My father has always called me by my first and middle names, thus Lisa Ann has always been more of my given name than my first and middle names.
My fiance is changing his surname to his biological father’s. He has always wanted to do this (I remember him expressing this desire when we dated 25 years ago) and I support him completely, especially because his step-father, whose last name he has had since childhood, has moved out of the country and no longer has any contact with him.
My question to you and your humble opinion is, how much of an influence do you feel names have on a person generally or specifically?
I’ve always thought my moniker was cute and a little old-fashioned - I really like it. I feel it suits me as a person, in that I’m cute, if not old-fashioned.
My fiance missed out on growing up with his biological father and although they have reuinited, they are not all that close, yet he still longs to have his last name.
I go by my middle name, but I don’t think it has any particular significance. It’s just the name that, for whatever reason, I responded to more readily when I was a baby, so it became the default, but I’ve briefly considered going by my first name at points in the past.
My initials, on the other hand, can be used to make a pretty common name, and I would refuse to go by it because it makes me think of Southern good ol’ boys, which, while the former, I am definitely not the latter.
After my dad died, I was talking with my mom about names, and she mentioned that my dad had wanted to name me Roxanne. Aw, man, how cool would it have been to have a name with an X in it?? Instead, they named me Michelle, which I assume was for my paternal grandfather who was named Michael.
I often wonder if I would have been a different person if I’d been a Roxanne? I doubt my upbringing would have changed, but perhaps the perception of me by others might have led to me maybe being more outgoing than I was? Dunno. I do know when I left home and started my own life, I dropped the nickname of my childhood and went by my given name, and I’m not sure if it was cause and effect, but I was no longer the shy, scared kid.
I go by my first and middle initial. I won’t say what those initials are, but they aren’t common. People do get my name wrong frequently as a consequence. I was born in the early 80s, and J.R. was shot when I was a kid, and apparently that was so much a part of the average Americans’ consciousness that I was accidentally called J.R. for a long time by everyone other than my parents.
I go by my middle name and it has caused me nothing but trouble, but I can’t switch to going by my first name because I am too used to my middle name by now
A lot. I’m a Joy Ann (:D) and I smooshed it to JoyAnn so that people wouldn’t accidentally call me “Joy”.
I dropped my dad’s last name and took up my not even legal grandmother’s name of all people <3 and (whats the word for this?) made it a last name (from Rutje).
My dad wanted to name me Sarah Ann.
My mom wanted to name me Molly Ann.
My dad said that was a hooker’s name. :o
My mom said everyone’s name was Sarah.
They kept arguing.
My mother, who was so zoinked on the morphine they gave her from the c-section finally busted, out, “FUCK IT! Let’s call her JOY! I’m so happy!” Then she fell asleep.
My last name is from very close to the beginning of the alphabet. In school, when desks were assigned, they were usually assigned in alphabetical order, which meant that I usually ended up sitting in the front row of the class. I don’t think this was a major factor in my growing up as a nerd (I was nerdy even before I started school, and I have a disproportionate number of nerdy relatives, despite later-in-the-alphabet names), but I do wonder if it might have reinforced my natural tendencies.
I’ve always hated my name, but I think I would have been worse off if my parents had gone with my dad’s first choice (Louisa – wtf?) or my mom’s (Melania, which is pretty enough, but people would either mispronounce it or call me Melly or Mel, both of which I dislike).
At the risk of sounding crazy, I have a nickname for myself that I call myself in my head (based on my name), but that no one else uses. I’ve often thought of using it when I introduce myself to new people, but I always chicken out for some reason.
I have an old fashioned name that was popular a decade before I was born and I’ve never met anyone else with the name. It really stood out and so faintly embarrassed me in school, though nothing compared to the utter horror of my last name! My middle name is pretty, though.
I hated my middle name for years, since it was a family line surname. Then I started doing genealogy research and discovered what honorable people those folks had been. Now I wish I’d given all my kids family surname middle names.
I once knew a girl named Bertha Mae. Yep, she fit her name. In high school I held the hypothesis that Teresas were always hotter than Theresas and Cathys were always better looking than Kathys (there were none named Cathie or Kathie). I started teaching high school in '84, and I really don’t remember teaching any students named Teresa or Cathy spelled either way in 26 years.
Anyway, about middle names- people of my generation and native location (central Indiana) almost always went by their first name or version thereof only. Some first names always were shortened or had normal nicknames- Tim for Timothy, Jim for James, and so on. I knew no one close to my age that went by the whole first name of Joseph, Timothy, James, Charles, Cynthia, Patricia, Deborah, Elizabeth, Anthony, Robert (well, one, I think- there were loads of Roberts), or William.
I knew only one guy my age who went by his middle name. It was Curtis, but naturally he went by Curt.
My mother wanted to call me Francis but my dad would have none of it. He insisted on a traditional ‘Irish’ name - Joseph, his own middle name - but allowed Francis as my middle name. As a result, my initials are JFK, which is nice.
(I was born in London in late 1959 so I doubt whether was any Kennedy influence).
My mom wanted to name me Sarah, but she liked the middle name Leigh too much, so she gave me a different first name. She also wanted to name me Margaret, after her grandmother Marguerite who died while she was pregnant with me, but she thought it was too old-fashioned. I prefer both names she discarded over what she eventually chose.
My daughter is Josephine, named after my grandfather, José. We call her Josie, and that one is about 50-50 as to if it’s pronounced right. It’s Jo-c, not Jo-z.
Nice to see Someone ducked that bullet. Me? I didn’t & caught it all. It taught me to fight in grade-school, taught me to ignore in HS, and laugh in college. After all, whats in a name? Though to be fair one of my running gags when I do someone a Solid is to ask that they never name any of their kids ‘Francis’, it being cruel & unusual punishment. My middle name is the last name of the person I was named after (my maternal grandfather) & no one ever, ever pronounces it right. Its an Irish name, but its not very widespread. If the local Irish Pub by you rolls out that poster on St Patrick’s Day with the top 500 last names in Ireland, you won’t find it. But at least the letters are alphabetical: FGH.
Someday, when enough people complain about me stealing fame undeservedly from a great movie or saying I’m pretending I’m royalty ( :rolleyes: ) I’ll probably have to change my user name. If/when I do, if its not taken, I’d choose FGH.
(Then they’ll think I’m promoting some chemical that makes your brain go Whacka-whacka-whacka. Oh wait, that’s milk-tea… :smack: )
Me? I didn’t & caught it all. It taught me to fight in grade-school, taught me to ignore in HS, and laugh in college. After all, whats in a name? Though to be fair one of my running gags when I do someone a Solid is to ask that they never name any of their kids ‘Francis’, it being cruel & unusual punishment. My middle name is the last name of the person I was named after (my maternal grandfather) & no one ever, ever pronounces it right. Its an Irish name, but its not very widespread. If the local Irish Pub by you rolls out that poster on St Patrick’s Day with the top 500 last names in Ireland, you won’t find it. But at least the letters are alphabetical: FGH.