I am named after my dad (Francisco) my second name (Jose) comes from a family custom. My Great granmother requested that all of us have as a second name either Jose (for males) or Josefina (for females). I think it’s a pretty good custom 
I’m named after a Russian violinist my mother saw on the Laurence Welk show.
She was eight months pregnant and looking for a name starting with “T”. An unusual name. In 1969, Tanya was unusual. :: shrugs ::
My middle name was picked out of a baby name book. My mother wanted a French middle name and picked Renee.
My grandfather and my uncle.
Nobody in our family, thank God. My father, bless him, gave my sister and me very ordinary names of his own choosing, no doubt saving us much pain later in life. ( Let’s just say I have an uncle named Melchoir, a great-great grandmother named Albina Kazar, and a cousin named Ellsworth and leave it at that… :eek: )
I was named after a girl on a TV commercial at the time. My grandmother thought she was cute, and my mum liked the name, so there you go.
wyldelf, one of my friends had a baby last month. She had the name picked out and everything. But on the night the baby was born, she met a woman with that same name who was just horrible. So she decided to change it. But the new name is a lot nicer anyway!
I was named after a friend of my Dad’s…which I thought was pretty kewl until the guy offed himself a few years ago. Brian Keith…I even had a girlfriend named Buffy, for chrissakes, but she was killed in a car crash the same year Anita died. Weird, eh?
Opps…Anissa.
Well, I was sort of named after my aunt. I’m not sure if it’s because my mom liked the name originally (in her words: “it’s a pretty name”), or because she held a great esteem and affection for her brother’s wife, so that’s why I put “sort of.”
The name’s all right, but when I got to Gr. 8, I discovered that there was a guy with the exact same name as me (first and last). That about freaked me right out for at least the four years that we had to be at the same schools! (never mind the jokes about us marrying each other and such) :eek: Yes, I knew my name could also be a boys’ name, and I had met someone with the same name as me (but a different spelling) at church a few years before (and had stopped being freaked out by it then), but still.
F_X
Not a Jr., but a II.
I was named after my grandfather, outlandishly old-fashioned middle name and all.
First name is some hick from the bible who lived in some garden that had an “E” in it with some broad… and yeah, my middle name is that guy who boinked my mom.
Note: That whole message was sarcasm, but truth.
I was named after an Allman Brother’s song.
My first name came out of the blue, apparently. My folks were looking for a name that could not be shortened or nicknamed. (I’m not sure why; perhaps they didn’t want me to get confused) They flipped a coin between Cameron (Hi wyldelf) and Craig - Craig won. (I wonder if that was heads or tails…)
Middle name from my maternal uncle - Allan. Seems to be a family tradition, in a way - not quite naming children after relatives - there’s not a junior on either side.
Martin Luther King.
I was named after the song “Sherry” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
I really like the song “Valerie” by the Monkees a lot better.
Sheri
Catherine the Great. Imagine how happy I was when I found this column. 
My middle name is an uncommon female version of the name of a fairly obscure male saint, who Catholics call the patron saint of expectant mothers. The flodmother had some pregnancy difficulties before I was born, and credits my birth in part to this guy’s intercession.
My first name was chosen solely because the flodparents liked the way it sounded in combination with my middle name. The nuns at my school thought it was a terribly heathen name to combine with the name of a holy saint 
I was named after my father. He was named after his father. And HE was named after his grandfather. My great-great-grandfather who started it all was named for a U.S. president, but strangely enough named his own son Napoleon. My son, should I have one, will carry on this tradition.
I mean I’ll name my son after me, not Napoleon. ;>
I was named after a paternal great-aunt, who died well before my birth. My name was one of the most popular names (first, middle and last names) of the 1800s, I’ve learned.
A stillborn brother who died at birth before I was born. He was named after my mother’s grandfather.
I can’t say that I was named after anybody. My parents, however, had a bit of a dilemma when naming me. My mom wanted to name me Marie, and call me that, my dad wanted to name me Rose(closest thing to being named after someone, I guess, as my mom’s name is Rosalie). Marie Rose didn’t sound right, so I was dubbed Rose Marie, but was raised being called by my middle name. It’s not an uncommon tradition in my family, however, as my dad’s mom, and his sister, both go by their middle names.
My oldest son should have been named John, after his dad, which would have made him the 8th John in a row. Well, I had different plans, and my ex-husband was totally understanding of them. My oldest brother died when I was 5 years old, and I had always maintained that when/if I had a son, that he would be named after my brother. While my ex wasn’t the greatest guy in the world, overall, he was very cool about that, and so my son was blessed with the name Stephen. We weren’t going to use John as a middle name, either, but his dad threw a major hissy fit, so we ended up changing things around at the last minute, and he became Stephen John, so I guess my ex’s dad, and I both got our wish.
When my daughter was born, we had already picked out a name that we loved(it was our girl name choice for Stephen, had he been a girl), but since she was due in March, and not May, the middle name of Mae, no longer made much sense. I guess it was somewhat spiteful, but not completely, and in the end, she got my middle name as hers, although she does go by her first name.
My youngest son is named after his dad. It is a family tradition, although not quite as stringent as my ex’s tradition, in fact, my boyfriend’s father wasn’t technically given that name at birth. His name was George, with no middle name. I guess when he moved to the US(he’s from Germany), and joined the Army, they told him that he had to have a middle name, so he added on his father’s name as a middle name, and subsequently named his son the same, and now, that son’s son bears it, as well, although, like myself, my aunt, and my grandma, while my youngest shares his first name with his dad, he is called, and known by his middle name.
~V