The idea behind Manly Monday is that you talk about what it means to be a man, or a dad, or portrays something manly (in however you define this). This does not mean that you need to be a man to write a post so ladies out there…I encourage you to try this out as well…
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I have been thinking a lot lately about the reasons that people choose the names for their children. For us, our girls’ first names were ones that we found in books and ended up choosing from a long list of contenders. We read many baby books for both pregnancies and found that we had a much easier time agreeing on girls names than on potential boy names. We also found many other girl names than boy names that made it on our list (our boy list was very small to say the least).
The middle names that we chose were family names, and for Diva-J there was not much of a though on it as J-Mom really wanted her middle name to be that of her fraternal grandmother. For Diva-PJ, I wanted her middle name to be that of my maternal grandmother who is my last living grandparent.
Both of the names that we chose came to truly fit our kids and we cannot think of our girls having any other names. I think that most (or probably all) parents would also say this…it’s not just us.
With the birth of famous babies like the Jolie Twins, and others, with unique names, I really question how and why people choose the names that they choose for their children, or why they got named what they did.
For me, whether I was a boy or a girl my parents had chosen more popular names, and growing up I found out that I would have been a Stephanie if I had been born female (I can’t see myself as a Stephanie…so I am glad that I was born a man).
So now I turn to all of you. What is in your name? Why did you name your children the names that you did?
Thanks for reading and have a great Manly Monday!
We didn’t think much about names until we got the official word from the doctor. Ariana came up very quickly, and obviously, it stuck. Just to be sure, I thought of a bunch of other names, but the first choice turned out to be the best. Nothing else really captivated us.
We were stumped for a middle name. My wife fondly recalls her paternal grandparents and still talks about them regularly. We didn’t want to go with Ariana Mona, so we turned Leland into Leigh. It worked out just fine. Lee is the anglicized version of my maternal grandmother’s last name.
But how do you explain Twilli? Most readers know my daughter as Twilli. It started off as her online identity, but it stuck. Now we call her Twilli, or Twill, or Twilli Pie most of the time.
Had my Dad named me, I would have been Lorraine. Yikes!! Thankfully my Mom put her foot down and named me Marisa, an actresses name she heard and liked. And no, it wasn’t Marisa Tomei. That was before her time! I’ve always been curious exactly who that actress was, but I’ve never been able to find out.
I can tell you how all our kids were named. Hayley’s name comes from the old school Disney actress Hayley Mills. Her middle name, Lynn, is after my mom. Owen’s name came to us as we were driving down Owen Rd. in Fenton, his middle name is Tom’s middle name. And Joshua came about as we were listening to U2 (their Joshua Tree album. Obviously his middle name, Thomas, is after Daddy.
P.S. I would have been Darren if I had been a boy!
I was named by my dad. Not much of a stretch, my name was going to be Christian if I had been a boy…we would have had the same name. Think we would have still been friends?
Noah was going to be Emma or Kaia if he had been a girl. Aaron would have been Leah. We planned to use Eleanor for the middle name both times for my maternal grandmother.
I always hated having the plain name of Jane, but I guess it could have been worse!
When we named our daughter, I had a couple of conditions: 1) no one I knew could have that name, 2) the name could not be on the top 100 list, 3) it had to have a nice sound, 4) it had to have a nice meaning, and 5) it shouldn’t be something for playground jokes. #5 is a tough one – you never can predict what other kids will come up with!
Elliott – Twilli…that is an interesting nickname… our youngest sometimes goes by PJ as those are her initiatls…so that was an easy one…
MoziEsmé – We also tried to stay away form the top 100 though now our first daughter’s name is on it, and our second daughter’s name I think is close to the 100 range… we also though used the teasing test as I call it and felt that both of our names were in the clear!
Thanks for the comments thus far!
My mom always wanted to name her oldest daughter Summer after her favorite season. Not much to my name.
As for our kids, we wanted names that were recognizable but not popular. I think we did pretty well. I actually had my daughters name picked out since I was 14. thankfully, the hubby liked it to.
We also wanted something not too popular, but classic and not too strange. I can’t imagine Clare with any other name either.
Clare’s Mom like the name Clarice, the girl reindeer from the Rudolph Christmas special. But it made me think of Silence of the Lambs.
P.S. to Marisa. Wouldn’t it be weird if I said I’d be Marisa if I were a girl? But I wouldn’t. I’d be Samantha. My parents liked Bewitched.