We’re hoping to produce another child soon, and if it’s a little girl we’d rather like to call her Faith. However, another couple in our circle have one “coming down the track” already, and if that one’s a girl, they’re going to call her Faith.
My question is this: why on earth do I feel that if said couple do produce a Faith, we can’t do the same thing a few months later? There’d be no problem if we did it before meeting… so why have I effectively banned myself from using my favourite name?
Any insights appreciated, 'cos if this is the worst thing that I can think of to get irritated about, I’m probably having a pretty good day, I guess.
Because nobody really likes the idea of their kid sharing a name with someone else about the same age (your child is unique and all), and because you don’t want to look like a copycat probably.
I have two aunts who are still mad at each other because one picked the name Lauren for her future daughter, and then the other had a daughter first and took the name.
Said Lauren is now a sophomore in college. First aunt didn’t have a daughter till three years later, so I think the statute of limitations on mad should have run out by then.
I completely understand why you feel you can’t name your daughter Faith after that. (I love that name, btw, and have seriously considered it for my someday-daughter.) As Marley said, your child will be unique, she will be your child, and you want her to be as special to the world as she is to you. Sharing her name with somebody else may take away a little bit of that identity. (As someone who was given the most popular name of her birth year, I know a little bit about this. )
I say if the name means that much to you, you should go ahead and use it. If you’ve got a little wiggle room on the decision, make it her middle name, or pick something similar. (I’m also a big fan of both Hope and Patience, although any child of mine would probably not have the necessary qualities for “Patience”.) But above all, remember that this is your child, and pick the name you think fits her best.
This is why, under no set of circumstances, should people discuss baby names with outsiders until the baby is seen emerging from the mother’s body. Absolutely NO good can come of it.
In all honesty “Faith” is actually a decoy name, which I’m using in case this couple somehow blunder across these boards, because they might. I chose “Faith” rather than “X” because I didn’t want to set off a bunch of “X is a stupid name for a baby” gags, but now I see that it was a fool’s errand and I’m very sorry. Honesty, it seems, is the best policy.
The child’s real name will be “If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned”.
Not that this is in any way the OP’s situation, but what is with people (especially close relations) that steal baby names? That’s low.
When my sister was pregnant, they’d chosen the name Alexander if their baby happened to be a boy. Her husband shared this with his family, his brother’s wife happened to be pregnant too (due earlier than my sister), and what did they name their son? Alexzander. (Don’t get me started about the spelling.) The hell?! Luckily, my sister had a little girl, beautiful Olivia.
My brother’s thinking of adopting a little girl. He’s in love with the name Mara, and has been for years. Naturally, they’ll probably name the little girl Mara. They were discussing this with his now pregnant sister-in-law. Now guess what sis-in-law might name her baby, if it’s a girl? Three guesses, the first two don’t count.
It’s come to the point where I’ve told them to pick decoy names, names that are perfectly serviceable and nice, but definitely not the names you really prefer, and tell everyone those names.
I went to school with a guy who was named Bruce for the first 9 months of his life. Then a cousin was born, and the parents named him Bruce. Apparently Bruce #1’s parents so objected to there being more than one Bruce in the family, they legally changed his name. To Kip (his dad was a former gymnast). Commentary on those names aside, you’re clearly not alone.
A couple in my birthing class were planning to name their son Arlo. Original, offbeat, they loved Arlo Guthrie. Another couple visited as guest speakers one week, to discuss their recent homebirth. And they brought their newborn son…named Arlo. The parents in my class were stunned. Turns out all four of them had been to a local Arlo Guthrie Jr concert the summer previous. It amazes me to think that there are two kindergartners in town with the name Arlo. It would be funny if they ended up in the same school.
But if you love the name, go for it. That couple may not live near you forever.
My friend told me that she was disappointed to be giving up her most favourite boy’s name (Brandon) because her neighbours had a son named Braydon and she thought that was too similar. I couldn’t believe that! I argued “What if you come home from hospital and see a For Sale sign on their lawn? Will you regret not using the name you’ve had picked out for so long?” She obviously thought about it and decided to use Brandon after all, and as it turned out her husband was offered a job that they had to relocate for just days after the baby Brandon’s birth.
I don’t have any real insights into the why, but feel that it’s common for people to want their child to have it’s own name. I feel it’s important to assess the place of the person in your life - if it’s someone who is likely to drift away in time (or a neighbour), then maybe you should use it after all. If it’s a forever friend, or relative, then maybe you need to think about alternatives.
My mom’s best friend’s oldest daughter (we grew up together, too, she’s a close friend of mine) has wanted to name her firstborn daughter Emma for as long as I can remember - before Emma started getting so popular.
Her younger brother’s bitch of a girlfriend got pregnant (and is now his bitch of a wife - funny, they were broken up at the time she discovered she was pregnant), and named their baby daughter Emma. They both obviously were well aware of what my friend wanted as a name for her daughter. I think it was kind of crappy, to be honest. No, she didn’t have a monopoly on the name, but she knew that my friend had loved the name for years.
Of course, now my friend has a beautiful baby boy named after his dad, so it’s a moot point.
I figure if someone takes our names (which I doubt, as not too many parents seem to want to name their kids Miranda or Anastasia or Malcolm or Atticus), we can find another one. No one really knows our choices at the moment, so if someone does choose our name, it’ll be a coincidence.
The Carter parents were a quiet and respectable Lancre family who got into a bit of a mix-up when it came to naming their children. First, they had four daughters, who were christened Hope, Chastity, Prudence and Charity, because naming girls after virtues is an ancient and unremarkable tradition. Then their first son was born and out of some misplaced idea about how this naming business was done he was called Anger Carter, followed later by Jealousy Carter, Bestiality Carter and Covetousness Carter. Life being what it is, Hope turned out to be a depressive, Chastity was enjoying life as a lady of negotiable affection in Ankh-Morpork, Prudence had thirteen children, and Charity expected to get a dollar’s change out of seventy-five pence—whereas the boys had grown into amiable, well-tempered men, and Bestiality Carter was, for example, very kind to animals.
Name the kid what you want. The only ironclad rule I would suggest is not naming two of your own children the same (are you reading, George Foreman?). Otherwise, unless you have quite a large family it’s best not to use a name “taken” by a sibling when naming your child, but if it means a lot to you most people wouldn’t care. If it’s just a friend- just go for it.
My mother still gets into a little snit when she thinks about my middle name… she was buddies with her pregnant (then) sister-in-law named Lisa while my mother was also pregnant with me. She told Lisa that if she had a daughter, she would give her the middle name “Dawn”, which was her best friend’s middle name, and how pretty she thought it was. Lisa didn’t say anything about this, just that she thought it was cute.
Well. Lisa gave birth two months before my mother did. Just guess what happened. She had a beautiful baby girl… and gave her the middle name “Dawn”. My mother was outraged. However, when I finally arrived, my mother still gave me “Dawn” as a middle name, since that’s what was originally intended, but she explains herhead off to everyone now how she never copied Lisa, it was the other way around. Now I have a first cousin with the same middle name, and we’re the same age. Weird, but not too bad. It’s just a middle name, after all.
Perhaps one of the more ironic things is that Lisa’s husband left her after a while… for the sister of the woman I was named after. :smack:
Coincidentally a good friend of mine named her daughter Maia, and when I met her, Maia was about 2. One of the first things I said was that Maia had always been my favourite girl’s name. When I was pregnant, several years later, I did ask her if she minded me using that name should I give birth to a girl, and she said she didn’t, remembering my comment about Maia when I first met her. As it happened, I had a boy so it became a non-issue.
About a year after my son Lucas was born, another friend told me she was pregnant, and that their first choice for a boy’s name was Luca. Her husband is Italian and it’s a fairly common Italian name. I appreciated her asking me if I minded, but there is no way I would have found it objectionable in any case. A close family member, though, is another matter.
My mom is still mad that a cousin of hers “reused” my sister Brynda’s name for her own daughter.
When my other sister was naming her son, the name she picked for his middle name was the same as my husband’s name (a very common one), though nephew was being named after a different person with the same name. As a courtesy, she asked me if I minded her using the name. I did not mind at all and now there are three males in the immediate family who have that name as a first or middle name. No problem for us.
I can see why you’d want to avoid the kids having the same name…names are so closely tied to identity, and if the kids are going to be socializing together…eeeh. But it’s weird, now I think about it…It is very different if two kids are named the same thing when the parents don’t know each other.
I guess that whole paragraph boils down to “You’re right, it would be a weird thing to do. Damned if know why, exactly.”
People can get really worked up about these things. When I was born 21+ years ago, my parents named me Jennifer because it was both ordinary and nice-sounding. They didn’t know that my aunt had already picked that name for her daughter, but she thought my dad stole it on purpose, and boy did she get in a snit. She was still sore about it eleven years later when she actually had her first kid.
The thing that gets me is that this was over a name that was the most common for girls for many years running around that time. I mean, I could see if it was something like [picks a random unusual name out of a hat], but Jennifer?
First aunt didn’t have a daughter till three years later, so I think the statute of limitations on mad should have run out by then.