That’s the name of a former coworker’s wife. It struck me odd that a young woman (she’s in her 30s now) would have such an old-fashioned name. I do like the name Clara, but Belle doesn’t do anything for me.
My real name is David. My mother named me after her high school boyfriend to piss off my alcoholic father. Yeah, I have a fun family.
Please tell me it isn’t this one. :eek:
So the legend goes…
My father, being the good Irish lad he is, had settled on Shannon Roisin (pron. Rosheen, generally) if I was a girl, and Julian Declan if I’d had boy bits.
The day I was born (some muggy day in September of 1973), they had a fight at the hospital, and Mum registered my birth with the only name she could think of at short notice: Teresa Jane. She just “liked” Teresa, and Jane seemed to fit. Throughout infant and high schools, I’ve been the only Teresa not just in the class, but in the entire bloody school.
I’ve been known as Tess since my tween years, and successfully avoided being “Terri-ed” until I actually moved to the US, where for some odd reason people still try to Terri-rize me at times. Not that I have anything against Terri per se, it’s just not me.
So, Tess I am, for the most part. And unfortunately, that’s where the resemblance to Nastassia Kinski ends.
(for the record, my parents did divorce shortly thereafter. Not because I wasn’t called Shannon though, apparently…not even I could live with the guilt of that one!)
Being the first-born son in an Italian family, i was named after my grandfather. Luckily he wasn’t named Vito or Rocco or something…nothing against those names, but Thomas is a little more palatable than those, especially living in the midwest.
But over thanksgiving dinner, i found out my last name is wrong. Coming thru Ellis Island, he got the name they thought he said. Since he didn’t know English the wrong misspelled name stuck.
When my parents were expecting me they couldn’t decide on a name - mom was holding out for a girlie name (she liked Jodie) and my dad wanted an ugly, solid German name to go with our German last name (he liked Gretchen or Ursula***). Then one day my mom was reading the paper and read the birth announcement of a pair of twins, one of whom had been named Kendra. She asked my dad if he liked it, and he said he did, and so that’s my name.
The funny thing is, my mom said she liked it because it was such a “unique” name, and whenever she met someone who had a daughter named Kendra, she’d get mad that they’d “stolen her name”. I’d laugh and say, “But Mom, you stole my name from someone else’s kid!”
*** Ursula isn’t such a terrible name in itself, but I recently found out that my dad liked that name because he’d had a huge crush on Ursula Andress when Dr. No came out. So I could have been named after someone my dad jacked off to in college, for god’s sake! :eek:
I was named after the woman my dad was having an affair with when my mom was pregnant with me. :smack: :smack: :smack:
:eek:
::speechless::
I’m named after my paternal grandmother (Kathleen) but have always been Katie from the outset, except when my father sings “I’ll take you home again Kathleen” at me. My middle name is Ann, after my mother’s childhood baby-sitter.
My two sisters have stranger stories.
My next sister is called Rebecca Claire after two women my parents met on holiday (nope, I don’t know what was special about them, just that they’re who she’s named after). They were going to do a “Katie and Beckie” thing with our names, but she ended up being “Becca”.
My baby sister is called Lucy Hannah. My father used to coach rowing teams, and he’d shout (through a megaphone, while riding a bike along the towpath) to hold the oars “loosely”, which was heard by the oarsmen as “Lucy”. Since he shouted it so much, they joked that he’d have to call his daughter that…he did. The Hannah is because she was a much wanted and prayed for baby, and Hannah was the mother of Samuel in the bible, and she prayed for his birth.
I think we all have nice names, even if they were arrived at oddly.
Because it fit their specified criteria namely that it’s
historically a name given mostly by Maharashtrians (my father)
a name of either Durga or Parvati (my mother)
in the Bhagavad-Gita (both)
When my mother was a little girl, she and her sibs were being watched for the weekend by their great aunt who was called Esther. My mother and her brother went downstairs in the middle of the night with a stolen cigar. They decided to smoke it together by the fireplace and blow the smoke up the chimney. After a few minutes of this, they were caught by Aunt Esther. Expecting to be punished severely, they were shocked when she winked at them and asked if they had another cigar.
My mother vowed on that day that she would one day have a daughter and name her Esther. Well, she kept her promise, and here I am. My middle name is Lee. It’s an old family name. Most of the women on my mother’s side have it as a middle name.
Harborwolf and I had quite a dilemma back in 1997 when we had to come up with a name for our expected child. We didn’t know the baby’s sex, and we wanted to be surprised. We had a boy name picked out fairly easily. Alexander David, after a characted in a play I had written in high school and Harborwolf’s first name. The problem arose when we tried to settle on a girl’s name. I wanted to name our daughter Saffron, partly after a character on Ab-fab, and partly because I thought it was pretty. Harborwolf wanted to name our daughter Amanda. I still don’t know why he liked that name. Well, I said that no child of mine would have a common name like Amanda, and he said no child of his would be named a silly hippie name after a show he despised, so we compromised and decided that if we had a daughter, she would be called Sage Elizabeth. We had a daughter, and I can’t imagine having named her anything but Sage. It fits her perfectly.
No, and that’s another name that, while pretty, I wouldn’t want for myself.
So that this doesn’t become a ‘guess Jayn’s real name’ thread, I’ll give you the English version–Marjoram :eek: Like I said, I’m relaly glad I didn’t end up with that oen. If you want the translation, try looking in the grocery market spice rack.
I just Babelfished it - that’s a very pretty name! (I can see, though, why you wouldn’t wanna be called Marjoram. :eek: )
When my grandfather fought in WW2, he saved a baby, and upon returning her to her mother, found out that her name was Adrienne.
He wanted that or Yvette, who was the French woman who kept him safe in her home. I’m pretty glad I got Adrienne instead, but the older I get the more I think Yvette is a beautiful name as well.
My uncle was named after another family who helped him, Kitrel. All of us have kind of unusual names, but they all have pretty cool stories behind them.
I did a thread similar to this but I am to lazy to link to it.*
On my Birth Certificate my name is Jeremy the same as my Dad’s name but somewhere around 1st grade my parents, my Mom in particular began calling me Jeremiah because it’s a biblical name so since 1st grade most people know me as Jeremiah.
If I had a nickel for everytime I’ve been called ‘Derwood’ or something similar, I’d have over twenty bucks. 
Also, If I’d been born just one year later, I’d have fit neatly into the York / Sergeant split, spawning who knows what metaphysical musings.
I’ve noticed that of the few other Darrin’s I’ve met, most were spelled Darren. I guess they don’t get to marry Witches. 
Tsarina, I LOVE the name Kendra. If I ever have a daughter (not likely) I will name her either Kendra or Sasha.
My parents were looking for a name that meant “wisdom” or “intellectual” or something along those lines. They found Sophie/Sophia, but they said it was such a common name. So, they found a not-as-common variation of Sophie/Sophia and I’m stuck with it. Grumbles I don’t like my name because everyone pronounces it two different ways and most of them don’t pronounce my name the way I prefer.
My great-great-uncle, Russell M. Ihrig, had a (reasonably) distingushed career in the US Navy: served in WWI and WWII, won the Navy Cross, reached the rank of Commodore, commanded the ships that fueled Doolittle’s Raiders, and President of the California Maritime Academy.
The Lord God Himself did appear unto my 'rents as a flaming Vision of Purity, smote the family dog where he lay, and proceeded to command the Name of names be given unto the as yet unborn child.
Shortly after that, my parents moved out of that neighbourhood and chose a name straight from the Bible. Two in a row, actually. And now, anti gay marraige activists use my name as part of their lame arguments.
I wanted to be named Queequeg, but my Mom wouldn’t listen to my unborn rants.