I have a thought for Thursday this week… What’s in a name?
As we prepare for little Lexi to be born we did a lot of thinking about her name. About a name that would grow with her or a name that would fit her as a little person and also as an adult. I think a name is a very important thing, it does stay with you forever and a lot of people think it shapes ones identity – I’m not sure about the identity part but certainly it’s important.
One of the things that I always loved about my name is that it changed with me. When I was a kid I was Cassie, when I was in trouble I was Cassandra. Now at work I’m Cassandra and casually people call me Cass. I can’t help but feel like the 13 year old version of myself when people call me Cassie today. When I went from Cassie to Cass it was a real identity thing for me….it was a shift. I get that not everyone sees that. But in a very real way it changed how I viewed myself.
So the question is has your name evolved with you? Or is it a constant? When you were naming your children did you think about who they would be? What is in a name?
Filed under: In my opinion. | Tagged: names
You’re too funny!
We thought ALOT about naming our kids. I have a fairly unusual name, though not HARD to pronounce once you hear it once or twice and as you know, my husband’s name is Mike – boring, old fashioned, but nice. I didn’t want my kids to have such unusual names that people would make fun of them. Nor did I want something so common that they’d be one of four in their class. I wanted something literary, timeless, and classic, without losing its place in modern times. So, we picked Charlotte and Sawyer. And I think it fits.
The name Charlotte has always evoked thoughts of a red-headed spitfire of a child. And sans the red hair, we indeed have the dramatics associate with such a name. I’m not sure of Sawyer’s personality yet as he is still cooking, but I can tell you that even though he’s a ninja in my womb, I picture him more laid back, sitting under a tree with a book somewhere, but getting into little boy trouble all the same. And maybe that is because we named him after a Mark Twain character. LOL
Wow, this was a long ass comment. Do I get a prize?
i like this subject. my name has also evolved with me. jessie, jess, jessica. people who have known me for more than 15 years call me jessie sometimes (ugh). like you i cringe at that and flash back to age 12. people who have known me for less than 10 call me jess. and people who just meet me call me jessica, because that’s what i tell them to call me.
i didn’t want to name my son james because i didn’t want him to be a “jim” but he has a very distinguished sounding full name. and with my daughter, her name could be cute, or professional, or whatever. i love her name and it is perfect for her.
i just didn’t want to give them something bizarre. i feel for those kids.
Hard for my name to change with me. It’s either Kellie or Kel. While there were several kids in my classes with the same name, I was the only one with the spelling of an “ie” rather than a “y”.
For my daughter, we debated for MONTHS after finding out she was a girl. We had liked Alexis, but I HATED the possessive form of it. We lived one street over from “Morgan Court” and one day, I stared at the street sign and decided her name would be Morgan. Her middle name is Alexis. I think her name suits her. It’s not too unsual, it’s not too common. I think it’s a good fit.
We also based our decision on the nickname of certain names. Jennifer, for instance? I’ve never been a fan of the nickname “Jenny”. Some call my kid “Morg” and that? Drives me BATTY!! I picture dead people. I call her “Morgie” or “Lulu” (please don’t ask, I don’t know why).
Yes, I’m strange for naming my kid based on what the possessive form of her name would be and any possible nicknames.
I love the name you’ve picked for your daughter. It’s cute, yet not oozing with cute. It’s a name that will grow with her.
I like my name. Everyone calls me Kristin. Only my dad is allowed to call me Kris. I had a teacher once INSIST on calling me Kris. I hated him the entire year for it. Unfortunately, no one every spells my name right and that makes me batty.
My oldest is Megan Lucretia. Her middle name is after my grandmother. We call her Meg, or Meggie Lu, and her friends call her Meg Meg. She loves it. My son is Andrew Patrick, but we call him Drew. Drew Patrick didn’t work for us. He is named entirely from hockey names. The twins were SO HARD to name~come up with 4 girl names that sound nice. Kill me. But, it worked. Annabelle Evelyn is named after my husband’s great Aunt Annabelle, and her middle name is my mother-in-law’s name. Isabelle Sarah was harder. We wanted the “belle” sound to match for the girls, so that worked. Her middle name is my mom’s name. And we call them Annie and Izzie. Phew. That’s a lot of kids.
Both my husband and I come from families where everyone has a pretty common, traditional, simple name. So when we were thinking of baby names, we knew we weren’t going to get all crazy and name our kid Ezekial or something, when everyone else in the family is either named James, Katherine, or Tom:) We went with Ryan because: it’s classic and timeless (in my opinion), it works for baby, boy, teen, or man, and you don’t hear about a lot of young baby Ryans these days. I think the name was popular a few decades ago, for men now in their 20s or 30s.
Anyway, growing up I thought my name (Anne) was SUPER boring. But I grew into it, and now I really like it. Also, it is nice because it can’t be shortened or lengthened, and I like that. Oh, and I HATE it when people pronounce the ‘e’ on the end of my name and call me Annie. Silent ‘e’, hello?!!!
I like this subject! Fun! My name has remained constant. Not a whole lot of ways to change Kari. My kids names are Kenedey Paige and Carson Raymond (Raymond after my great grandpa). Both of them get shortened alot. Kenedey has become, “Ken” or “Ken-Ken” by her friends and family. Carson is “Car” or “Car-Car” my mother in law calls him “Carsey Ray-Ray”… ewww! Carson’s name is also a combination of my husband and my name (Kari + Jason) = Carson. I didn’t like his name spelled Karson, it just seemed too feminine to me with the “K”. My husband is also a huge football fan so Carson Palmer helped us with that idea!
Names are HARD. I couldn’t pick one for my kid until many hours after she was born. In the end we ended up naming her after my mom (Renee) because the name is pretty and uncommon and classic and because we like my mom. I don’t like names that aren’t names…that is my only requirement. “Apple” comes to mind. Trying to be WAY TOO CUTE annoys the crap out of me. I don’t really love that the kids at daycare call her “Nae” but I think it is just because they can’t say the R and eventually she’ll be Renee again.
I don’t feel strongly about shortened or not but my name never changed as I aged. Gina is Gina is Gina…I guess I liked that but never knew the other way.
I guess I’d say my name has grown well with me… as a kid I was “Nic Nic”… something that started when I was a toddler and then my cousins/sister/family picked up on it. Luckily that just got shortened to “Nic” and I’m either called Nicole or Nic. Most of my family and close friends and husband call me Nic. I like that much more than Nicky… I hate being called Nicky. Yuck.
As for our kids names… we did put a lot of thought into them… we wanted something different, but not too “out there”. We were a little concerned as to how other people would accept/like/perceive their names, but with Porter’s name we’ve had nothing but great compliments from other people. I’d say at least a couple times a month I have people tell me that they just love his name and that its so different and neat/cute. I hope Hudson’s name will be taken the same way.
I was mostly always called Leslie growing up. My brother calls me Les most of the time and so do a lot of others. My dad has always called me Lellie. It started a long time ago and it stuck to this day.
It’s hard picking out names for your children since they will have them the rest of their lives. I like several names for little girls, but I would not use them for the simple fact I cannot imagine them going thru college and adult life being called those names. They just sound too young. You know?
I think Lexi is adorable. Will her full name be Alexis or are you using just Lexi?
my name is jenny. just jenny. not jennifer. i HATE being called jennifer. they put jennifer under my senior picture in my yearbook and i wanted to kill the retard that did it. i go by jen or jenny. for a while i spelt my name jeni, but once i got to college, i started spelling it the legal way again. i’m such a nerd.
when trying to pick out a name for tucker, it took us forever. i had a ton of ideas and names i liked, but matt always wanted a mathew jr. eeek, i hate juniors. so, i tried and tried to find a name we both could agree on and one night, he saw tucker on the list and he actually liked it. i call him tucker (or pumpkin or honey) most of the time, but sometimes i call him tuck. if anyone has said anything to us about the name it is only that they like it…well, except for one deputy i worked with that would say ‘tucker the little *ucker’ – use your imagination there folks. i guess there is obviously THAT but i don’t think it will be a major issue. i love it and would never change it.
i’m rambling. i think you’ve picked out a great name for your babe!
Hi Cass,
This is my first time visiting your blog, I clicked on your name when reading comments on Swistle’s blog. I quite enjoy your writing style!
I just couldn’t resist responding …
My name is “Stephanie”, and when I was little I often went by “Stephie”, and the most common nickname that has stuck my whole life is the obvious “Steph”. Every now and then I get “Stephie” as a cutesy-nickname (especially from my parents or aunts/uncles, or if my friends and I are joking around).
In my immediate group of friends there were three “Stephanie’s” (chalk it up to being born in 1985). In the group, we literally call ourselves “Steph1″ (me!), “Steph2″, and “Steph3″. It worked really well having a numbering system when I was roomates in University with Steph2, let me tell you. LOL.
The cutest nickname I have is “Estie”; this is the name my now 9-year-old brother calls me – it was the first thing he ever called me back when he was barely speaking, and it’s stuck this long due to a lot of reinforcement from my family (it was just too cute! How could we not insist it continued?). So now every now and then I have a few other people in my life randomly call me “Estie”.
At work and when I first introduce myself I always go by “Stephanie”; however it very quickly becomes “Steph” if for no other reason than it’s such a popular name that I think people automatically assume that us “Stephanie’s” go by “Steph”. I do, but not nearly as frequently as my Steph2 does (She even has “Steph” on her mastercard).
I think names are wildly interesting. When I have kids I hope I’ll choose names that aren’t so popular they have to deal with what I’ve had to as a “Stephanie-of-the-mid-80s” ; but I also want to choose nice, normal names so we’ll see what happens to them. LOL.
Lovely to “meet” you, I really like your blog I’m sure I’ll be popping back. Love the name “Lexi”… super cute and yet strong enough for a grown-up woman to handle as well.
Oh my, we have the name Lexi picked out if we ever have a girl. I used to have a dance student named Lexi and she was the Cutest little thing. I think that is what made me first fall in love with the name.
On to the name thing… I HATED my name growing up. The 1st day of school the teacher would always call me Dennis while reading the role and I would get placed on the roster with boys while playing sports. I got tired of always having to correct them when all they had to do was read it instead of glance at it and say Dennis.
Now, I knida like it. For the most part it has grown on me and one good thing is that growing up I was the only Denise that I had ever met so it set me apart from everyone else.
Great topic!
I have always been Kasey…sometimes people call me Kase and I’m okay with that. I do remember when I was younger people would ask if my “real” name was Cassandra and they didn’t believe that Kasey was my real name. I remember going through jr. high and high school spelling it differently (K.C., Kacee, etc.) When we have kids, I think it will be hard to come up with a great name! Good post!
Good topic! My name has always been a constant. One friend in grade school called my MJ.
For my kids’ names I wanted something that was not on the most popular lists but not something so bizarre they’d get teased about it or have to explain where it came from.
My son was named for my husband’s cousin who was his best friend growing up and died in an accident at a young age. Hubbie was against it but I stuck with it and he finally asked his mom and aunt and they cried happy tears. His middle name came from my grandmother’s brother. It was #560-something on the list of popular boys names that year. I always call him by his given name, never shortened.
For my daughter I wanted something Irish, because she was IVF and the transfer was on St. Patrick’s Day. Her name isn’t actually a girl’s name in Ireland, that I know of. It’s not an easy name to shorten and most people call her by her given name. Her middle name was for my grandmother. It might have been her first name except it has become very popular and my cousin named his first for my grandmother. Her first name is also the name of a beach town down by the shore and I love the beach, especially the ocean.