Monday, March 31, 2008

Baby Names

So, as I mentioned A Long Time Ago, I bought a baby name book because it promised to reveal such things like why Anne marries Andy, or why everyone thinks James and Mary go so well together. But alas, it did not.

But it did get me thinking about other naming issues. For example, if we ever had kids, what would their names be? Let's see here, we have all sorts of standards...for example, in my family, the first born male's son is supposed to have the initials of J.W., and thus, if I had been a boy, my name would have been Jared Wesley.

[Aside] I find this funny because the I think the whole JW thing is something my dad made up, honestly. I mean really--My dad's initials are JW. But Grandpa was a second born, and the first born (Uncle Jim) was not a JW, and Great Grandpa John Willis was the youngest of the family [/Aside]

In Shawn's family, the males all have their father's first name as their middle name (so it was Edward, Karl Edward, Robert Karl, Shawn Robert). But what sounds good with Shawn as a middle name? Trust me, there aren't that many. About the only one I could find that would do at all was Nathaniel Shawn. And I'm just not drawn to 'Nathan'...much like how I'm not drawn to 'double S' names--Melissa, Larissa, etc. That's not to say, of course, that these names AREN'T good--just that I wouldn't necessarily think of choosing them for my children.

Also, I find it strange that there are all these 'rules' for naming the male children, but not the female children--there's no standard "use this middle name", or "this person's first name is supposed to be the baby's middle name" rule in either of our families. Really, what makes the males so special that they get a naming convention?

6 comments:

Jon said...

Of course, I am named after a Confederate General (Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson). At least girls don't get saddled with crap like that!

katina said...

Yeah, you're right, we just end up with names like "Norma Jeane"...Also, I think the civil war heroes thing is mostly a southern thing--when was the last time you met someone named Ulysses?

Anonymous said...

The J.W initials are a nice family tradition, in my family we don't have this things.

Jennifer said...

Good luck with this one. I am not a big fan of family pressures when it comes to naming babies - it makes things too complicated. I mean, it's YOUR kid so name it whatever you feel like. It's hard finding the right name because you have to compare it to the huge database that is your mind. You have to reference it to everyone you have known & if the baby is a girl you have to make sure you don't name it the same name as one of your husband's exes. :)

So kids in your horizon? Eh, we had our kid's names picked out after we ran out of things to talk about on a camping trip 2 years before we even had a baby.

katina said...

meh, as of right now we aren't planning on having kids, but it's getting tougher for me to stick to that mantra since our friends' kids are getting to the 'fun' stage. (I foresee Lon asking us to babysit more frequently now...)

Every once in a while I'll bring up to shawn that I can't find any name that sounds good with "shawn" as a middle name, and that if his parents ever bring it up I gotta be like "well, what would YOU name a kid who has to have a middle name of Shawn?"

Rachel said...

My husband's family has a naming convention that requires the eldest boy to be named Robert _______, and then go by his middle name. My husband is Robert Scott, but he goes by Scott. Basically, the Robert is silent. Our kid (were we to have one) would be the fourth generation of this. And one of my husband's favorite naming suggestions, to fit the required schema, is "Robert Sean." So... Robert Shawn sounds okay, but that might send your descendants into an infinite recursive loop. Which would be sort of cool, if incredibly geeky!