Hmm... interesting conversation started here. Personally I think names are subjective. I always loved having a name that was unique and not heard much. In fact when I was growing up there was only one other Mary-Ann (and they spelt it differently) in town. And I've only ever met probably a dozen other Mary-Ann's in my lifetime so far. I like that. I think it's a good thing to be able to be an individual and having a unique name makes it easy to be able to do that. I agree that you need to be careful with the examples that Agent M describes along with the last name of Bush but still I like Draven, and not everyone is going to understand the significance of that name in 5, 10 or even 20 years. Not to many folks read comics or will link the movie to the name.

Anyways, that's just my two cents. :)

I wanted to name a future son Dingleflatz Bronkowski Whalen, but I thought that might be pushing it. ;) (Ding B. for short?)

Trust AgentM to come up with a fine line on this topic.

People who name their children after B-movie monsters should have their heads examined, as far as MY opinion counts for anything.

And if my Dad were still around these days, I think he'd give us an earful about "unique" names. He hated his made-up given name so much it's not funny. (I'm not going to mention it here... but it's more than "Ed" and was a combination of sounds from two relatives...Edward and Myrvin. You do the math.)

On the other hand, I think "Vladimir" is cool, for a middle name perhaps. Octavius not so much. ;) Sorry J.

Zephyr? *I* am even conflicted on that one. It sounds neat. But at the same time I can already hear the teenagers making crass comments with the word "blow" in them.

...and "Damien Nightshade" still makes me laugh...it's so PALE and TRAGIC. ;)

ACK!

I wanted to add something to what I said earlier...

If kids are going to want to tease other kids they will find a way to do it regardless of their name.

I find it interesting also that you can pretty much figure out where a person was born or even what decade they where born just by their names. Names are also cultural.

I think that since I am the NAN..I should have a say and here it is.

Boy - Colum Ferris McAdam
Girl - Clair -------McAdam

Sorry there Mom-of-M, but (in my own humble opinion) I can't agree with Colum. Interesting name, but in today's society, that's WAY to close to Gollum. (At least in my head it is...it's the first thing I thought of...geek that I am.) :D

Last thing we want to see is a mini-McAdam creeping about the neighborhood muttering about his "precious". ;)

ACK!

When Lisa and I were thinking of names for our little diaperfiend, we went with a simple rule... If there was any way we could reasonably think of that the name could be twisted to tease the kidlet, it was a no-go. After that it was pretty simple. We went through the book looking at alternate versions of names for boys and girls, and finally settled on Kirin (which, depending on who you ask, is either Welsh as a variant on Cieran, Japanese (lion-esque unicorn critters, or a beer), or Punjabi...) because we both liked it, could see ourselves calling her over and over (and over) in a playground, and couldn't think of any ways to corrupt her name to tease her with.
It also goes without saying that my idea for a boy's name was shot down without hope... Pubert Ignacy... Oh well...

Garething

>Pubert Ignacy

Pubert.
.
.
.
.
.

Oh... I think I wet myself. 'scuse me.

ACK!

My two cents...

If you're naming your kid after a piece of pop culture, you've already gone too far. If you want your kid's name to mean something, let it be personal, not something cool you read or saw in a movie.

If you want to name your kid after a noun (Stone, Rain, Charity, Faith, Serendipity) make sure its something remotely cool. I already think your imaginary son Zephyr is gay.

If you just want a neat sounding name, you can use the method I use for character names. Just take a current common name and change a letter or two. (Keith -> Brieth, Kevin -> Rivin Chris -> Bris) but make sure it doesn't sound like a common name or you'll doom them to a life of "My name's Bruis... no, not B-R-U-C-E, B-R-U-I-S. That's right, with an S. Yes. Yes it is an unusual way to spell it. Can I get my movie now?"

It should sound cool. Which is why I would forgive Rodan, cuz it sounds neat and rolls off the tongue well. (Rodan. RO-dan. Ro-DAN. Rrrrrrrodan!) Not Gamera tho'.

Another neat idea for unusual names is to use a common surname. My brother Brian named his kid Jackson Donnelly Walters, Donnelly being my mother's surname. Think Anderson, Smith, Jones.

Avoid giving siblings similar sounding names or alliterative names. I've been called Brian more times that I care to remember, and it never fails to piss me off.

When in doubt, consult the Good Book, cuz nothing rocks like a good ol' Old Testament moniker.

Ezekiel. Zechariah. Joshua. Solomon. It's all good.

I wish my name(s) were cooler.

An addendum about the Old Testament thing... Soddom is right out. Unless they're twins, and you can call them...

... Soddom and Gamera!

I'm with Bruce on the Zephyr thing. It's a light blowing breeze. Ga-hay.

--Don't name anyone Bris, though. Little off the top!

You want a name that sounds neat, okay. There's still the problem that "neat" is subjective and what you think is neat may make everyone else pee blood. But okay. At the very least pick a name that YOU'VE HEARD SOMEONE ELSE NAMED. Don't take some random word and MAKE it a name. Pick a name with a precedent.

> Just take a current common name and change a
>letter or two. (Keith -> Brieth, Kevin -> Rivin
>Chris -> Bris)

Bris. Mmmm... yes. Naming your child after a Hebrew ritual in which part of the penis is removed. Because THAT'LL go over well. :D

Hey, don't they call you Bruce?

*duck*

Well, Brucie, right away you've broken what, to me, is one of the cardinal rules of naming children: Don't goddamn cutify the goddamn name by changing a letter. It's just too "look how DIFFERENT I am, changing my one letter! See how CLEVER?"

Also, you said "That's how I name my characters." Right there, warning bells should have gone off. CHARACTER names do not make for good REAL LIFE names.

Another thing; using common surnames to make cool first names is something too-too precious white yuppies do. Jackson was, I think, on the Top Ten list of most common boys' names this year.

And as for nature names being cool-- yeah, sure, all of the names you listed are neat, but your view of what's gay sure doesn't jibe with mine.

As for Mike's input, yeah, by all means play it safe, don't ever do anything NEW because that would be HARD on the kid. I get what you're saying, I just think it's bullshit; if EVERYONE did that then we really would all be named Matthew Mark Luke John.

I actually hate looking to the Bible for names, old OR new testament. I'm not a goddamn Christian, why the hell would I want to use that tradition? Peter may be biblical, but that wasn't the source *I* drew it from.

Anyway, my response here is to illustrate the total subjectivity of the whole naming convention. I mean, you guys have given perfectly reasonable and sensible suggestions (and I at least can understand that they ARE) but I just don't agree.

Am I dooming my child to weirdness?

Cripes. Although if Zephyr has friends like Brytyny, Madison, Jackson and Summer-- well, it's like Mike said on his blog-- it'll be the Peters, Pauls and Marys that are viewed as odd.

M

TRIVIA: "Pubert" was Charles Addams' original name for Pugsley-- but they wouldn't let him publish the name in the Addams Family comic strip in The New Yorker in 1940. So he changed it to "Pugsley."

This is why, in the movies, the third Addams child is named "Pubert"-- finally bringing the name into the family.

While some think I named my girl after the fleewood mac song, I didn't. Though it is a funny play on my not being named for a song either.

I picked a name of a girl I admired in school, and was somewhat in my ancestral pot-of-genetics.

It isn't just geeks that like the odd-ball names though! Sean wants this one to be named Morag (which I fenced with him about the first round too,) if it is a girl. Atticus (To Kill a Mocking Bird. The number one protagnoist in literature) but no middle name picked yet. Or Hamish if it is a red headed boy. I gave in on that one.

Rhiannon and Hamish. Might as well paint a sign on my house "CELTS LIVE HERE." If you meet a guy more straight-laced than Sean, you'd be sure his kid was named John. BTW, Sean is the Irish version of John.

This name thing is HARD. I don't like common names. Naming after family members is a bombshell waiting to explode in this combined family. AND you get judged for it either way. BLAH. The pressure.

Could you really see yourself yelling "Zephyr, come down from there!" off your porch? I'd expect to be squashed by a hurricane. :>

You don't like common names, you don't like changing the letters of common names to make them unique, you son't like surnames as first names, you don't like UNcommon names. (Except Zephyr. Which nobody ELSE likes.)

Well, unless you're going to call your kid by his SIN number, you'd better come down in favour of ONE of the alternatives, haintcha? :)

I like Zephyr; and nobody ELSE likes it but as yet I haven't heard any suggestions from other people that I do like. Which in turn implies that their opinions of Zephyr have less impact based on what they like.

D'you see why I'm conflicted? :)

I understand that Zephyr is just not in the top 100 of go-ahead names. I know this. But I'm drawn to the name-- Marci and I both are. It's just important to hear feedback prior. :)

And no, neither of our sets of parents like it, either. :)

We may buck convention, we may not. But it sure is interesting how many opinions this particular entry generated.

As a more helpful afterthought: I've always liked polysyllabic names like Alexander or Gwendolyn. That way, if you (or the kid) is feeling pop-culturey you can call him Lex or Xander, or if he prefers Alex or Al or Sandy he can do that. He can change his mind about what he calls himself every year if he wants to, but on his birth certificate will still be nice non-freakish Alexander.

There's nothing in this world like a good old solid baby-name book. One with different ethnicities in it, and anglicized spelling. And pronounciation.

Somewhere around the apartment I have a book or two of baby names, as well as Irish Saint names. Not because I'm catholic or anything, but because they were good for generating character names that were believable. And I think all girls who have gone through pregnancy scares in their early 20's tend to collect them.

Either way, while I like "odd" names, I want my future kids to have "believable" names. Robin & I decided that if we have a boy (a few years down the line), it'll probably be named Dante. Dante Adam Veldhoen sounds very nice. We both agree that instead of naming a kid something like Gwenhwyfar, we'd use something more common like Jennifer. Being a person with a hard-to-spell first name (almost EVERYONE gets "Meredith" wrong) I wouldn't want to saddle my kid with the burden of explaining to the guy at the DMV "No...not Gwenivere, not Gweniver, it's Gwenhwyfar!" People are just going to call her Gwennie or Jenny anyhow. :)

Dante Adam has a vowel conflict. The glottal stop between the long and short a sounds is discordant. :) Better stick with The Vulture for the middle name.

I suggested Malebolgia as a name for any male offspring we might have, but my wife overruled me.

(sigh)

I rather like Zephyr, but the first thing I thought of was pan pipes. Then German war planes came to mind. Or blimps.
But this is coming from the person who wanted to name their child Illya Kuryakin. I was out voted. But it rolls of the tongue so nicely.

Yeah, Zerphyr would be a cool name. I'd be worried about the kid being a bit "heavy" though and the other kids making the blimps connection.

I still think Vladimir is an awesome name for a boy. Now maybe the Octavious would have been over the top for the middle name.

But, hey, if you're looking at "old testament", how about "Joel"?

Another rule I live by: Never name a child after someone you know who is still living. Name associations being what they are, you don't want to name your young Mr. Dahmer JEFFREY, now do you? Because then, OH OH, everyone will think he's eating Aunt Petunia and that she's stored in the freezer.

And I, I repeat, will NEVER use the Bible as the source of inspiration for a child's name. Peter and Michael may both be IN the bible, but I'll be damned if those names were chosen for their Biblical references.

Erm, no, don't. Speaking as one who HAS a damned biblical name of the pointedly biblical sort, it is a giant pain in putooty! it's only six letters long but pretty much unpronouncable by the slobbering masses. Once you do get them to say it correctly (or more likely a close approximation thereof), the inevitable question comes up: oooh, that's so different, what does it mean? How does a woman closely resembling an amazon tell this stupid person that her name means "Little kitten" in scandinavian?

Don't name your kids cute things that they will inevitably grow out of. Give them names that they won't dread to hear someone butcher when they're an adult. Please!