The Accidental Name

[pegasus2o5.livejournal.com]

I thought this was one of the oddest naming stories I've heard:

A co-worker of mine is named Elaine. When she was born, her mother had no idea what to name her, so she had all her sisters and sisters-in-law put names in a hat, and the one she drew, was the baby's name. On top of which, she misread the name from the hat: it was supposed to be Eileen.

My co-worker just laughs, I guess she's had her whole life to get used to it, but I'd feel very strange about having a totally random mean that meant absolutely nothing to my parents or even my aunt!

Comments

[pegasus2o5.livejournal.com]

At least you picked it, though, you didn't just let someone else name your baby whatever they wanted. (I assume.)

I think what weirds me out most about the situation is less the randomness of the name (that's hard for me to understand, but I know some people like the romance of serendipity, etc.) and more the idea of leaving the choice up to someone else! To me that says "I can't be bothered to name my own child, even at random. Here, you do it. I don't even care what you pick. In fact, I won't even bother to read it very carefully."

[ohhvelocitygirl.livejournal.com]

that's exactly how my kid got her name. I was sick of trying to figure something out so I asked my friend to list girl names and decided "whatever the fifth name be, that shall she be named".

[pegasus2o5.livejournal.com]

Huh. Well, how did it work out? Are you pleased with the name? What was it? Why the fifth name, as opposed to third, seventh, whatever?