Today I heard Henry telling his friends his naming story and, let me tell you, it sounds different that way. “Wow,” one of his friends said, “I take it your parents really love [the TV show that brought the name to my attention].” It made me wonder what happens with those kids who are named after the place where their parents had sex to conceive them. Think ahead, is my feeling here.
His friends were pitching in with their stories, and I couldn’t hear the ones with quieter voices, but one boy said he was pretty sure he was named after [hot male actor] in one of his mom’s favorite movies. This generated some nauseated responses.
My mother-in-law told me she chose her two children’s names casually: the names just came into her head while she was pregnant. (Yes, both names were Top Ten names for their birth years.) Later she pushed me to read one of her favorite books from her college years, and it turned out to have some pretty racy scenes in it, and the two people being racy together had the same names as her two children.
(If you wish to tell your baby’s naming story here to see if it passes the “Telling it to Teenaged Friends” test, feel free.)
I have also often wondered that about kids named for conception spot. Do the parents tell them??? I wouldn’t want to know myself
Bryce Dallas Howard’s middle name is her conception location. Same with all of her siblings
I know someone who is named after the beach where her parents conceived her. She seems to find it amusing, but I don’t now how she felt about it when she was a teen. She probably in her 50s now. Maybe you grow into a story like that.
Kid #1 is named after the dorm where my wife and I met. Middle name is a male name that sounds similar to my grandmother’s name, though I don’t think they are actually related.
Kid #2 originally had both of our middles as a first and middle name, but changed it.
p.s. This makes me want to know his naming story!
Both boys were named after relatives, so that’s easy. But we did struggle to decide on a name for our second son. He didn’t have a name for about 40 minutes while my husband googled “popular boy names”. Fortunately he found a name that I had wanted when we first found out we were pregnant. Not remembering he had originally rejected it, my husband said “What about Nico?” And I quickly announced: “I love it!” So we went with it. No regrets!
When we were just barely pregnant we had good friends due a few weeks before us. At a party they told us they were going to name their kid Amy. As soon as we left the party, my husband said “wow! Amy is a great name. We should name our kid Amy if we have a girl!” I said I thought that might be weird and I wasn’t keen on Amy. To avoid a discussion on the pros and cons of Amy I deflected by asking if he had a boys name in mind. Yes he did – Johnnie. Which would be ok if our last name wasn’t Walker. I was aghast and he was certain. He thought it would be memorable. I thought it was certain to lead to AA.
Anytime we discussed baby names he’d argue for Amy and Johnnie. So I kept pushing off the conversation. I decided we’d buckle down on names after our baby shower. So guess who was born 8 weeks early, at her baby shower? Like I got to the shower and my water broke as soon as I entered the door.
Anyway the nurses in the NICU kept decorating little signs saying “nameless” and telling us how difficult it was to care for Baby girl Walker with out a name. After a week we agreed on a non-Amy name and I got to push off the argument about Johnnie another two years.
My dad picked my first name and they used his mother’s name for my middle name. They decided to match the initials with my sister. Then they had b/g twins and kept the initials for my youngest sister and went for a full matching junior for my brother.
I have known some other families that stuck with the same first initial for each child. I always wonder if they picked a letter ahead of time or just fell into it like my family.
My niece had Everett and then Emily. She went with E names for both. We were talking about how she was close to having painted herself into a corner if they had another and wanted to stick with an E name. She likely would have only fished from the El- or Es- ponds to round out the crew. But it’s unlikely now.
Maybe sometime you could do an open thread on favorite sibling sets.
I met someone with my name for the very first time in my life. She was in college, and told me she was so named because her dad had a crush on a celebrity with the name. I thought that was so strange…but I got my name because I was a fat, square baby, so I suppose we’re on equal ground with that.
We tend to name after saints. I figure, eventually, the response will either be a shared admiration for those name saints or a kind of “Well, yes, of course mom and dad like that kind of thing.”
Actually, related: *my* name story- I was named after a saint, and from when I was very small I remember my mom telling me that I was named after *her* mom’s (my grandmother’s) favorite saint. That was just the story and looking back I am kind of like, why not *your* favorite, mom? When I was in my 20s, my dad told me the real story, which is that my grandmother had guilted my parents into naming me after her favorite saint. She had not given that name to either of her daughters (though my first name is my mom’s middle name!), and presumably had not applied any of this guilt to her sons who by this point had produced many female granddaughters. It’s kind of a strange thing and though my grandmother was very opinionated, I wonder why she was so insistent and also why my mom went along with it! (I do like my name! But still!!)
I met a woman in college who was named Thyme, and no, not pronounced “time” but as it looks, and it was because she was conceived at Woodstock! She seemed fine with the story, but it raised my eyebrows.
wait like.. pronounced “thigh-me”?
I have a friend named after the place she was conceived. Even though it’s a pretty common name and no one would question how her parents came up with it, SHE knows and that’s enough to creep her out.
It is a strange idea when you think of it. Imagine if someone named their baby “Bed”, “Shower”, or “Howard Johnson” to commemorate their conception! Weird!
The story about your MILs book with the racy scenes is pretty uncomfortable! Especially since the characters were romantically involved.
I love the idea of having a naming story for our kids. But this post has made me feel better about maybe not having one for our baby due next month. No story > an awkward one! Thanks, Swistle!
Ron Howard’s other daughters middle name is Carlyle after the Carlyle Hotel where she was conceived. His sons middle name is Cross – street name from the house he lived at when his son was conceived. Ron Howard said in an interview that his wife thought Cross sounded better than “backseat of the Volvo”.
All 10 of our kids have some sort of name story, but my favorite is number 10. I insisted he have an x in his name for the Roman numeral. We had used several family names with the other kids, but none from my Dad’s side of the family. His family has roots in Knoxville, TN, and my maiden name starts with a K, so Knox just seemed to be the perfect name. I usually add in that he’s our “golden years” child as I was 43 when he was born, a nod to Ft Knox. Also, I’m rarely without my knitting. We’ll see which story Knox chooses to tell when he gets older!
This is awesome!!! I love the subtleness as well. Good job, mama! ;)
I remember asking my mom growing up how I was named, since I didn’t know anyone else named Gabrielle. She told me that their neighbor’s cat was named Gabrielle and it sounded so nice, and that was where she first heard the name. I thought this was both memorable and kind of unsettling (did I want to be named after a cat?), and I often told this story in high school and college when people remarked on my name.
As an adult, as my dad was holding my newborn daughter, I laughed again about my own cat-naming story. And my dad told me that it wasn’t true at all. There had been no neighbor and no cat. Then I asked my mom, and she has no memory of it either. Her best guess was that she was joking around with me when I was kid. It was bizarre to realize that this little detail I’d made my own for all those years wasn’t actually true.
My husband, on the other hand, has as slightly out-of-date name that he never much liked, and he said his parents never mentioned why he was named that. When I was expecting, I asked my MIL eagerly how she named her sons, wondering if they were family names or names she just liked. She said, “Who knows? I don’t really remember.” I found the “who knows?” perhaps even more unsettling than the cat story.
I think secretly many kids might like having some sort of naming story, (although I agree that maybe place of conception might be a lot!)
The night I noticed my kiddo’s father, he was sitting at a party, playing acoustic guitar and singing Sweet Afton by Nickel Creek. After dating a bit, we discussed names and I proposed Afton for a girl or boy (different middle names for each)… and our sweet girl, Afton Rhys, arrived 8 years later ❤️
When it came to naming my sister, my Mum wanted Edwina, and my Dad wanted Jane. Somehow they comprised with… Jennifer. So she became yet another 80’s Jennifer. I think she’s always felt a little hard done by!
I very much want to know Henry’s naming story, but the story about your mother-in-law is just… Chef’s kiss awesome. Except for your poor husband, having to live with that. LOL.
I was named for a childhood friend of my mother’s. Who died from cancer. My mother had always planned to tell me this story when I turned 16. But as I was approaching 16, my best friend was diagnosed with an extremely rare, extremely fatal cancer. If she survived it — which was unlikely — she was sure to live a short life and never bear children. So my mother declined to tell me until I was in my 30s. (My friend beat the cancer and went on to have four children and is a nurse and lovely, happy person who brings happiness to others.)
I have a million girl names I love, but very few boy names. When I was pregnant with my son (sex unknown until birth), my mom would send me texts every so often with boy name ideas. She sent Callum one day and I thought, “Hmmm, I kind of like that.” I never found anything I liked better, so Callum James Perry was born a few months later. My mom is very happy that she is the one who suggested his name. His middle names are family names. James is my dad’s name and my FIL’s middle name, and Perry is my husband’s maternal grandfather who passed away six years before we met.
My daughter’s name is Channing. I don’t really remember how it ended up on my list, but it was my childhood neighbor’s last name, so that’s usually what I say when people ask. Her middle name is Elaine, which is both my mom’s and MIL’s middle name. We got to knock out all four grandparents with two kids.
I’m not big on matching initials, but I loved Channing more than any other name. If we have a third, their name won’t start with a C.
My mom fell in love with the name Rachel when she was a teenager. My dad chose Renée as my middle. He wanted to name me Montell, so I’m glad my mom had the final say lol.
I once knew an old woman with the name Avalane… which is beautiful and rare.
I learned from her granddaughter that Avalane wasn’t her first name; it was her middle name. Her first name was gorgeous, even better than Avalane! Mystified, I asked the granddaughter why Avalane didn’t go by her first name. Her granddaughter grimly said, “She hates it. Her dad was in love with a girl who rejected his proposal, and that was her name. Great-grandma got to pick Avalane and swore she would never call her daughter by her rival’s name.”
How on earth did the husband get to choose Avalane’s first name? And how miserable was that marriage?! And how insensitive can a person be?
Yikes! It sounds like a lot for a kid to carry
Both of my sons’ first names come from the incredibly short list of names that work in both English and Spanish (not names from one language that are pronounceable by the other, but names that work genuinely in both languages without a spelling change). We just picked our favorites from there. For middles, my eldest has Dad’s first name, and my youngest has my middle. I was pleased by the symmetry – I hope they will be, too!
My own naming story is different coming from each parent. The story I got when I was little was my mom’s version: she loved Guinevere, but thought it was a bit too much as a baby name, so opted for Jennifer as a gentler but still romantic and “exotic” option…. only to discover after I was born that it was the top name everyone else was choosing too. My dad’s version when I was an adult, though, was that it was a character’s name on a short-lived TV show before I was born. Sigh. My middle name is a family surname, and that’s the one I passed down.
I was likely conceived in Bangor, Maine, though I don’t actually know for sure. Granted that Bangor doesn’t rhyme with hanger (it’s pronounced Ban-gore) but dear God, I’m glad they named me after my aunts. lol. I don’t know how they chose my sister’s name, but I suppose part of that is they blamed each other for her middle name, Serenity. My sister _hates_ it. We’re both pretty sure that it was Mom though. She was the hippie. (She insisted she was too young since she was only 14 when Woodstock happened, but she qualifies in _our_ minds)
DH & our kids all have family names, too. Daughter after my late mother & DH’s favorite aunt & son after uncles. We unintentionally used the same pattern for our son as my inlaws did for DH. Dh’s middle name for a first name (he’s named for the same uncle) & my brother’s first name for a middle (Though son’s named for both him & my own uncle mike). And this is how traditions might get started, lol.
We have named 4.
1: Husband’s favorite + a saint keeping a promise I made to myself as a child
2: The other saint in that promise + honor name (his side)
3: Husband’s favorite name that also honored our friend + honor name (my side)
4: My favorite name that’s an honor (my side) + a beloved middle for flow + honor name (his side)
Each kid can look to their name for a story, to the namesakes and their wisdom. I always loved having my patron saint + family connections. It felt like carrying my roots with me. We all carry our roots, of course; having my name be full of meaning just somehow made it easier to listen to my own self about my guiding influences and what I valued, by turning to the love and wisdom built into my name.
THEN AGAIN: I turn everything into stories, so I’d probably feel the same if I were named Jessica Ashley. And probably my kids will be indifferent to their name stories! Don’t sweat it, is what I’m saying.
Also we modified a lot of the honor names, e.g. Joseph to Josephine and Sofie to Sofia, because it made for better flow.
When I was pregnant I very much wanted a girl and the only thing I was sad about was that my boy name had such a wonderful name story. Many years before getting pregnant I decided on the name Matthias Jude. Matthias is my grandfather and uncle’s middle name and Jude is the patron saint of impossible things to whom I prayed to get pregnant. Then the year before he was born a beloved college professor with a….difficult name (Burnaby) died and he never had children of his own. I couldn’t replace Jude so I went with 2 middle names and I get a thrill every time I say the name and get to tell the story and I love that his memory lives on.
My daughter’s first name was simply the only name my husband and I both liked.
But her middle name is my middle name. (I kept it as a middle and dropped my maiden name when I got married.) I love that she and I have the same middle name and last name. Our middle name is the maiden name of my lovely late Grandmother (who saved my uncle from a fire, and taught an incarcerated man how to read.) My uncle had the same middle name as well. I love that my daughter is the fourth generation to share this name.
I totally did NOT look ahead when we were trying to conceive our son. We took a trip to Ireland and I REALLY wanted him to be conceived there. We stayed near River Nore for awhile and I thought Nore would be a great middle name for either gender. Alas, we did not conceive in Ireland – and I didn’t consider Nore after all. My son’s name is a Gaelic last name meaning “son of ___”, the last part is my husband’s first name, so he is “son of (husband’s first name)”. We call him by the first part of his name. His middle name is my dad’s middle name, which was his grandpa’s first name. I think what we landed on passes the teenage test.
My dad wanted to name me Vincent after the Don McLean song. I am very thankful my mom put her foot down. Kristin is very 70s but it’s a lot better than Vincent-the-Don-McLean-song-70s.
When I got my first real job in 1997, the guy who sat in the cubicle next to me had a daughter and named her Sophia. I thought that was such a pretty name. Still do – that’s kid #1.
I became aware of the same Aidan from the Brad Pitt and Aidan Quinn movie Legends of the Fall. I thought it was an excellent name in the 90s when that movie came out. By the time we were naming kid #2 that name was super popular and we tried to find something else, but we just didn’t like anything as much as Aiden. So, Aiden it was.
Both pass the teenage test!
I named my son Felix (happy) after my grandparents’ village, Saint Felix, where I spent many happy summers, and as a reference to the fact that being pregnant with him was truly one of the happiest times of my life.
I think this passes the teenage test nicely! Now we just have to find a name with as much significance if we are lucky enough to have another. I love the name Zoe (life) for a girl.
My first daughter has a somewhat interesting naming story, in that my husband and I had tentatively agreed on a name early in the pregnancy that I gradually grew to dislike, at least as a first name, the closer we got to having an actual child. In attempting to provide other ideas, I suggested a name that I literally made up for a story I was writing (I think it’s a beautiful name, but it is not, to my knowledge, a real-world name). My husband vetoed it, and in desperation, I suggested the closest-sounding real-world name, which was Livia. That one he liked, so we put it at the top of the list.
For my second daughter, Josephine, the best I can do is tell her about my grandmother, who was almost name Olivia Josephine, until my great-grandmother switched it after she was born to Juanita Olivia. I didn’t pick the name because of that, but it being a family name is probably what put it on my radar. I do love that I sort of stumbled into naming both my children somewhat after my grandmother.
Either way, neither of them has yet asked how they were named, though they both love to hear me talk about how they both have “regal” names – Livia Drusilla being the first empress of Rome, and Josephine Bonaparte being Napoleon’s first wife and “Empress of the French.”
I gave birth to my daughter during strict COVID lockdown. As I spent the last weeks of my pregnancy stuck in the house, I was pouring over my family’s genealogy and realized that my grandpa had been born at the height of the 1918 pandemic during a period when his birth city was also locked down. Although I never met his mother, I felt an instant kinship with her, imagining we both felt a type of worry that may only be experienced by one unlucky cohort of women every hundred years. As I worried about the state of the world and my daughter’s future, I thought of what a wonderful man my grandfather was and how much he had achieved despite being born in such uncertain times and coming of age during the depression and WWII. So I named my daughter after my grandfather with the hope that she, too, may see the craziness of the world as a call to service rather than cause for despair.
My daughter’s name came from a Christmas hymn my husband and I were singing in choir together, that calls the birth of Christ in Latin “res miranda,” or “marvelous thing.” We immediately thought that the adoption of our daughter was the most marvelous thing that could happen to us, so she is Miranda!
My son’s name doesn’t really have a story: it is the only name I loved that has a lovely meaning that my husband didn’t veto. So he’s Matthew. But I really do love it.
I teach 5th grade and each year my students complete a research project with the origin of their name, meaning and how their name was chosen. The stories are hilarious and heartwarming: from being named after a loved one that has passed or seeing a sign while traveling. They love this project and the connections and stories it brings.
One of my favorite stories is a boy who was named after our local weather man (weather man’s last name- which is very unusual) while watching TV one day. He has been around for as long as I can remember. I always wonder if our weatherman knows this story. I think he’d love it.
While pregnant, my husband’s mother insisted he was a girl in 1982. She named my husband “Tammy”, bought girl clothes, pink bedding and had a Christmas ornament with Tammy written. When he was born- and her realization was wrong, she went with Tommy instead. :)
My mother read a book that had a name in it that she didn’t want to use *exactly*, but thought a component was beautiful! And she said to herself, I want to use that name if I have a daughter. She held onto this until I came around.
That’s the story I always heard as a child. I actually disliked my name story- in school, it seemed like everyone else had amazing name histories, and mine was just “My parents thought it was pretty, my mom saw it in a book” which felt. Extremely lame.
But for all you people who were reading the hot new 80s novels, this book was Heaven, by V. C. Andrews. I passed the teenage test by not getting the whole story ABOUT the story!