Our daughter Maude, currently a freshman in college, was home over her Spring Break and at one point, we were talking about her full name — Maude Emma Blair. One of our family stories is about how “Emma” was never quite the right fit name-wise. And that we pretty much knew it wasn’t right from the beginning, but we used the name anyway.
As we started our naming adventures, we didn’t know how many kids we’d end up with, but we were picturing a big family. We focused on names from our grandparent’s generation. We wanted them to be simple — easy to pronounce, and to spell. Old names that weren’t in use much anymore. We ended up using: Ralph, Maude, Olive, Oscar, Betty and Flora June as our children’s first names. I love the names individually and as a group (I love the human people with those names even more).
Looking back, we feel like confident namers, but at the beginning of our parenthood, it felt somewhat nerve-wracking. Naming a human being is a serious task. Names are powerful.
What if we like a certain name, but our child grows up and doesn’t like it? So much is unpredictable with names. A name that seems just right today, may end up being the name of next year’s top pop-star (or criminal!) and develop a totally different feel. Which reminds me, a year or so after our Betty was born, the TV show Ugly Betty came out and the title totally worried me for my daughter’s sake. It was a cute show, but I was relieved when it ended after a few seasons.
When naming Maude, we loved the name and settled on it mid-way through the pregnancy. The baby would be Maude, with the nickname Mimi. But right before she was born we got nervous about the name. Would it be too unusual for her generation? Our second choice was Mabel, and days before the birth we started leaning that direction. We figured we could still use the nickname Mimi with Mabel too. And then, at the hospital, as Maude was born, we had an amazing nurse named Miriam. And for about 24 hours, we thought the name should be Miriam — again, with the nickname Mimi. Ultimately, we came back to the name Maude. It was the right name.
We hadn’t really thought about a middle name for Maude, but the night before we officially named her, we had doubts yet again and decided to add Emma as a middle name — thinking of it like a backup in case she didn’t love the name Maude.
Emma is a lovely name, but I could see it was about to pick up steam and become popular, and we really didn’t want to use any popular names. Somehow we used it anyway, but we probably shouldn’t have. It was never quite the right fit — an add-on that wasn’t as intentional as it should have been.
Every once in awhile I’m bothered we gave her an add-on name, but mostly it hasn’t mattered. I figured she could always change it when she got older (she’s old enough now to make any name changes she wants), or she could keep it and have a interesting angle to her name story. : )
Speaking of wrong names, both Ben Blair and I had other names when we were babies — just temporarily. Ben was originally named Troy. And I was originally named Shoshanna.
How about you? Did you enjoy naming your kids? Do your kids like their names? Did you like your name as a child? Do you feel like your name fits?
P.S. — The best nicknames, and the best Grandparent names.
Dawson Kelly Buttram
Samuel Keene Buttram
Kelly is my grandpa’s name.
Keene is my mom’s name.
Dawson is my husband’s middle name.
And Samuel just felt right. He is a Sammy for sure for now.
I love to see them written out. And to watch them make their names their own.
Naming them was so stressful for me and my husband. I begged my mom to do it and she refused. Sheds a lot of light on our personalities. I still anguish over making everything meaningful. Something I hate and something I love about myself.
Bearing witness to a life — what an honor it is!
The naming felt like a letting go of my baby as part of me.
A first step towards his own identity.
And the nailing down of his spirit to this time and this place.
At least for now.
I have five children (four girls, one boy). With three of the names, when we happened upon the names the first time, I was instantly confident that those were the names they were meant to have. They fit my children.
My son’s name was easy, as it is my grandfather-in-law’s name and I loved him.
However, one of my daughter’s names doesn’t fit in with the others–the others are classic English names; hers is American trendy. Her middle name is even trendier than her first name unfortunately, so I don’t want to call her by her middle name. If I could do it over again I’d give her a classic English name (probably Elizabeth). My husband claims her name suits her (she marches to the beat of her own drummer) but I have always felt unsettled by it. I try not to think about it too much.
We changed my daughters name legally – twice! It’s a longish story and I find it difficult to give a Cliff Notes version. But here’s what interesting to me: her birth certificate shows all of the variations. They don’t erase! They put a strike through it. It looks like a rough draft because IT WAS (ha!).
I AM SO VERY GRATEFUL that I was brave enough to change her name. It seemed embarrassing and a little overwhelming at the time, and was racked with a lot of emotion and some judgement, but I’m glad I did it.
My advice – if you experience namers remorse – bite the bullet, pay the money, do the paperwork, donate the embroidered towel you received as a gift, and make the change!
My sons name is Chase- my middle name before I got married and a family name. I had that middle name my whole life and never thought I would use it for a child, let alone a son. Yet we toyed with it with another family name and when he was born my husband was out of town (Chase arrived a month early). I didn’t tell anyone his name until my husband arrived the next morning and we confirmed. Another name we had considered was George- my husbands grandfathers name though I had a slight bias as my mother never liked that name for some reason. Anyway- Chase was my second boy and it was rough after he was born. I remember a few months later Prince George was born and thinking I had made a terrible mistake- we should have named him George- (even though it surely rose in popularity immediately following). I remember holding him and snuggling him as a tiny baby and telling him not to worry: you can still be king.
I have never felt like my name “fit” me. My mom let my 5 older sisters vote between 3 names and funnily, the other two names were later used by family members. I’ve always wanted to change it but growing up my parents never took me seriously. Now that I’m an adult with 5 children of my own I probably won’t change it because that would be too confusing to everyone and possibly hurtful to my family.
My husband’s name (Kai) was very uncommon when he was young and he had the “weird name” struggle all through school but loves his name. It’s way more common now so maybe he will finally be able to get a key chain with his name on it, haha! My name was so painfully common that there was another Rachel Marie Brown growing up as well as too many Rachels to count in our small town school.
For our kids we wanted uncommon but easy to pronounce and knowing they may not like their first names we wanted their middle names to be possible “backups” should they choose. We have 4 boys and 1 girl and all of the boys somehow ended up with 3 letter first names like their dad. My daughter has 2 middle names, her great-grandmothers middle name and my middle name.
Dex Noah
Veda Vivian Marie
Gus Finnigan
and twins,
Leo Ward & Asa Michael.
Sometimes I kick myself over our choices for our daughters’ names. In my husband’s family, the boys always have the same initials (AE) and as I (Lindsay Jane) have the same initials as my Mum (Lesley Jean), he suggested it would be nice for us to start a new tradition if we had girls.
We really liked the name Josette, but needed an L first name so we went for Lilith, with the intention of calling her Josette, but she ended up being known as Josie, almost exclusively. So now, we have difficult conversations with various officials, “Lilith, please”, “Um, no, she’s actually Lilith Josette, but we call her Josie”. I love all her names, but maybe it was silly to call her by a short version of her middle name.
My second daughter is Lorelei Jane, but we call her Lori. It’s perfect, except Jane was just about he only J name we could think of (and it’s my middle name) that we liked with Lorelei but I think it’s a bit…boring. It was only last year (she’s 10) that I slapped my head and realised we had had the perfect, quirky little J name sitting right under out noses: my brother’s name is James. And I think Lorelei James would have been such an epic name.
I also found out a few years later that my great grandmother’s name was Leonore. That would have been a gorgeously unusual name too.
having been a teacher for years naming my sons was really tough. I wanted names that I had not had as students. I wanted names that we unique, but not off the chart strange. I wanted names that were easy to spell ( our last name is a tough one for people to sound out and/or spell they didn’t need two names like that). I didn’t want true traditional names, but instead put them as their middle names. My oldest is Blake Thomas and my youngest is Colby Patrick. I wanted more traditional middle names so that if for some reason they didn’t like their first name they had a tried and true middle one. Over my years of teaching I have met kids who I wanted to say to them… you are named wrong. Names and personalities go together and sometimes parents just guess wrong. For my boys… their names fit their personalities and they are still not super common names, but common enough that they aren’t the only people you’ve heard with that name
We have a Georgia Mae, and a Miriam Grace (Mims) and I am still completely in love with their names, but not everyone agrees – we often hear that the names are “so old”. I was named after one of my Mom’s favorite students (second grade), I have always loved the story – especially because I am a teacher :)
My grandma had her name changed! She’s gone by Adele her whole life, and only found out she’d originally been named Anne when she had to get her original birth certificate for something.
We wound up giving my son three names–Bjorn James Wulfric. It was the only first name we could agree on, a family middle name, and a runner-up name my husband couldn’t bear to be without. He goes by his first name and even though it’s an unusual choice where we live and it gets mispronounced a lot, I don’t think we made a mistake. But it’s nice that if he wants to go by something else later in life he’ll have lots of options!
I love this discussion! And I admit, I totally laughed out loud when you said you and Ben were originally named Shoshanna and Troy! Not that those are laughable names — not at all — but it just goes to show how much we sort of grow into our names & it can be weird to think of someone you know with a different name. I have several interesting name stories in my family:
– My mom was originally named Geraldine, but changed it as soon as she turned 18 to Anne (with an “e”!) because growing up, there was a popular TV show with a pig named Geraldine in it!
– One of my sisters changed her name as soon as she turned 18 — from Shauna to Gwen — she said she just never felt like a Shauna.
– I’ve personally always really LOVED being ‘Laura’, not because I particularly love the name, but because I was named after my great aunt Laura who grew up in a one-room cabin in Igo, California with her (large) family and whom I’ve heard so many amazing stories about from my mom, who used to spend summers at Laura’s cabin growing up. She rode horses until she was 90, had her pilot’s license, and hatched baby chicks for her nieces and nephews to help raise every year.
– When I had my son, Bixby, I didn’t want to name him with an unusual name, especially knowing my own mom and sister both changed their names! But the name Bixby just wouldn’t go away. My husband and I both really loved it. We got it from the name of the Bixby bridge on the way down to Big Sur, which is one of our favorite places to go camping, and is just such a magical place. Now that Bixby is here (and growing up…) I can’t imagine him being named anything else. But we did give him the middle name James, after my husband’s grandpa, just in case!
We named our daughter Abby. She renamed herself Leafy when she was 5. Definitely couldn’t have planned on that!
Our son’s name is Einar, which is Old Norse for bold warrior. We love it and know he will once he’s grown into it. It’s been more learning to deflect other’s comments…
I came across this article as I have been searching for help on whether or not to change my first daughter’s name. I don’t know how I missed it when you first posted it. We named my daughter after both of her grandmothers. My mother’s mame with my husband’s mother’s name for her middle. Within about a years time we had name regret— my mom has not been a good mother almost any of my adult life —that’s putting it simply—she’s awful! But I worry now as she’s almost 8 years old, that changing her name will negatively impact her. We would use her middle name as her first name and give her (or let her choose) a new middle name. I don’t know if you will read comments on such an old post, but maybe someone will, who may have advice.
Well, given the extraordinary strangeness of my own name, I wanted my daughter to be unique, but still somewhat “normal.” The husband and I could not come to any agreement on any names (I wanted Tova, he wanted Josephine!) until in a feverish flu-wracked state after moving house in the middle of the night, it suddenly came back to me – I had come up with the name many, many years prior when I was performing in New York City and we sang about “azalea blossoms’ – my husband being an avid golfer, blurted out that the name was “better than @$)@($_@)_ Tiger Woods!” And so, Azalea was born. I was SO thrilled that today, at age 6, when I asked her a question in a journal for girls “What name do you wish you had?” she answered “None. I love my name.” And that is every mother’s dream…