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Nov. 2nd, 2007 10:23 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
kitten-wrangler.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
babynamesHell... I can't keep it up anymore. I keep on expecting a local to read the list and bust me, and the tension is rendering me unable to work.
You guys are right on the money for dissing on the list of names I posted here:
Because, they were all sourced from here:
You see - there's a couple of stations here in Melbourne that have ACTUAL names (like Dennis) and one evening, on a long and boring train ride up north, my boyf and I were contemplating the use of railway stations as naming inspiration by picking pairs and seeing how they sounded. I, at least, was amused by some of the pairings - especially with how they sounded against either of our surnames; his very English upper-class sort of one, and my stolid little Scottish one.
I shared the idea with a friend, who's very interested in the naming of children as well - she found a couple of great ones for me - and then I started plundering the London Tube map in search of more ridiculous names. But then I got curious about how people who DIDN'T know the source of the names would take to them. Ergo the post. There were a couple of red-flags in there (Northcote and Preston are reasonably well-known suburbs in Melbourne for example), but I was amazed to find out that I could actually come up with reasonably legitimate reasons as to why they would be meaningful names to me. (Not joking. The list of reasons in the comments are all truthful.) A wise lesson to myself - because the more I defended the names, the more I began to like them. So I can see how some people would get stubborn and hold onto an unsuitable name. Hell - I've harboured a love for the name Vyvyan (m) for almost 15 years now, despite how many people tell me that it sucks.
As much as I do have an attachment to Laverton Aircraft (I think it sounds great... just not as a name) for as long as I live in Melbourne, there is no way in HELL that I would allow any child to be named after the local railway station.... although now that I think of it there is precedent in the character 'Fenchurch' from the HitchHiker books, but moving on...
Naming HAS always fascinated me. Somewhere buried in the comments I said that at one point most names that are now 'common' were once 'quirky'. And I love how some names gather different meanings from all over the place when they're put into a different context. For example: My host nephew in Indonesia has the middle name of 'Fausto'. My host sister explained to me how it was a melding of her and her husband's names. But to me, it was a literary reference to Faust. My other host sister went by the name of 'Bram' at school (a shortened form of her longer Javanese name), yet my Belgian host brother is also named Bram (a shortened version of Abram/Abraham). Awesome.
It's going to be many, many a year before I embark on procreation. The boyf and I have only been together for 3 months, and I still suspect he's going to get bored with me before Christmas.
So now, I offer you ACTUAL names of people I knew in Indonesia. Pretty much completely unsuitable for a Western context (especially as constant mispronunciation would make me murderous), but I do love the way they sound.
Aulia [f] - OW-li-a (it's hard to describe exactly the sound of the 'au' But it's what makes it so pretty)
Kusuma [f] - koo-SOO-ma
Desi [f] - Dessy
Chairani [f] - CHYE-ra-ni (ch = the Scottish loch sound)
Dewanto [m] - de-ONE-toe
Cakrabumi [m] - chak-ra-BOO-mi
Firdaus [m] - FEAR-douse
*** I Solemnly Promise to be good from here on out.
You guys are right on the money for dissing on the list of names I posted here:
Because, they were all sourced from here:
You see - there's a couple of stations here in Melbourne that have ACTUAL names (like Dennis) and one evening, on a long and boring train ride up north, my boyf and I were contemplating the use of railway stations as naming inspiration by picking pairs and seeing how they sounded. I, at least, was amused by some of the pairings - especially with how they sounded against either of our surnames; his very English upper-class sort of one, and my stolid little Scottish one.
I shared the idea with a friend, who's very interested in the naming of children as well - she found a couple of great ones for me - and then I started plundering the London Tube map in search of more ridiculous names. But then I got curious about how people who DIDN'T know the source of the names would take to them. Ergo the post. There were a couple of red-flags in there (Northcote and Preston are reasonably well-known suburbs in Melbourne for example), but I was amazed to find out that I could actually come up with reasonably legitimate reasons as to why they would be meaningful names to me. (Not joking. The list of reasons in the comments are all truthful.) A wise lesson to myself - because the more I defended the names, the more I began to like them. So I can see how some people would get stubborn and hold onto an unsuitable name. Hell - I've harboured a love for the name Vyvyan (m) for almost 15 years now, despite how many people tell me that it sucks.
As much as I do have an attachment to Laverton Aircraft (I think it sounds great... just not as a name) for as long as I live in Melbourne, there is no way in HELL that I would allow any child to be named after the local railway station.... although now that I think of it there is precedent in the character 'Fenchurch' from the HitchHiker books, but moving on...
Naming HAS always fascinated me. Somewhere buried in the comments I said that at one point most names that are now 'common' were once 'quirky'. And I love how some names gather different meanings from all over the place when they're put into a different context. For example: My host nephew in Indonesia has the middle name of 'Fausto'. My host sister explained to me how it was a melding of her and her husband's names. But to me, it was a literary reference to Faust. My other host sister went by the name of 'Bram' at school (a shortened form of her longer Javanese name), yet my Belgian host brother is also named Bram (a shortened version of Abram/Abraham). Awesome.
It's going to be many, many a year before I embark on procreation. The boyf and I have only been together for 3 months, and I still suspect he's going to get bored with me before Christmas.
So now, I offer you ACTUAL names of people I knew in Indonesia. Pretty much completely unsuitable for a Western context (especially as constant mispronunciation would make me murderous), but I do love the way they sound.
Aulia [f] - OW-li-a (it's hard to describe exactly the sound of the 'au' But it's what makes it so pretty)
Kusuma [f] - koo-SOO-ma
Desi [f] - Dessy
Chairani [f] - CHYE-ra-ni (ch = the Scottish loch sound)
Dewanto [m] - de-ONE-toe
Cakrabumi [m] - chak-ra-BOO-mi
Firdaus [m] - FEAR-douse
*** I Solemnly Promise to be good from here on out.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 11:34 pm (UTC)I just had you down for a crazy free spirit type, loath to name any normal children.
Melbourne hey... I'm just obsessed with all things Australian, particuarly Melbourne and Byron Bay.
I was there over the summer [my english summer, your winter] and fuuuuuck Melbourne was freeeezing!!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-01 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 12:13 am (UTC)Compared to Europe or the US/Canada... we're not that cold. But it's the wind from the south that really makes it FEEL cold.
www.bom.gov.au may help a bit.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 12:18 am (UTC)Laverton was the one name I was going to have real issues in defending - it and Northcote. I couldn't come up with reasons for those.
There's a town in QLD, I think, called Burpengary. That always seemed like an interesting name for a VERY brave parent.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 12:39 am (UTC)Sunshine is a kinda funny one - it's an economically depressed and apparently disadvantaged suburb out west. A friend once described it as the most inappropriately named place on earth.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 01:20 am (UTC)So you're doing the long distance thing too? or are you excetionally lucky and in having a gorgeous Australian over here?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 01:39 am (UTC)The adherence to English names was a proviso we just made up, plus it worked in well with the station names - most of which were named after English places anyway. Except for Mooroolbark. And Murrumbeena.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 07:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 07:06 am (UTC)Maybe I'll name my next computer Laverton Aircraft instead.
That some people don't mind Rosanna Macleod didn't surprise me. Out of a Melbourne context it could 'work'. But here in Melbourne - a child thus named would cop the same sort of shit that the April May I went to school with did.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 07:11 am (UTC)Totally name the computer Laverton Aircraft.
One of my cousins is called Angus Robertson. He gets it a bit on the playground too, haha.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 07:20 am (UTC)Angus Robertson, hey? Bloody hell.
We once had a student from Hong Kong come to our school for 6 weeks. This student went by the English name of 'Fanny'.
Hmmm.
I was part of the welcoming committee, and before we'd even stepped out of the airport we'd bestowed a new name upon her.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 10:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-02 07:21 pm (UTC)I suppose I find the supposed point of your exercise a little underwhelming, given how predictable ALL people here are on some levels (will defend defend defend no matter the criticism); but maybe I've been here too long...?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-03 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-03 12:53 pm (UTC)Yep it's long distance, he left just over a week ago.
Do you mind if I friend you?