Friday, August 1, 2008

What's with the Name?

I have been thinking about this for a while now and still can't figure out an answer. Perhaps you can help.

I understand that when you are expecting you get excited about naming your child. I was the same way. You pour over books and internet sites of names. You write them out, say them, and look at them to see how they sound.
Does it all go together?
Does it sound right?
Does it look right?
Is there a different spelling that may make the name a little unique?
Should you spell it the common way so that you can get cute things with the childs name on it?
Is there a family name that you want to include?

So as I think about all of these things, I think about our experience in naming the boys.

Teen - has his dad's name and goes by initials
Tween - has his own first name, but has two middle names: one for my dad and one for hubbys grandfather
Little S - has all unique names but my same initials SLG

As we were discussing names, we thought about what other names were in the family. What his cousins had named their kids and such.

Hubby liked the name Brianna but one of his cousins named her daughter that.

However, two of hubby's cousins gave their child the same name as his brothers child. So in other words, his grandmother has 3 grandchildren with the same name. Now if it was a family name such as John or Harold or something I would understand a little better, but it isn't. This is a fairly popular boys name these days. There was another cousin who also liked this name, but chose it as a middle name since it was already used.

Now it has happened again. One of the cousins gave his daughter the same name as hubbys brothers daughter. Again not a family name, just a popular girls name.

There are thousands of names out there. Can't you come up with something unique?

Am I wrong in thinking this? Would you name your child the same name as one of your cousins children?

Stacy

4 comments:

Jen said...

I love family names but no, I wouldn't name a child from the same generation in the same family the same name as another child. As a matter of fact, I might be a little ticked if I named my child the name first and someone else followed suit.
My oldest son is named after my father and my brothers. (He has 2 middle names like your son!) And my youngest is named after my father-in-law and Travis's middle name.
If we would have had a girl, I really liked the name Macy... but there are no Macy's in my family as far as I am aware.
I hope my comment makes sense. :P

Dory said...

Holy chit.... you changed TOO! LOL Sheesh... ya'll are freaking me out... go away for five minutes and everyone starts making changes! It's like when my sister and I mess with each other by moving the car while the other one runs in the store to pick up something and you come out and it's gone! lol

VENTL8R said...

I feel that way about parents who name each child with the same first letter; there are 25 other letters to choose from!

Our kids are Jenna and Mallory. I don't like "Jennifer" as it is too common and haven't met too many Jennifers that I like. Mallory is a name that you just don't find. We like the classic names; those that will never go out of style.

BTW - thanks for the recommendation of "Freedom Writers;" watched it last night.

VENTL8R said...

Something I forgot to add....Jenna's middle name is Analeasa. My mom and I share the same middle name of Lea, so this is my way of carrying on the "tradition." Mallory's middle name is Alaina, a variation of my MIL's name of Elaine. So there is some family influence but we named the kids names that aren't too common but not so wacky.

Jenna's name came pretty easily. We decided on Mallory pretty quickly but had a difficult time cming up with a middle name that flowed well with our last name.

I think we did ok....