Well, anybody I’ve ever known with the Yiddish name Golda (and I’ve known several, including a toddler I met over the weekend and a girl in my HS class who’d be in her late twenties now) goes by the nickname Goldie. Golda is an old-school Yiddish name, and nowadays most girls named for that are named after their grandmothers or something like that, but it doesn’t have any particular connotations of blondness, at least among Jews.
ETA that even though I’ve known several younger Goldies, as I mentioned, it still falls into the category of ‘old-person name’ to me, like most Yiddish names do. Jenessa doesn’t grab me, but I think it’s inoffensive.
Of course, Vanessa was invented by Jonathan Swift. So it’s just as “made up” as Jenessa, just older - although Vanessa sounds much nicer in my opinion; the consonants in Jenessa make it a bit of a trainwreck.
Well, once you’ve been named after your grandmother, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. If I had wound up with Ethel or Madge, who knows what I would have done?
Well, I’m not a partial to either, but it’s your child, not mine. I just had a baby girl 6 weeks ago, and my wife and I had a hard time coming up with something we both liked. She had wanted ‘Anne’, which I find very boring, but she wanted it since she was little, so I compromised a little, and it’s her middle name.
We eventually went through the list of the top 1000 girls names and if one of us didn’t like it, it came off the list. After running through all 1000, there were 6 or 7 that we sort of liked…that’s it. Very quickly we got down to two, and finally settled on Chloe.
I actually liked the process…we both ended up with a name we liked. Don’t let your child be named a name you dislike, though. Find a name you both enjoy. While Chloe wasn’t #1 on my list, it was #2, and I can certainly live with that. Now that she’s here, she looks more like a Chloe than what I would have originally named her anyway (Abigail), so it worked out!
If you must go with a less than traditional first name pick a very traditional middle name. That way when her teacher calls roll on the first day of class she can respond with, “I go by Anne.” or whatever her middle name is should she choose to do so.
Janessa, Jenessa, and Jenissa are popular among Hispanic families in my part of Central Florida as well. It’s a pretty enough name, and I’d go with the “Jenessa Gold” suggestion if you wanted both. Goldie makes me think of Ms. Hawn or Golda Meir, which may or may not be associations you want. The Golda variation is, however, still an “old lady name” to me, no matter how you spin it.
My grandmother was named Ethel, and even she didn’t use it. She was always called Tina. (There was a story behind that, but I don’t remember what it was.)
I’ve known a lot of Melissas over the years, and none of them have gone by Mel. They’re all been Melissa or occasionally Missy when young. Mel is a nickname for Melvin.
If she didn’t start dyeing it before age 12, it’s a sandy blonde color.
The only “Mel” I know is actually Melinda. But Mel suits her.
I think the worry about Mel comes from the Spice Girls’ two Melanies being nicknamed Mel. But don’t worry- that was probably just because they couldn’t spell long words.
