Joy & Austin 31: Adding Evelyn Mae

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

If it makes anyone feel better, I have two names that have meaning to my parents but maybe don't flow the best together. I'm trying to think of an equivalent, maybe Monica Rachelle captures it. They're both ok names but I used to be jealous of all the girls with "filler" middle names that I assumed were designed to highlight/complement the first name. When I actually asked, a lot of kids with middle name Anne/Elizabeth/May/Leigh/Marie etc were named in honor of an older relative. 

TLDR: nothing wrong with "filler" names!

Edited August 28, 2020 by PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea
Forgot "Marie," most common middle name in Ontario perhaps??

[Audrey2]

Trying to tread carefully.

I like Evelyn Mae. I think Evelyn and Annabelle are cool names, names that I would associate as Grandma names that come back in time for our grandchildren (if they were the names of our grandma). I think Mae is a perfect middle name with what I associate with that period (born 1900-1925 or so). I'm also ready for Opal (met a little girl at story time with that name), Ruby, and Pearl to make a comeback. My piano teacher was Annabelle, and her grandson was in my class. I also like to see the resurgence of Eleanor and Esther. I'm not so sure about Gladys and Bertha, although my beloved grandmothers' names were equally snark-worthy. (And it seems like the names in your grandmother's generation get recycled when your kids are having babies.)

[SassyPants]

My Nana, who would be 120, was named Evelyn. Everyone called her Eva. 

[nvmbr02]

7 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

Trying to tread carefully.

I like Evelyn Mae. I think Evelyn and Annabelle are cool names, names that I would associate as Grandma names that come back in time for our grandchildren (if they were the names of our grandma). I think Mae is a perfect middle name with what I associate with that period (born 1900-1925 or so). I'm also ready for Opal (met a little girl at story time with that name), Ruby, and Pearl to make a comeback. My piano teacher was Annabelle, and her grandson was in my class. I also like to see the resurgence of Eleanor and Esther. I'm not so sure about Gladys and Bertha, although my beloved grandmothers' names were equally snark-worthy. (And it seems like the names in your grandmother's generation get recycled when your kids are having babies.)

I know two Rubys in the under 5 crowd and Pearl is a name that my sister will be using for a middle name if she has another girl (first daughter has Rose for a middle name) Opal is also on her girl middle name list if she has a 3rd girl. I like all of those names, but I have always liked the old fashioned names. I graduated with a Gladys in the late 90s and I loved her name as a teen. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by nvmbr02

[Georgiana]

When I see the name Mae, I think of Mae West.  Old fashioned glamour....and so much more.  

I quite like it on a Fundie child.  

[mpheels]

27 minutes ago, Georgiana said:

When I see the name Mae, I think of Mae West.  Old fashioned glamour....and so much more.  

I quite like it on a Fundie child.  

And when I think about Mae West, I think about WWII sailors calling life jackets “Mae Wests” because they made the guys look like they had boobs. So maybe Joy actually named her baby after her dad?

[QuiverFullofBooks]

An almost-certainly-apocryphal joke: When Queen Mary first saw Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, she peered at the initials embroidered on the tiny pillowcases and asked, “What do they stand for?” The answer was “May George?” and “George May.” (Her husband was King George V, and her nickname was May. She was very, very proper, so probably no one ever dared make a sex joke to her.)

https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/trails/queen-marys-dolls-house

[Mrs Ms]

3 hours ago, JDuggs said:

I do find it interesting that her name is the same as Joy’s aunt. In most families, people would speculate that she is named after her aunt. But the Duggars seem so disconnected from outside their immediate family, it maybe never even occurred to Joy that she was using a “family name.”

I did that! ? When I told my mum what we had named our daughter, her response of “oh that’s right, old fashioned names are coming back in fashion” was not what I was expecting! Then she reminded me one of her aunts has that first name (we have had almost nothing to do with that part of the family since I was 4 and I forgot about her)

We happened to give her one of the REALLY typical catholic combinations without meaning to (agnostics here and not ex-Catholics) because we love the first name. It suits her incredibly well and it “fits” nicely with the rest of our names. Her middle name is a variation of my mothers name. The name combination works in both English and German so everyone in both sides of the family can pronounce it. 

You guys would have hated waiting on my kids names as we have always had a shortlist and then spent the first days of their lives trying which ones suited them. Up to 3 full days  

Edited August 29, 2020 by Mrs Ms
Missing words

[Vivi_music]

About the middle name discussion: gonna chip in as someone who is not American and not a native an English native speaker, and just to at least try to understand what @SorenaJ.

Name traditions are very much ingrained with culture. In the French language for example, we have some monosyllabic names in general (Zoé, Lou, Léa, Léo, etc.) but I think it is just a question of the general naming practice. If I take French Canadian culture, a child would often have a minimun of three names, starting with Marie or Joseph (Catholics), the godparent's name, and to finish the given name. Sometimes even other names were added, probably names the parents liked. So it was very common to have super long and multiple names. I'd even say that short middle names used to be rare.

A few example of people I know:

- Marie (Catholic) Thérèse (godmother) Geneviève (another name her parents liked) Jeanne. And she goes by Jeanne.

- Joseph (Catholic) Roméo (godfather) Robert (given name).

You get the gist.

Nowadays, a lot of people have ditched the mandatory Joseph and Marie. Also the naming order has kind of been ''anglicized'' to the given name, middle name, family name formula. But people have kept the tradition of using either a family member's name or an alternative name they liked. Other example around me: Félix Jacques Familyname and Marlène Adélie Familyname. The kids go by Félix and Marlène.

Anyways... what I'm trying to say is that if longer middle names are more the ''norm'' in your culture, I can see not being used to shorter monosyllabic names. That being said, I also consider myself someone who loves names and loves reading about their origin, their historical use, name trends, etc. In my eyes, if you love to study naming traditions, there is no need to make a judgement. What may be a filler to someone might have a lot of significance for another person. In the end, a name choice is in itself highly subjective and that is okay.

 

[Mama Mia]

This conversation made me think through all my grandchildren’s middle names and realize that ALL of the girls have “old fashioned”  middle names - mostly from great or great-great grandmas, or a favorite great auntie or elderly neighbor -  some that their mothers also have. But names that were popular in the  1900’s to 1940’s.   Those sorts of names all seem very popular now for both first and middle names in my area. I like the trend as the old fashioned names seem like a nice useable alternate if the child ends up hating their first name or is one of 7 Popular-1st -Name in their class. 
 

 

8 hours ago, SorenaJ said:

I bet you get get more plot writing done than I do, though, as I spend most of my names picking fancy names leaving too little time to write much.

Kinda like spending ages making the perfect family in Sims, or the perfect house, but then never playing them. 

Wait... there’s more to Sims than house design ? ?

[princessmahina]

6 hours ago, VineHeart137 said:

No idea why but the first time I read this I thought you wrote that you had given him the middle name Tank after Thomas the Tank Engine and I was just like "YEAH Thomas is too obvious, go big or go home!" ? Really though, I love Thomas haha.

Thomas is my sons middle name too! But it’s after my grandfather who died a few days before my 8th birthday. 
 

I love (nonjudgmental) naming thread drift. I happen to share a middle name with the Duggar closest to my age (Jessa). 

[mango_fandango]

My middle name is after my great-grandmother. My brother’s middle name isn’t after anyone, I think my parents just liked the name.

Ruby was actually the 30th most popular name in the UK in 2019. It used to be more popular than that. 
 

May/Mae/Mai are definitely very popular right now, either as part of a hyphenated first name (popular example being Lily-May) or as a stand-alone middle name. 

[AussieKrissy]

5 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

My middle name is after my great-grandmother. My brother’s middle name isn’t after anyone, I think my parents just liked the name.

Ruby was actually the 30th most popular name in the UK in 2019. It used to be more popular than that. 
 

May/Mae/Mai are definitely very popular right now, either as part of a hyphenated first name (popular example being Lily-May) or as a stand-alone middle name. 

My daughter has Mai. It’s not a filler name for me. It’s after my Mum Valmai. I may have liked to use it as a first name but I did not want to spell it May or Mae and did not want my child to constantly correct being called “My”. So middle name it is. Her first name is two syllables and goes well with Mai. I was pissed a fundie used my name. But a fundie also used my daughters first name and I was pissed then too. Lol 

I like to think Mae might be a nod to gm Mary also. 

[neurogirl]

8 hours ago, Twirling Dervish said:

My first name is the Welsh spelling of "Rae" and if you know Welsh, you know that it doesn't look anything like "Rae" (odd vowel pairings and weirdly placed consonants that seem to have no connection to the pronunciation). 

WAIT is “Rae” a welsh name?!?! That side of the family is welsh and I hit a dead end in my genealogy search there (last name Jones gah). That would be SO cool!! I’ll have to look into this ??

[JazzyFresh]

Back in my fundie-catholic days, my ex and I (sadly) saddled the older children of our crew with Hispanic/ Spanish religious names. (My children are ethnically Hispanic through their Papi.) One of my beautiful daughters absolutely hated her legal name, even though her first name was also the Spanish variation of my aunt's name. Dear daughter wanted to change her name because it doesn't fit who she is, so I offered to pay for the change.

We recently did the legal paperwork and I was so happy when she chose the name of one of my close friends from my youth who passed many decades ago. I had always wanted to name one of my girls after that friend, but hadn't because my sister had said she was going to one day give her daughter that name because our deceased friend was "her best friend".

That didn't happen when my niece was born and I am darned excited to know that my awesome childhood friend will soon have my daughter as a namesake. Dear daughter and I are going to the courthouse in early September to file the name change with the clerk's office. Yippee!

As a former fundie-catholic parent, I am still embarrassed at some of the names I gave my kids. But really, as long as Evelyn Mae grows up happy with her name, I think that's what matters.

[adidas]

My middle name is the same as my Mother’s, and my Great Grandmother’s, and her Mother’s as well. It has done my family well in 3 different countries and 2 languages ... and it also just happens to be the first one mentioned in every discussion about ‘filler’ or ‘basic middle names without meaning, chosen without any thought or effort’.

Names are the first thing you give to your child when you meet them. To accuse someone of not giving it any thought is just rude. So WHAT if they heard the name, loved it, and it had no family history? Their baby, their choice.

Unless they put it out there that the name has no meaning, they don’t particularly even like it and they flipped a coin after narrowing it down from the ‘basic filler middle names’ list, it’s crass to say you know the name was chosen with zero effort.

Edited August 29, 2020 by adidas
Countries not counties

[Glasgowghirl]

My cousin's daughter is called Ruby, she is 8, my cousin's ex chose it partly because it was her grandmother's name and partly because she liked the name. 

I might use Mae as a middle name if I have a daughter after my aunt Mary, who died last month. 

[princessmahina]

We all still agree that Spurgeon was a...choice though, right? 

[kmachete14]

My baby is due is two weeks. The middle name is just one letter. It Represents both our moms names (both start with the same letter) as well as a Chinese name (honoring half my husbands heritage). It kind of sounds like “filler” (like K. Vs Kay) but baby could also go by an initial moniker (think “JP” for example) in the foreseeable future. Idk what ppl will think about it but I also don’t care lol.  
 

the one thing I don’t like is that if you combine the first name and the middle name initial, it sounds like something Alyssa Bates would name her kid, and my husband likes saying the full name in a sing-song voice. Oh well. 

[SorenaJ]

Okay, I get it. Using a "filler" middle name is used as a safe choice, because they go with virtually anything, like items in a capsule wardrobe. A capsule middle name, if you will. It's basically like wearing a black t-shirt or a black dress. Goes with anything. Boring on it's own, but can be accessorised up or down to make it look stunning, which is what the first name and last name are for. A capsule middle name is the practical choice, and Joy strikes me as a very practical person, and something she would do. 

Interesting thing about cultures and French Canadian names from a previous poster. In the UK, my colleagues are Matt, Jim, Lizzie, Ben, Jamie, Will, Jo etc. No one goes by their full names. In Denmark, if people have long names, they are usually not nicknamed. So people go by names such as Alexander, Jonathan, Christopher, Benjamin, William, Catherine, Victoria and they don't use their nickname form. 

[just_ordinary]

10 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

Naming a child is always a difficult decision to make and often stressful. Names can always be changed later on in life if so wanted. There’s not much point in getting hung up over what some D-list celebrity named her baby. 

I would like to point out that this isn’t the case everywhere. Many countries have rules for naming new humans and that often correlated with laws that make it pretty hard to change your name. So, they try to make sure the picked one won’t hurt you for the rest of your life. 
I think the worst case would be parents that pick a name they actually don’t like due to outside pressure or asshole parents that think it’s a big joke and choose something ridiculous or hurtful on purpose (thankfully that’s a very tiny majority).

Names don’t have to have meaning. There is only one criteria: The parents must like them. And there are always subconsciously connections as to why you like it. That should be enough. There is no need for extra pressure on parents to find a meaningful name. If you want to pick a name because of the meaning/to honour someone - great. But the name doesn’t get better because of it. To others it might be a horrible, boring name. As long as no one tells you this, that’s fine too. We don’t know our real names, or anything else private for that matter (I definitely tend to forget most private information after two more pages)- so no one was out to insult you personally.

Our daughters name turned out incredibly meaningful. I would also argue it’s a name that most people would find nice enough. But I am pretty sure enough think it’s lame or even pretentious. 
She has the same first name as my mother - which is coincidentally because I just love the name. I think it’s very elegant and admire many powerful historical characters with that name. Her second name turned out to be my husband’s cousin’s second name (which we both didn’t know at that time) but the reason we picked it was that it started with J. I and my siblings as well as my husband have a second name that starts with J. His has a meaning, ours were coincidentally I think. At her first birthday, a friend asked if it was on purpose that her names has the same amount of letters as my husband’s and mine. We hadn’t realised either of that. 
Now, I feel pressure, because if we ever have a second daughter the name we would love has neither- family connections, a J or the same numbers. It might sound completely silly, but I am someone who notices stuff like that and thinks about it. What if my child is like that too? This could bring up some uncomfortable questions or in the worst case some bad feelings. 
So my advice is- If you want more than one child, make sure you have enough meaningful names in reserve. I find it very unfair to hand out a meaningful name to the first born (of every sex) and the others just get some nice names. That is why I think it is completely fine to give siblings the same second name. Most people only refer to the first name or just one of the names anyway (if the names aren’t hyphens or someone is in trouble).

[constantgardener]

4 hours ago, Vivi_music said:

About the middle name discussion: gonna chip in as someone who is not American and not a native an English native speaker, and just to at least try to understand what @SorenaJ.

Name traditions are very much ingrained with culture. In the French language for example, we have some monosyllabic names in general (Zoé, Lou, Léa, Léo, etc.) but I think it is just a question of the general naming practice. If I take French Canadian culture, a child would often have a minimun of three names, starting with Marie or Joseph (Catholics), the godparent's name, and to finish the given name. Sometimes even other names were added, probably names the parents liked. So it was very common to have super long and multiple names. I'd even say that short middle names used to be rare.

A few example of people I know:

- Marie (Catholic) Thérèse (godmother) Geneviève (another name her parents liked) Jeanne. And she goes by Jeanne.

- Joseph (Catholic) Roméo (godfather) Robert (given name).

You get the gist.

Nowadays, a lot of people have ditched the mandatory Joseph and Marie. Also the naming order has kind of been ''anglicized'' to the given name, middle name, family name formula. But people have kept the tradition of using either a family member's name or an alternative name they liked. Other example around me: Félix Jacques Familyname and Marlène Adélie Familyname. The kids go by Félix and Marlène.

Anyways... what I'm trying to say is that if longer middle names are more the ''norm'' in your culture, I can see not being used to shorter monosyllabic names. That being said, I also consider myself someone who loves names and loves reading about their origin, their historical use, name trends, etc. In my eyes, if you love to study naming traditions, there is no need to make a judgement. What may be a filler to someone might have a lot of significance for another person. In the end, a name choice is in itself highly subjective and that is okay.

 

On a slight tangent, I’m really into genealogy and I’ve noticed that many people with French Canadian ancestry have surnames in their family trees including the word ‘dit’ e.g. Achin dit St Andre. I know that ‘dit’ means ‘said’, so does this mean it’s a sort of alternative surname/ nickname? And if so did people pick the extra name themselves, or was it given? 

[adidas]

1 hour ago, SorenaJ said:

Okay, I get it. 

Clearly you do not.

You have absolutely no idea whether the middle name Mae is a safe choice, a filler name or if it was given zero thought. Joy and Austin have not given a reason for their choice. That’s the point here.

For all we know, perhaps Mae stands for the initials Mary and Annabell Elise, two people Joy loved dearly and lost last year. I’m only speculating, but you have no idea what their reason for choosing the name is. Neither do I, which is why I steer clear of judging and throwing out harsh statements about whether it is an acceptable middle name or not. 

When they named Annabell Elise they clearly gave much thought and put a lot of love into their choice. I’m choosing to believe that they have done the same for their new little daughter.

[Mrs Ms]

Forgot about my own middle name. It is 3 or 4 syllables depending on how you pronounce it and even I am not sure which option my mother wanted. It has no meaning I could figure out and she saw it on the cover of something in a shop one day.
Nobody can spell/pronounce it because it is some weird anglicisation of a foreign name. I am not a big fan of it and the only good thing is that it is my second one as it was almost my first! 

[SorenaJ]

33 minutes ago, adidas said:

Clearly you do not.

No, clearly I don't. It seems extremely arbitrary which names we are allowed to slag, it was a-okay when everyone did it to Spurgeon, but heaven forbid anyone says anything bad about golden favourite Mae. Gasp! 

I prefer Spurgeon to Mae.