Naming your kid after a fictional character

There were parents back in the eighties who were named their son Rambo.

If you’re going to name your kid after a movie character, try to at least pay attention to the movie. The character’s name was John.

Josey Wales Dumbguy

Thorin, Fili, Kili, Ori, Nori, Bori, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Oin, Gloin, Dwalin, Balin, Gimli, Durin, Dain, Thror and Thrain.

I have to marry a very fertile women :smiley:

My cat’s named Quinne, which I adapted from the same source material. Everyone but me and my ex-girlfriend pronounces it “Queenie,” which I’m imagining won’t work too well for you. No one seems to know what I mean when I say “Quinn[e]… like the Eskimo.”

My ex-wife liked “Tristan” for a boy’s name, and we both liked “Sheridan” from the author of Carmilla.

My husbands first name is Arwin, the male version of LOTR’s Arwen. He likes it. He occasionally looks up how many Arwins and Arwens there are on facebook, and there are enough to make the name normal and few enough to make the name distinctive.
We named our two-year old son Esper. It is a legitimate Norse name, but we also liked the link with Esperer (French for “to hope”) the Dutch tree name Esp (I’m a nature geek) and, of course, the Espers from the computer game Final Fantasy.
So far, the name gets good reactions. Still, to be sure I gave him two more middle names that are either very normal and family-traditiony (William) and just one more name that I liked very much, Livine.

Voldemort - Mort, or Morty for short. Although it sounds like the name of a talent scout, 1949, who books dog acts.

I personally know a Thorin, he was raised in a yurt for a few years by his treehugger dad. Thorin is in college now and seems completely normal. Answers to ‘Thor’ or ‘Thorin’. NBD.

Eowyn and Inara: Eowyn could be “Winnie” for short. Inara…“Innie”?? (NO. Sorry, Inara.)

The thing I really hate about the name Madison is that I’ve yet to hear a girl named Madison who goes by it. While I’m sure there are, every girl I’ve known named Madison used “Maddie” so what’s the point?

Friends recently named their son Indy ( Indiana Jones ).
I don’t know if they gave him a middle name.

i still like scout even if in TKaMK it’s a girl. better than boo. other suggestions from Nickalodeon: katara, sokka, zuko, spongebob, beavis (mtv), ren…

They did it wrong, they’re supposed to name the dog Indiana.

Personally if I was going to name a kid after a pop culture icon I’d either middle name it or be a bit sneaky.

Wolverine from X-men: Go with Logan for a first name, or Wolverine for the middle, or Cacajou.

Stone Cold Steven Austin: Austin for a first name.

Dani California: Dani Cali or just Dani first or middle

and so on. Or use a name from something semi-obscure that I like.

There is only one thing to do - Name the child whatever your wife likes. She’s doing all the hard work. If you really want to get out of this with a geek name, let her do the first name something normal and non-geeky that won’t age, and fire up the middle name with Captain Jack, or Frodo or whatever.

Seriously. She’s doing the hard part. She has dibs.

A kid in Attacklad’s class is named Seven. Poor guy.

Last year, Quinn was 258th-most common boy’s name in the US, with 1320 baby boy Quinns, and the 486th-most common girl’s name, with 625 baby girl Quinns. If you’re American, perhaps your expectations are influenced by the only semi-famous Quinn I know of, which is Jonathan Edwards and Rielle Hunter’s daughter Frances Quinn. I think the ‘Quinn’ was supposed to be a reference on Hunter’s part to the fact that she’s Edwards’ fifth child.

What names does your wife like? If we can get a sense of her naming style, maybe we can suggest literary character names that are similar.

I do feel sorry for the kid, but that is awesome! At least he wasn’t named Soda. :wink:

Snoopy.

There is “Quinn the Eskimo” too.

Where is that internet chart of names in the US. It’s been linked in the SDMB before, and now I can’t find it. Help me help the OP :slight_smile:

I wanted to use Arthur; Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker’s Guide, legendary King Arthur, and most importantly, my great-grandfather. My husband didn’t go for it. But it is a good, classic boy’s name.

I wanted to name our first son Aiden, after the actor Aiden Quinn, but when I realized how trendy it was getting, I nixed it. Boy 1 is Jonah Quinn, boy 2 is Simon August (called Gus) and daughter is Anneliese.

In a Salinger state of mind, there’s Lionel from the short story ‘Down at the Dinghy’, Clay from ‘For Esme-With Love and Squalor’, Lee and Arthur (there it is again) from ‘Pretty Mouth and Green my Eyes’, and Teddy and Sven from ‘Teddy’.

The chart, AKA the Name Voyager, is here.
The Social Security Administration’s name website (top 1000 names for each gender for every year since 1879) is here.