofrite herding dog was named Lark)
1st cat: Kitty Cat
2nd Cat: Mr Rabbit (long ears)
1st African Grey Parrot: Cochiti (a tribe and pueblo near here, and the name the two women getting a bird at the counter before me were naming their bird and I liked it--she loves it, it's her favoite word to say
3rd dog: Paloma Picasso Marble (a beautiful stone from around here with her mix of colors is Picasso Marble, since she's a girl, and Picasso had a daughter Paloma, we added that)
4th dog: Cosima Towhee (Cosima the female of Cosimo, named by women from stone store at my request; a friend recommended Towhee because we have a bird and two of our dogs had bird names (Paloma is dove in Spanish)
5th dog: Tony Pepperoni (one of his breeds may be from near Italy and I kept calling him things like Tony Bolony or Tony Linguini and finally my husband told me Tony said his name is actually Tony Pepperoni)
6th dog: Red (part coyote, part dog) he and his brother were wild as pups and kept joining us in hikes in the mountains because they loved Tony and he mothered them. The other dog was the brown/grey kind of coyote and his name was Brown but he probably died in the mountains before he could move in with us when Red did.
I hve gone to simpler names, and of the fancy names, no one knew about them, just the simple first part. I don't like "cute" or fancy dog names, because it seems like when the person tells me it I'm either supposed to comment with surprise or else to ignore it is rude. Like their saying the name is a performance, and I'm just not the right audience for that.
Our boys are Jacob, Nathaniel, and Jonathan; these names are ones we liked and they are not named after anyone. Dogs are Roxie (named by DS3) and Shay (my maiden name). Cats named after my favorite alcohol: Jim Beam and Jack Daniels.
Well, darn! I was half way through a long post and accidentally hit the wrong key & buh by. Or if this does turn into a double post - oops.
My daughter is Deja Rene. It was a 70's thing lol She is the child of my first marriage. Before I was even pregnant my then husband had a dream that we had a baby girl. I laughed and said if we have a baby that looks like the one in your dream we'll have to name her deja vu. He said NO! But how about Deja? I said NO! But by the time we had her I loved it and he didn't. But he decided it was the right name.
Oldest son (2nd marriage and 13 yrs. later) is Ian. I LOVE his name. While we were waiting for our referral from Korea we made a list of boys names we both liked. I really liked Ian but didn't even suggest it because I didn't think DH would go for it. To my surprise he suggested it. We got the referral packet in the mail and I ran home with it. My mother & sister happened to stop by just than. We took his picture out and looked at it and looked at the list of names and said "who does he look like?" And all 4 of us said Ian!
Youngest son is Tyler. We found him before we were even really considering adopting again. We had our list of 4 remaining names and Tyler was the only name that we still liked. I do like his name very much but we are in a really small town (population 2200) and in his kindergarten class there were 4 other Tylers. The rock band he just was in had 4 members - 3 of them named Tyler. So I just wish it was a little less popular. Of course his middle name is BumSoo so there is that LOL
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