When I was born in the early '50s, everyone was naming their daughters after Debbie Reynolds. I now go by Deb, since Debbie sounds kinda cutesy for a woman on Medicare. My signature on documents always contains my middle name as well. My sister was named for Rita Moreno.
The formal version of my entire name (first, middle, last) is only 13 letters. The informal version is only 11 letters. I love it.
The funny thing is, my first and middle names are the same as my dad’s first and middle names reversed but they tell me I was named after an uncle.
My name was a fairly common one in my generation. It was within the Top 20 most popular names in the decade in which I was born. I didn’t hate the name in itself, but I disliked needing to go by my last initial (as in Serenata A. and Serenata B.).
This is part of the reason why my daughter and son have less common names. They’re less common, but traditional names. They aren’t the weird made-up names or even the “grab bag” names.* My daughter’s name is a classic name from literature and my son’s name was his great-grandfather’s name.
I hated my middle name growing up. I had three great-grandmas with it either as their first or middle name, so it kinda stuck with me. Back then, I thought it was an old lady name and I disliked it. Now, it’s classic and kind of pretty. It has a nice meaning when combined with my first name’s meaning.
*Grab bag names: let’s take a grab bag of prefixes and a grab bag of suffixes and make a name! We’ll put Ash, Bray, Shay, and Kay in the prefixes and -lyn, -lee, -la and -ton in the other… let’s see what we get!
Like my parents, I go by my middle name. Both were common as dirt when I was named, but I’ve worked with its for 25 years and have only encountered a handful with my middle name (including a couple with the Hebrew version). I wanted to name our eldest Huddie Ledbetter, but Ms. P would have none of it.
I’m an Amanda, and like virtually all Amandas, I was born between 1974-1980. The name has has never suited me, and my middle name, even less so.
On the other hand, I love my last name. I kept it when I got married simply because I like it so much, and would have been very upset to lose it. My family still calls me Mandy and some of my middle aged woman friends call me Amanda, but most people I know call me by my last name, usually without the “Ms”.
We gave our son a normal first name, but his middle name is Martial and he goes by Mars. At six, he loves his name: everyone remembers who he is, and it’s just kinda cool. If he wants to retreat to his conventional first name at some point, that’s fine. But unconventional names are not as significant as they used to be: when half the class has quite unusual names, no one gets teased for having a name out of the ordinary.
I’ve always liked my first name just fine. I never liked my middle name, though. I don’t ever use it (or even its initial these days), and I would guess that outside of family members just about none of the people I know could tell you what it is…even people I know well and have known for a long time.
(No, it isn’t “The.”)
I despised my first name until my late 30’s. My first name was very unusual at the time. In school the teachers refused to call me the shortened nickname my family used.
My name is Carol. It’s ok, a bit bland, brings to mind a woman about 20 years older than I am. I would have preferred Caroline but my Mum says that was never an option. If they’d used a longer version, they’d have gone with Carolyn, which makes me feel like I dodged a bullet, really. My apologies, Carolyns. It’s not that you’re not lovely; it just doesn’t fit with my self image.
My parents had no way to know they’d brought an obsessive genealogist into the world who would put a high value on family names rather than just something plucked out of thin air.
I know one person, who named his son KOSMOS)) He is crazy…
My parents gave my sister and I rhyming names, so I wasn’t crazy about it when I was a kid. But it’s not an issue now, since we’re rarely introduced together.
I used to hate mine, because it brings the Compleat Imbecile in people of all ages; mostly men, but then, the tendency to think that a joke based on distorting someone’s name is funny seems to be a mostly-male trait (women may refuse to learn how to spell your name and claim that they can’t see why it bothers you, but they’re a lot less likely to come up with a name-joke). Eventually we went on vacation to a town where it is very common (my Dad had spent several very-happy childhood summers there, which is part of the reason I got my name) and spent a great summer with the cook’s daughter and niece - all of us had the same name. I made my peace with the name and now when I run into a Compleat Imbecile who makes that same joke I’ve been hearing since before I could understand it, I’m just happy that he’s shown his true colors early.
One that cracked me up the first time I understood where it comes from and which I’ve been hearing a lot the last two years is Yerái or variations thereof. It’s the Spanish transcription of the English pronunciation of Jedi. I only know two personally and both of them were the kind of guy who doesn’t give much of a shit about conventionality; if they want to do something and it doesn’t hurt anybody, why the heck shouldn’t they? So they do. I figure they must’a gotten the attitude from their moms. Helluva guys both.
I like my first name (Michael). And I go by Michael, not Mike. Have never cared for my last name, though.
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