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Names
Feb 20, 2024 2:54:18 GMT -5
Post by Reba on Feb 20, 2024 2:54:18 GMT -5
i just learned that Robert Altman had four sons named Michael, Stephen, Robert, and Matthew. i couldn't help but chuckle at how enormously boring that was. then i thought it was kinda righteous, for someone to show a complete disinterest in names. i thought perhaps the best way to name your kid is just to pick whatever is the "top baby name" at the time.
should we attach much significance to names? culturally we seem to be at a high-point of name concerns, although maybe it is only a shift of the type of concern. there used to be aristocratic concern for family names, and now there's popular concern for personal names.
would you change your name, or have you? i bristle at the idea. i find it childish, or pedantic. interestingly, my mother and both my brothers have changed their names.... i ask Jhesu forgiveness for dissing my fam.
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 5:10:37 GMT -5
Post by twigz on Feb 20, 2024 5:10:37 GMT -5
i see it as a gift given to you as an enfant and to bestow virtue. my dad's family all had altman-style names which sh1t him to tears, being one of six andrews in his class alone. he vowed to have cool names for his kids.
i. what were your mother and brother's names prior ? ii. do you wish your name were julien?
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 5:11:35 GMT -5
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Reba likes this
Post by Violent BUN Fortuna on Feb 20, 2024 5:11:35 GMT -5
I do think names are important, and they can shape you, to a degree. I like interesting names but not to the point of them being ludicrously personalised -- the obsession with giving your child a name which no one else has is very stupid and I just feel sorry for the children who have to bear the result of their parents' narcissism.
Regarding changing your name, I really think that depends on what your name is. I would never blame someone for changing their name from something truly ghastly. However, my brother has a friend who changed her name to Tabitha which I find weird because that's my name and while there's nothing wrong with there being other Tabithas out there, she feels like a fake Tabitha to me. That said, she's very nice.
Interesting and/or ridiculous names I have encountered:
My mum knew someone whose middle name was 'Fudge'. That pleases me.
There was a girl at my primary school called 'Mystic', which irritated me.
I watched a TV show last night featuring an actress called 'Noodle Green'. She played a lawyer, which made me laugh because even though it was just a role and her character had a boring sensible name, the idea of a lawyer called Noodle is highly pleasing to me. Tbh being an actress called Noodle is also great.
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 10:20:15 GMT -5
Post by Reba on Feb 20, 2024 10:20:15 GMT -5
i see it as a gift given to you as an enfant and to bestow virtue. my dad's family all had altman-style names which sh1t him to tears, being one of six andrews in his class alone. he vowed to have cool names for his kids. i. what were your mother and brother's names prior ? ii. do you wish your name were julien? i won't name-snitch on my loved ones. but my mom did have a very lousy name. and one brother just started going by his middle name, which is respectable if seemingly pointless. i did spell my name as julien from age ~12 to ~20. maybe this embarrassing youthful caprice is part of the reason for my prejudice against those who 'fiddle with' their names.
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 10:22:32 GMT -5
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Post by Resemblance on Feb 20, 2024 10:22:32 GMT -5
I don't see the importance in birth given names. Some people don't really care what they name their children, or perhaps they name them something they think sounds cool. My mother named my brothers and I based on the fact that she was looking for uncommon names, but didn't put any thought into it beyond that. My mother also used the fact that she named me to use against me? Kind of like a "No one knows you better than me, and I even named you." I like that people have been giving themselves names. They know what works best for them, and if it doesn't match anymore, you can change it. I haven't legally changed my name, I probably won't, but everyone in my life calls me by my online name. I think other given names are important, like sign names. Those have more meaning and significance than birth names, in my own opinion.
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Post by twigz on Feb 20, 2024 12:53:50 GMT -5
I like that people have been giving themselves names. They know what works best for them, and if it doesn't match anymore, you can change it. I haven't legally changed my name, I probably won't, but everyone in my life calls me by my online name. i coined the nickname semby. you are my son. also are your siblings like i did spell my name as julien from age ~12 to ~20. maybe this embarrassing youthful caprice is part of the reason for my prejudice against those who 'fiddle with' their names. why did you stop? kind of opposite to the gift of a name, my grandmother dislikes my name and just refuses to call me by it. she taketh away.
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 14:34:06 GMT -5
Post by HAL 10,000 on Feb 20, 2024 14:34:06 GMT -5
I used to dislike the meaning of my name. My name means wisdom and I thought that was for old people and couldn't understand why I couldn't have a name meaning bravery or strength or beauty or something more befitting of someone in her teens or twenties.
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 14:55:22 GMT -5
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Post by Reba on Feb 20, 2024 14:55:22 GMT -5
it seemed ridiculous pretending that my name was spelled differently, as an adult. it’s probably worse than changing your name altogether, as it smacks of dishonesty. I also started pronouncing my surname as the English word it is (one who blows [bubbles, leaves, chunks])— my dad was so embarrassed by the risibility of his surname that he started pronouncing it like Flower, and I didn’t realize that he made that up until I first came to England and met some of his relatives…. lol. Resemblance what is a sign name ?
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 16:22:26 GMT -5
Post by twigz on Feb 20, 2024 16:22:26 GMT -5
to blow is a very american verb so there's not much use in "flower"
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 16:26:00 GMT -5
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Post by Reba on Feb 20, 2024 16:26:00 GMT -5
I used to dislike the meaning of my name. My name means wisdom and I thought that was for old people and couldn't understand why I couldn't have a name meaning bravery or strength or beauty or something more befitting of someone in her teens or twenties. if it makes you feel any better, “wisdom” is rarely an appropriate translation for ΣΟΦΙΑ. in most ancient greek contexts it simply means skill.
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 16:55:04 GMT -5
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Post by Resemblance on Feb 20, 2024 16:55:04 GMT -5
Mr. Reba, a sign name is given to you from someone in the deaf community. It can vary from person to person, but it somehow relates to you or how the giver perceives you.
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Post by Reba on Feb 20, 2024 17:31:11 GMT -5
oh, that’s cool. I am a huge fan of nicknames that arise spontaneously — that seems like the ideal for any name.
tangentially, I also think that applies to art, where if the art needs a name then people will give it one naturally. artists who care about titles and do finicky, egoistic things with titles…. That offends my tastes in a similar way to the people brainstorming first names.
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Names
Feb 20, 2024 18:36:58 GMT -5
Post by Kit's tits kick ticks on Feb 20, 2024 18:36:58 GMT -5
I have always been interested in names. The idea that when a baby is born you give them a name just fascinated me. My parents had a name book (which someone probably gave to them before me and/or my siblings were born), and I found that when I was just able to read. I loved reading the names I didn't know yet, learning about the origins of different names and highlighting the names I liked. I also had some "statistics" (based on all the people I knew or knew about) about which names tend to occur in the same families. Before I realised I was a terrible writer my favourite part of writing was naming characters. Choosing names was also my favourite bit of pretend play or playing with dolls/toys. I always had a favourite name (and several backups) which changed frequently. I didn't really know or care if a name says anything about the person. Some names roughly tell you a person's age/generation, but of course there are exceptions to this, some names are more timeless than others and some disappear and then appear again a few generations later. For example in Germany a woman called Sabine is most likely about my parents' age, someone called Hannah could be any age. Emma used to be a really old great-grandma name, but then got really popular again in the last 10-15 years. Male names tend to be more timeless than female ones. If a name can tell you anything else about a person, it's probably because parents who choose similar names also have similar parenting styles. I had a phase where I didn't like my own name, when I was about 10. I don't think there was a reason for it, maybe I thought it was a bit childish because it's from a children's book. My name is actually mispronounced most of the time, or at least pronounced differently to how my parents pronounce it, I even do it myself now. So maybe it's my parents who have been mispronouncing it the whole time? They pronounce it with a short "ditt" (like in "ditto"), and most people pronounce it with a long "deet". I prefer the short ditt, but when I pronounce it like that I almost swallow the whole i and the d blends into the t and nobody understands what I'm saying. Also it would be awkward if I now told people that it's pronounced like Maditta and not Madeeta when that's what they have been calling me the whole time. Now I'm a bit sad about that The idea of changing one's own name seems weird to me, probably because I grew up in a country where you can't just do that. If/when I have children/a child, I would like to choose names which give them flexibility to choose their own nicknames, I wouldn't give them names which are already shortened. I also like the idea of using old fashioned German names which I probably wouldn't choose if I was still living in a German speaking country. I can think of a few girls' names which I like enough to give to my own child, but I'm really struggling to think of any boys' names. Of course that means that I will probably only ever have sons just for that reason, and never being able to pick a girl's name is genuinely the main (possibly the only) reason I would be disappointed about that.
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