Tuesday, April 26, 2011

what's in a name?

Organic baby leggings by Thief and Bandit


There was a cute post today over at Cup of Jo about baby names that got me thinking about my own name and the names I might bestow upon my future children...

Apparently before I was born, my very young parents referred to me as Kirby as this was their chosen name for their future son or daughter. In the end, I think it was my aunt that convinced them otherwise and I was named Jessica - which turned out to be the no. 1 baby name the year I was born. So, i've always been one of many Jess's. I do think this has made me very attached to my last name, however, as I've always been Jess O. Even though it's always been popular in my age group, I do like my name.

And now that I'm getting married the whole name thing comes into play again. I've always known the whole name change thing wasn't really for me. Maybe it's my inner feminist showing itself, but I am not going to take my fiance's name and he is totally fine with it. Surprisingly though is how many other people are not so fine with that and like to tell me their unsolicited opinion about it. It's been interesting to say the least...

Looking ahead, I have to admit to dreaming up all the names for my still non-existent children. I've found that I have a penchant for antiquated male and female names and like the idea of incorporating family names. Whatever their name or sex though, I must get a pair of those adorable baby leggings shown above from Thief and Bandit ;)

So what about you? Do you like your own name? When/if you marry will you take his name? What are your top baby names?

5 comments:

  1. I'm not going to lie: my name is Sarah. Sarah Smith.

    YOU REALLY CAN'T GET ANYMORE COMMON THAN THAT.

    I can't see myself ever getting married, but if I do, and they had a super cool bizarre last name? I'd probably take it despite my feminist heart.

    ReplyDelete
  2. People sure do like to give unsolicited opinions! Stay strong with your choice to keep your name. When I got married, I kept my maiden name professionally, which meant not changing it on my social security card, and I use my husband's last name for personal stuff. That's how my mom did it, and it has worked pretty well for her. The only time I've had trouble is with one (kind of nutty) teller at our bank who refused to take a check written to me using my maiden name, even though I kept both names on the account. I would have really liked to hyphenate our last names, but that would have made 6(!) syllables, which felt like too many for us.

    In terms of baby names, I have a (LONG) running list of boy and girl names, family and otherwise. I've been called obsessive about it :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. I always thought it was silly that my parents names me Katherine but called me Kate. If they planned on shortening it why bother with the long version? I certainly don't want to take Fraser's last name when we marry. I love the last name McCurrach and want to keep it! As for baby names, Fraser and I are traditionalists. We're thinking Allan Robert for a boy and Lisa for a girl. Too bad we're so far away from babies our minds might change by then...

    ReplyDelete
  4. yeah i like traditional names too ;)

    Amelia and Eleanor for a girl and John Harrison or Arthur for a boy (family names). I guess for me it might not be all that far away anymore... ahhhh

    ReplyDelete
  5. My name was actually my maternal grandmother's nickname. Her name was Stella, but people called her Stasha ... hence, Sasha.

    When Jim and I eventually tie the knot, I'll be taking his last name - I don't really have a great attachment to mine and it'll be fun to mix it up!

    As for children ... I know I want odd names (no, not like "Moon Unit" weird, but something interesting) because Sasha isn't very common and I loved growing up with that uniqueness (still do).

    Jim wants to name one of our future children "Justice" ... I can't tell if he's kidding or not.

    PS - You really have an unhealthy addiction to T&B :)

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...