Joy & Austin 31: Adding Evelyn Mae

[crancraz]

Joy and Austin picked a pretty trendy name. There’s definitely been a move the last few years back towards shorter, sweet, “filler” middle names. All the Raes and Maes. Sort of a more modern Bobby Sue, lol. Evelyn is popular and has been for a few years. 
 

When you have a lot of kids, especially of the same sex, it can start to get hard to find meaningful names that also fit a personal aesthetic. We have three daughters and by the third...Well. She has a “filler” first name “Anne” (call her Annie) and her middle is Louise because a friend used to joke that I was going to name her Louise, so I did! We did subtle theme with my kids’ names: titular literary characters and English royalty, but by the third daughter, we were struggling.  Middle names are my name, Jane (my grandma’s middle name) and Louise. 
 

What’s more jarring to me is sibling names that don’t have a similar aesthetic. Like Elizabeth, Britney and Willow. Classic + 80s + Hippy. All nice and fine names but the combination of siblings together just sounds odd to me. BUT people pick names for all sorts of reasons. One of mine is making sure the siblings names tie into each other, but that doesn’t matter to everyone and I really don’t understand why anyone who doesn’t have skin in that game would care so much. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by crancraz

[Iamtheway]

We chose three names for Miniway, one family name each and a first name that we could both agree on (and that was HARD!)

He has my father’s middle name (that is also his father’s first name) and Mr.Way’s dad’s first name as his middle names. 

My grandmother actually had a brother that shares his first name but since I don’t remember ever meeting that brother he is definitly don’t named after him. 

If I had a daughter she would have definitly had my middle name that is also my mother’s, my grandmother’s and her mother’s middle name. My sister gave that middle name to my niece as well. 

[OyToTheVey]

Jews typically name kids, using first letter only, after important dead people. I'm named after my grandmother I never met. If I was named fully after her I'd be named something super old. But they liked an actress whose name started with the letter necessary and thought she was absolutely beautiful but it's kinda a unique name. So I'm named after my gramma with the actresses name. However, the Anglo version of my name is super super common and I get my name butchered all the time. 

The best example I can think of right now is Karina but constantly called Karen. Yes same name but it's not my name ya know what I mean? I always correct people. Even in emails(my name is my email) I get Karen, Karine, Kari, Corrine, etc just way off stuff. 

 

[JDuggs]

6 hours ago, Alisamer said:

 

There's one well known song with my name in it. I LOATHE that song.

80’s teens will be able to guess my name. It’s included in a song title that’s a somewhat vulgar double entendre. Of course, the one chance for my name to be in an extremely popular song!

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

1 hour ago, JDuggs said:

80’s teens will be able to guess my name. It’s included in a song title that’s a somewhat vulgar double entendre. Of course, the one chance for my name to be in an extremely popular song!

I can think of two options, are you more a  Warrant or a Dexys kind of girl.  

[baldricks_turnip]

10 hours ago, crancraz said:

What’s more jarring to me is sibling names that don’t have a similar aesthetic. Like Elizabeth, Britney and Willow. Classic + 80s + Hippy. All nice and fine names but the combination of siblings together just sounds odd to me. BUT people pick names for all sorts of reasons. One of mine is making sure the siblings names tie into each other, but that doesn’t matter to everyone and I really don’t understand why anyone who doesn’t have skin in that game would care so much. 

What I find interesting is families who came to fundiedom after starting having children and you can track the progression by naming trends. For instance: Tyler, Brittany, Destiny (non-fundie), Noah, Rebecca, Joseph (discovered religion), Hezekiah, Zipporah, Godislove, Gloryof'Zion (in DEEP).

[SweetJuly]

I'm not a native French-speaker, but my husband is. Sometimes I'll throw random French names at him and ask for his opinion. It's very interesting how some names that seem completely normal to me will sound old-fashioned or ridiculous to him.

Brussels is a very international city due to the EU and NATO being headquartered here, so there are many bilingual or multilingual couples (think Dutch-Bulgarian, Spanish-Polish, French-Indian, Greek-Arabic, etc.). Trying to find baby names that work in the parents' languages (i.e. names the grandparents can pronounce), in the Belgian languages Dutch and French, and in an international environment is a very common struggle. The general result appears to be a shift away from more obviously "cultural" names to names that are more easily spelled and pronounced in other languages (i.e. Alexander instead of Alejandro). The name Elena seems to emerge triumphant across all cultures, there have been 3 babies with this name in our group of friends in the last 2 years.

We also have friends among the Belgian aristocracy, a very different, rather closed-off, world with a particular way of life. They have their very own trends that currently seem to veer towards ancient history or mythology, especially for boy names (e.g. Achille, Orphée, Hadrien, Lancelot).

LittleJuly's first name is my great-grandmother's name which fortunately works well in all languages we could think of. It is not very common, but one of those old-fashioned names from 1900 that are currently experiencing a resurgence in Germany. We already have names lined up for hypothetical future children. The name I have loved for a boy since I was a teenager is currently very popular in France which is why I am living in constant fear that one of my husband's 50+ cousins will snap it up instead.

Would it be OK to pick a first name that has already been used in the current generation of an extended family? My husband claims it wouldn't be well-received by his relatives, but I wouldn't be willing to let go of a beautiful name that I have loved for decades just because some distant cousin of his liked it too.

Edited September 2, 2020 by SweetJuly
here

[JanasTattooParlor]

31 minutes ago, SweetJuly said:

Would it be OK to pick a first name that has already been used in the current generation of an extended family? My husband claims it wouldn't be well-received by his relatives, but I wouldn't be willing to let go of a beautiful name that I have loved for decades just because some distant cousin of his liked it too.

I know a lot of people seem to avoid naming their kid a name that a family member or friend named their own child, but if you love the name, go for it! It shouldn’t matter that someone else has used the name because you have your reasons for why you like it and that’s all that matters! I love the name Erin for a girl and always have, and my SIL loves short not super common but common enough names like that. If she ever has a kid and names her Erin I will definitely still pick the same name when I have a daughter. It might be weird at first, especially if the family member is close with y’all, but just like how in the Maxwell thread we can differentiate between three different Annas in their family without giving them nicknames, I’m sure you’re family can too. 

[Shouldabeenacowboy]

21 hours ago, crancraz said:

BUT people pick names for all sorts of reasons. One of mine is making sure the siblings names tie into each other, but that doesn’t matter to everyone and I really don’t understand why anyone who doesn’t have skin in that game would care so much. 

So true! My primary concern is that my children's names are easy to recognize, write, spell, and pronounce in the country they live in, the countries where their grandparents and uncle live, and in their three mother tongues. There are not many of them - Clara, Maria, Giselle, Adele, Fiona, Alexander, Maximilian, Albert, Lucas, ...and Evelyn! - just to name some examples. Some I like, some I don't, one of those I have used for our kid. There are some names I really love, but would be a nightmare in one language or another - having been the kid and the woman whose name is constantly butchered, even when repeated, I feel very keen on the subject  

[Jana814]

I have 2 friends that are brother & sister. The 2 of them along with their sister all have easy to pronounce and spell names. The reason is they have a very hard and long last name that starts with the letter Q. 

[SassyPants]

1 hour ago, Shouldabeenacowboy said:

So true! My primary concern is that my children's names are easy to recognize, write, spell, and pronounce in the country they live in, the countries where their grandparents and uncle live, and in their three mother tongues. There are not many of them - Clara, Maria, Giselle, Adele, Fiona, Alexander, Maximilian, Albert, Lucas, ...and Evelyn! - just to name some examples. Some I like, some I don't, one of those I have used for our kid. There are some names I really love, but would be a nightmare in one language or another - having been the kid and the woman whose name is constantly butchered, even when repeated, I feel very keen on the subject  

My daughter lives in So America and is married to a man from her new country. Obviously, they are a bilingual family. Their daughter has a very Anglo, albeit classical first name. In fact, it’s a variation of a name on your list. Any how, when my GD speaks in English, she pronounces her name one way, and when she speaks in Spanish, she says it a completely different way. When she was really tiny, listening to her switch languages and pronunciations just cracked me up.

[AprilQuilt]

27 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

My daughter lives in So America and is married to a man from her new country. Obviously, they are a bilingual family. Their daughter has a very Anglo, albeit classical first name. In fact, it’s a variation of a name on your list. Any how, when my GD speaks in English, she pronounces her name one way, and when she speaks in Spanish, she says it a completely different way. When she was really tiny, listening to her switch languages and pronunciations just cracked me up.

My friend's son HATES this about his name. Think Gabriel in English but Gabriele in Italian, which to him sounds girly. It sucks as she tried so hard to choose names that would work in either country of origin.

[Not that josh's mom]

I know a family with 10 children and a 13 letter last name. Eight of the children have a 3 letter first name. Just two have 4 letters. Bless those parents for making life a bit easier. 

[Jana814]

28 minutes ago, Not that josh's mom said:

I know a family with 10 children and a 13 letter last name. Eight of the children have a 3 letter first name. Just two have 4 letters. Bless those parents for making life a bit easier. 

I went to school with someone who has a very long Italian first name and an even longer Italian last name. She went by a nickname for most of her life though. 

[SassyPants]

13 minutes ago, Jana814 said:

I went to school with someone who has a very long Italian first name and an even longer Italian last name. She went by a nickname for most of her life though. 

This would be me and my plight!

[AussieKrissy]

8 hours ago, SweetJuly said:

I'm not a native French-speaker, but my husband is. Sometimes I'll throw random French names at him and ask for his opinion. It's very interesting how some names that seem completely normal to me will sound old-fashioned or ridiculous to him.

Brussels is a very international city due to the EU and NATO being headquartered here, so there are many bilingual or multilingual couples (think Dutch-Bulgarian, Spanish-Polish, French-Indian, Greek-Arabic, etc.). Trying to find baby names that work in the parents' languages (i.e. names the grandparents can pronounce), in the Belgian languages Dutch and French, and in an international environment is a very common struggle. The general result appears to be a shift away from more obviously "cultural" names to names that are more easily spelled and pronounced in other languages (i.e. Alexander instead of Alejandro). The name Elena seems to emerge triumphant across all cultures, there have been 3 babies with this name in our group of friends in the last 2 years.

We also have friends among the Belgian aristocracy, a very different, rather closed-off, world with a particular way of life. They have their very own trends that currently seem to veer towards ancient history or mythology, especially for boy names (e.g. Achille, Orphée, Hadrien, Lancelot).

LittleJuly's first name is my great-grandmother's name which fortunately works well in all languages we could think of. It is not very common, but one of those old-fashioned names from 1900 that are currently experiencing a resurgence in Germany. We already have names lined up for hypothetical future children. The name I have loved for a boy since I was a teenager is currently very popular in France which is why I am living in constant fear that one of my husband's 50+ cousins will snap it up instead.

Would it be OK to pick a first name that has already been used in the current generation of an extended family? My husband claims it wouldn't be well-received by his relatives, but I wouldn't be willing to let go of a beautiful name that I have loved for decades just because some distant cousin of his liked it too.

his brother or sister  or your brother or sister, maybe not.

A cousin? go for it! if it is your fav then use it. 

[GuineaPigCourtship]

I have a long Slavic last name and my parents blessed me with a short, classic first name.  I didn't like it growing up - found it too boring and wished I'd been named something exciting like Angela or Crystal (or other names that wouldn't go with my last name at all).  I'm glad for it now.

[OHFL2009]

11 hours ago, GuineaPigCourtship said:

I have a long Slavic last name and my parents blessed me with a short, classic first name.  I didn't like it growing up - found it too boring and wished I'd been named something exciting like Angela or Crystal (or other names that wouldn't go with my last name at all).  I'm glad for it now.

I'm going to have the opposite problem for my kids. My last name is one syllable and very common, so while I love short, classic first names, I don't love the sound of most of them with my short, classic last name, and my kids would be one of a whole lot of people with their name. Although my husband has a very common first name and says he likes the ability to be somewhat anonymous, because anyone doing an online search of his name will get thousands of results that aren't him. 

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

9 minutes ago, OHFL2009 said:

I'm going to have the opposite problem for my kids. My last name is one syllable and very common, so while I love short, classic first names, I don't love the sound of most of them with my short, classic last name, and my kids would be one of a whole lot of people with their name. Although my husband has a very common first name and says he likes the ability to be somewhat anonymous, because anyone doing an online search of his name will get thousands of results that aren't him. 

As someone with a more unique and multisyllable name, your husband has a point! I would love to be internet anonymous. You can always name a kid John UnusualName Smith or whatever.

 

I used to wish my name was Jane!

[Jesquire]

My 1st daughter's name was Katherine (after my middle name) for the first few hours after birth.  Quite a few of the doctors and nurses in the OR said their daughters were named a variation of it.  So she became a Sarah, which I loved when I was pregnant but it was the same first letter as her older brother and I didnt want my kids to have matchy letter names (cough.... like SOME families...cough  LOL).  But as it turns out their initials all go together for all three kids SEA, SJA, EJA. Also, we didn't know biological sex before they were born, so it was a game time decision.  One thing I did double check before the final decision was to google the name to make sure there aren't any unsavory characters with that name. (Their last name is common.)

[just_ordinary]

On 8/31/2020 at 3:52 AM, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

I'm guessing you don't live in North America. I know 2 little Evelyns, 1 little Alice and more Olivias than necessary here in Ontario, Canada. Not an Inga or Frederike (!!) to be found. So Joy's taste seems typical to me.

Can't say I've met a little Gideon though. Yet?

 

On 8/31/2020 at 1:26 PM, baldricks_turnip said:

That's interesting! Where are you from? Many of the names you have described as making a huge comeback haven't really hit the charts here (Australia). The trendy old fashioned girls names here are Amelia, Ruby, Olive, Mabel, Evelyn, Lydia, Violet, Rose/Rosie. For boys its Oliver, Arthur, Archie, Leo, Theo, Henry, Edward, George.
I hear from many Americans about Clara being very trendy but I don't know of any Australian babies with that name.

I live in Germany. Our variations of Olive, Henry and Amelia are popular. Oliver was VERY popular a couple of years ago and still isn’t out per se. The “new” names I described were popular about a hundred years ago (the generation of our great grandparents and grandparents). That’s about the recycling cycle for names to come back. Add popular names from other countries that swap over. Evelyn and Annabelle are too young here to be trendy again.

On 8/31/2020 at 4:58 PM, Bassett Lady said:

I do not think it is a doubling down on whiteness or Anglo traditions as much as a class/money issue in the US.

There are many poor white southerners who use one syllable middle names.  Bobbie Jo, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Sue, and so forth.  It is an economic marker more than a race marker in many parts of the US.

There are definitely two dimensions to this. Ethnicity is a naming factor but for many class is even a more important factor. We also have the names that get easily identified as „Eastern Germany“ names. I don’t know though if ethnic names are a bigger „problem“ then lower class names. I know that joking about lower class names is pretty common, not so much for ethnic names but that doesn’t mean that racism isn’t still a more dominant factor in the practice.

22 hours ago, SweetJuly said:

[...]

We also have friends among the Belgian aristocracy, a very different, rather closed-off, world with a particular way of life. They have their very own trends that currently seem to veer towards ancient history or mythology, especially for boy names (e.g. Achille, Orphée, Hadrien, Lancelot).

[...]

Would it be OK to pick a first name that has already been used in the current generation of an extended family? My husband claims it wouldn't be well-received by his relatives, but I wouldn't be willing to let go of a beautiful name that I have loved for decades just because some distant cousin of his liked it too.

German aristocratic do that too sometimes but it isn’t a common thing. I secretly love it though. I am a sucker for Greek mythology and think they are very beautiful names.

I think you should give your child the name YOU (you and your partner) love. I mean, you could get neighbours, new colleagues, new friends with kids the same name. There is no such thing as stealing a name. It’s the same with “family” names. Example: Maybe your cousin wanted to use your grandmother’s name because they felt very close to her. Would you begrudge them that? I believe many have the stupid idea the name will show publicly what an extra special and delicate little snowflake their child is. Spoiler: every individual is special but 99% are still pretty ordinary if you look at the big picture at the end (which I consider a very good thing by the way). Having the same name doesn’t take away from the people that share it.

 If your partner feels uncomfortable, why not make it the second name at least?

[Bassett Lady]

My mother passed away from cancer when I was 16. I asked her, shortly before her death, to tell the other kids they couldn’t use her name for their kids, because I wanted to use it for my someday daughter. 
 

Mom called us all together and told us any of us could use her name as a middle name for kids, but that doing so did not grant sole custody of the name. She also said none of her grandkids should have her name as a first name. 
 

So, all the nieces have the same middle name! It has become something we all love and treasure. Each of the girls carries her name. Several of the boys have a version of her name as well.

I gave birth to the last granddaughter. She  was a later in life baby, and I am the youngest child. For half a second I thought about giving her THE  name as a first name, but even 24 years after her death I could not disappoint/disrespect my mother. 
 

I hope I have been the kind of mother and woman that my children will be willing to do intellectual battle with each other  to have the right to name their kids after me. ?

[SweetJuly]

1 hour ago, just_ordinary said:

German aristocratic do that too sometimes but it isn’t a common thing. I secretly love it though. I am a sucker for Greek mythology and think they are very beautiful names.

I think you should give your child the name YOU (you and your partner) love. I mean, you could get neighbours, new colleagues, new friends with kids the same name. There is no such thing as stealing a name. It’s the same with “family” names. Example: Maybe your cousin wanted to use your grandmother’s name because they felt very close to her. Would you begrudge them that? I believe many have the stupid idea the name will show publicly what an extra special and delicate little snowflake their child is. Spoiler: every individual is special but 99% are still pretty ordinary if you look at the big picture at the end (which I consider a very good thing by the way). Having the same name doesn’t take away from the people that share it.

 If your partner feels uncomfortable, why not make it the second name at least?

Thank you, definitely food for thought. For the moment it's all hypothetical - nobody has yet used the name, and we don't have any son born or in utero - but given the size of my husband's family and the popularity of the name, it feels like it might only be a matter of time until someone picks it. In the worst case, we'd probably base our decision on how close my husband is to the specific cousin.

Speaking of German aristocracy, have you by any chance ever come across the Reuß family? For the last 1000 years or so, all men in the family had the first name Heinrich, plus a Roman numeral to denote the how many-eth Heinrich they are. They don't even have any official second names, just Heinrich NUMBER. I wish I knew someone who knows the family in person so that I could discreetly inquire how they manage to tell all the men apart. ?

[nausicaa]

On 9/1/2020 at 12:44 PM, Alisamer said:

She saved you a life of being serenaded by a Guns n Roses song!

There's one well known song with my name in it. I LOATHE that song. 

Of course, when we went to a restaurant with live music for my birthday, that's the song they sang for me. 

My sister's name is Eileen...

Everyone in my family collectively loathes that song. I will straight up walk out of a wedding reception for a "fresh air" break if the DJ plays it. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

I have the same name as a semi popular Toto song from the 80's didn't bother me too much because most of the kids were "too cool' to listen to them.  Though I would get serenaded at work when it played over the lout speakers. ? ?