Why we love what we love

[ohyoutrendygirl.livejournal.com]

Today Nameberry's blog posed this question: why do we love the names we love?

I thought it was interesting and I was curious to see what your favorite names are and if you can pin point why you love them.



Well, I really love old names. I like them to be a little quirky but not too crazy. I don't want my kid to be one of five people with their name in the class, but I also don't want everyone they meet to go "your name is WHAT?!"

My favorite girl's name is Pearl Frances. Pearl because I think it's adorable but also classy. Janis Joplin was also one of my first favorites, so the reference there doesn't hurt either. Frances was my great grandmother's name and I think it's beautiful. I love it as a middle name.

Boy's names are harder for me. If I absolutely had to pick, I think I'd say my favorite boy's names are Henry and Knox but I don't necessarily like them together. Henry is just a classic and I think the nickname Hank is adorable. Also, the love of Hank sort of stems from my love of Charles Bukowski. I've loved the name Knox since I saw the movie "Dead Poet's Society" as a child. I was sort of sad when Brad and Angie used it because I was afraid of a Knox insurgence but it doesn't seem to have been too bad yet. Again, I just think it's a really classy, strong name that could take someone far.

Comments

[laminy.livejournal.com]

Well, I love Frances, Henry and Knox, good choices there. Unfortunately, I've never given my own favourite names too much thought.

On the whole, I like names that are either a little weird/a little crazy, or more normal, just not common. Yes, I've got a few popular names on my list that I can't see ever going out of style (Mary, Violet, Nathaniel, Noah, the such), and I even have some darn right trendy ones too (Avery, Savannah, Hayden, Scout), but they are a bit further down on the list.

My favourite girl names are Olive and Dreama. I just think that they're both so gorgeous. I hate Olivia and I dislike Oliver, but I fell in love with Olive the first time I seriously considered it. It's older and less common these days. Dreama is just so pretty to look at and say, I love it.

My favourite boy name right now is Beau, and it has been for awhile, but I think I might be growing out of it just a bit. I just think it's short and simple and sweet and I like the image of a person I get when I say it.

[velkoria.livejournal.com]

My names tend to vary but mostly I like real names, with real spellings and that are somewhere on the odd side. I like Rhiannon, Juno, Vega, Delta, Antares (current top) and many star names for girls. I'd like all of my kids to have a star name with their name. For boys it's a slight bit harder but In have my list of star names.

I also need names that can be said with somewhat ease in three languages... I speak French, English and Spanish and my family almost exclusively only speaks Spanish so it'd be nice go have them be able to pronounce the kids' names.

I have some trendy names on my list too but mostly I'd not use them and the most notable one is probably Madison.

[sunshinefleur.livejournal.com]

I tend to like classic names that don't sound too old-fashioned.

my favorite girls names are Scarlett and Elisabeth. I fell in love with the name Scarlett when I was fifteen and reading Gone With the Wind for the first time. it came across to me as a beautiful name that was strong at the same time, and it still does. as for Elisabeth, I've always always always loved that name. the reason I prefer it spelled with an S instead of a Z is because I hate the nn Liz/Lizzie, and I think those nicknames would be less likely with the S spelling. (I would nickname her either Libby or Ellie, depending on her personality.)

my favorite boy names right now are Eli, Cole, and Travis. more than one person has told me they all kind of sound like "cowboy names", which really isn't a bad thing at all. I also like Blake a lot, but I haven't quite figured out why.

as for trendiness...I'm more bothered by it for boys than for girls, really. a lot of the names that are trendy for girls right now are names that I would never use, anyways. (Elizabeth is high on the SSA list, yes, but that's because it's a beautiful classic name, not trendy.) but I've eliminated two boy names that I love due to trendiness -- Aidan and Landon. Aidan because there would be a million Aiden/Braden/Caden/Jadens in their class, and Landon because I know five Landons under the age of four, plus two more babies who will be named Landon when they're born in the next few months.

[spaceandclouds.livejournal.com]

For boys, I like slightly uncommon names that are not crazy or very out there. I like boy names with (a lot of) vowels, such Nathaniel, Eli/Elliott, Hadrian and Simon.

As for girl's names, I like unusual names and names that remind me of something I love (such as literary characters). Consequently, my lists of girl's names is pretty long and quite eclectic...my favorites are Madelief, Maeve, Astrid, April, Clea, Florence and Faye.

[ohyoutrendygirl.livejournal.com]

Aww, Astrid is one of my all time favorites!

[gaspardgroupie.livejournal.com]

I like pretty much any name that could be in an Enid Blyton novel (or similar). A few examples:

Harriet
Hermione
Jemima
Verity
Victoria*

Julian
Jeremy
Edward
Benjamin*





* I would never call my kids these names though, because I'd be afraid that people would abbreviate them to 'Vicky' and 'Ben'.

[unmowngrass.livejournal.com]

I like a lot of family names.. I would use them because they are family names, but I like them mostly because they are timeless names. My favourite is William, my Dad's middle name, but I also like George, Joel, Timothy, Andrew, Alexander, Anthony, and possibly Henry.

I say possibly for Henry as I really like the name Henrietta for a girl. That one is simple, I remember reading a story about a Henrietta Hedgehog as a child, and it struck me as the classiest name in the world - it always stuck. Most of the girls names I like because I think they are classy - Penelope, for instance, and Marie, Elizabeth, Cara, Catherine, Sapphire. At some point I got it into my head that longer names are automatically classier, or if not, then shorter names that you can't abbreviate. <<< Possibly this stems from getting the name Katie. Not as classy as Katherine, too often abbreviated to Kate. :\

[pythianlegume7.livejournal.com]

I just tried to do this and ended up sounding like an idiot haha. I like my favorite names because they sound good. I was also using the words "sharp" and "sweet" a lot. I like that they are simple, yet classy.

Calvin, Alexander "Sasha", Samuel "Sam", Morgan (male), Juliet, Eve "Evie", Felicity, May.