Just wanted to say that Jimmy Page has a daughter named Scarlet Page. (In fact, I think she’s the only Zep offspring, at least a) acknowledged and b) born when the band was still together.) Now that’s a lovely name, but it falls within some mighty tight parameters.
First of all, it has a poetic feel to it, without actually being a phrase. I can’t think of any references to scarlet, or any other variations of red, pages, so it’s an adjective and a noun that sound romantic together, but were not forced together for the sake of cleverness.
Second, the superfluous T has been removed from the first name. Miss O’Hara needs the extra letter, like a ruffle, but the daughter of a moody, troubadour-looking rock guitarist does not need enhancement. Combined with a short last name, the full name is pared down to essentials.
Third, there’s no confusion about pronounciation, or, except for the missing T, spelling.
So you see, it’s different, but just a little bit different. She was lucky in having a last name that was a good template. And because her parents did not go overboard (and I shudder to think of what she could have been named), her name is not tied to any particular era. Would you peg her for an early-70s birth? She could be a today baby, or one from the 1920s, or just about any era you can think of. That’s really something parents should keep in mind.
For those interested, and so as not to hijack this thread, I have started a new thread here to discuss the spelling of names.
And my sister thought for months she was carrying a boy, whom she decided to call Avery. I thought it was going to be a girl, and my suspicions were confirmed at her last ultrasound. She likes the name Avery for a girl, though.
Luckily, in this case, the gender mix-up was sorted out before the birth, and the name will still be Avery regardless of gender, but add me to the list of people who think it’s dumb to get things engraved before the birth.
People want to get the date, before the baby’s born? :smack: How stupid can you get? Might as well just have it say, “Baby Johnson, Mid-November, 2007.” At least then you’d be guaranteed to get at least one detail right.
Oh, thank goodness. When I read your first post, I couldn’t believe that the same parents who gave their daughter a lovely name like Anastasia would name their son Shorn of all things.
Funny, I know someone who had a girl named “Avery” not too long ago. Of course, it strikes me as funny, because in my mind the name “Avery” will always be associated with a friend of my grandmother, an old man she used to play cards with. He was quite a character, and it’s hard to not think of him when they say the name.
Anyway. I was kidding my wife about this thread just a few days ago, because she’s due April 30th, and I’ve been teasing her that it might turn out to be a boy after all. Today, though, we have proof positive: we’d done an amniocentesis to test for Downs syndrome (negative, thank goodness), and of course since the test was basically about growing chromosomes and counting them, now there’s no doubt. Two Xs. It’s a girl.
My nephew was supposed to be my neice. My sister and her husband were all prepared for girly pinkness, name picked out and everything. When he was born they drew a blank on a boys name. He ended up being Maynard for a few days until they agreed on an appropriate boys name.
I did not want to know what the sex of The Kid was, but everyone except my grandma was saying “Boy! Boy!”. Grandma was adamant it was going to be a girl because she just “knew”. At the last ultrasound the technician, even after I said I didn’t want to know, asked if I really liked blue.
Then she was born. The nurse told me what a beautiful daughter - I said check her again.
She went nameless for a day as her dad and I couldn’t agree on a decent girls name. However, throughout my pregnancy I took to calling her whatever name struck my fancy. She was Fred, Lucinda, Esmerelda, Lucifer, Zebidiah - I would pick a random name from one of those books of baby names wherein 99% of the name you would NEVER consider bestowing on your offspring.
I can’t object to parents naming their child anything they please; it is their right. However, it is somewhat shortsighted to think he will have no issues with spelling. Frankly, he will likely spend his life saying ‘No, not N-I-C-K, N-I-Q. No, not N-I-C, not N-I-K, N-I-Q. Q, like in quarter. Male-why do you ask?’
And at some point (like first grade) he’s going to have to spell out his full name at school on some form…and then on to those mortgage forms as witnessed to above.
Today’s parent from engraving hell is one for the books. He came in to buy a birthday gift for his 13 -year-old daughter. Years, not months. Apparently married to or living with the mother. When I asked him to spell his daughter’s name for me, he said, “Wait a minute, I have it written down here because her mother spells it one way and I spell it another.” I am not making this up, folks. He then pulls out a notebook and shows me the spelling…Arielle. I asked him, “Is this how the mom spells it or how you spell it?” and he just rolled his eyes at me. Then he wanted to say, Love, Mom, Dad and (the brother’s name) so I said, what’s his name and he said, “Aaron”. I asked how it was spelled, and he started out, “A, A,…oh just put down Brother!” I said (and again, I’m not making this up!) “no, we have to put his name if we’re putting her name on there…is it A-A-R-O-N?” and he said, yes, I think so! At first I’m thinking, okay, we have a literacy issue going on here, but he had no problem reading and writing other things on the forms, so I think that after 13 years he just still can’t spell his kids’ names without notes.
Yeah, and it’s my right to call my boy Sue if I want, but I’ve no-one but myself to blame if I find him coming after me with a pickaxe handle twenty years down the line. :rolleyes:
Our son’s name was about as certain as you can get before he was born:
We wanted to start referring to the baby by name before knowing its gender, so decided to pick a name that we would give to either sex (we liked the idea of a girl having a boyish name, so this made it easier). We decided on “Charlie.”
I had an amnio so we had pretty definite information on the sex – it would have taken a pretty big screw-up to get the chromosomal analysis wrong.
And yet, consider this:
Charlie was intended as a nickname for Charles or Charlotte, depending on gender, so there was still room for uncertainty on the “real” name.
At the last moment before we knew we were expecting a boy, my husband decided he didn’t like Charlotte, if it was a girl could we please name her Samantha and call her Sam? I agreed.
This never occurred to me at the time, but you can spell “Charlie” as “Charley,” too.
Really big screw-ups do happen. When I spoke on the phone to the nurse about the amnio results, she could have had the wrong file, misread it, etc.
So I would NEVER suggest that anyone engrave a name on a baby gift in advance.
I was not born before ultrasound, but I guess before it was offered in our small town. It was a surprise pregnancy as my mother had considerable difficulty with my brother and thought she couldn’t conceive again. She was bedridden for most of the pregnancy.
Two weeks before delivery my parents found out they were having twins! My sister was apparently preventing the doctor from hearing the second heartbeat (she’s like that). We were supposed to be named Jennifer but my parents ended up naming me a derivative of my father’s name and then felt it necessary to name my sister something that started with the same letter.