What is in a name? What makes you choose one name over another for your child?
Far Guy is named after a childhood friend of his fathers. They graduated from High School together.
I believe that Far Guy’s Mom wrote his name on this old photo. If she had not marked it we wouldn’t know who he was. I have heard that he was a really nice guy, not to mention quite handsome! I wonder what became of him? His proper name was most likely Eugene.
Eugene is Far Guys proper name too..although only close family gets by with calling him Eugene. He much prefers Geneo or Gene..although I sometimes call him Eugene to get his attention.
I am not named after anyone. My Mom sent my Dad a couple of names to Korea..Connie and Sharon. Well we all know which one I got with Joy for a middle name.
Trica’s name was supposed to be Christy it was all picked out. Then Far Guys sister said she would never talk to me again if I used her favorite name.( She never used it anyway..Bethany is a far cry from Christy. ) I saw Trica’s name in a True Story Magazine when I was pregnant with her. Her name is Trica Gene after her Father. No one ever spells it correct. We joked that if she was a boy we would have named her Huckleberry..but it most likely would have been Travis.
Jennifer Joy’s nickname is Jenny or Jen. I had a favorite Aunt Jenny and the Joy comes from me. We never called her J J..although she has a bunch of friends that had a whole bunch of Jennys and Jennifers so most of them called her Dolly. If she had been a boy her nickname would have been Duke..but her real name would have been Travis.
I don’t know anyone named Travis..it was just a boy’s name that we both liked:)
I was named after each grandmother. Mary and Ann.
ReplyDeleteBack then the priest wouldn't baptize you if you were not named after a saint. I guess Muffy didn't cut it.
I went to the good old baby name books and picked out the kids names, the son has my fathers middle name as his middle name. Other than that I picked them out of a book. Tawny Erin, and Kegan Miles. I father's name was George Miles, I really didn't want to give my son the name George, so I went with Miles. My grandfather's name was the same as my fathers.
ReplyDeleteI named both of my boys with names I liked. My first son was Christopher Eric after two explorers, and my second son was named Stephen Norman. Only the Norman was from a relative, my father. I have a friend named Travis, and I think he's the only person I've ever known with that name. Names are interesting, aren't they? :-)
ReplyDeleteI am not sure who I was named after. I think it was my dad's sister.
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
I was named after my grandmothers Mary and Margaret (whose name was Ida Marie Margaret Caroline!). My husband chose daughter #1's name (Dawn Elizabeth)and I chose daughter #2's name (Kathryn Ann). Their middle names are after their godmothers. We had Brent picked out for a boy. I'm glad you are Connie because I have three Sharons in my life - four would be really confusing! :)
ReplyDeleteMy dad named me he like the name Elaine and I have my Nana's name for my middle name Lillian . My dad called me Lainey or Lilly most of the time when I was little . I answer to them still to this day ! Great post makes ya think . Have a good day !
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about all your names and I love the old pic. If we had had children, we liked Holly and Andrew!
ReplyDeleteMy name has been a complete burden of confussion for decades. My mother named me after a school friend AmyNell....So my first name is Amy. Thank you Mom for not going the distance on that one. My middle name she made up... Kathalyn... but I was always called Kathy by family and in school. When I started working, I went by Amy because that is what my resume says. Now I have more people that know me as Amy than Kathy, but I still use both. My husband never knows who to introduce me as. And then add my last name of Laurie. I can be filed under any of the the three.
ReplyDeleteMy three daughters have old fashioned names, Sarah, Rachel and Allison. No nicknames..no confusion.
I was adopted at 6 months. My mom wrote several names they liked on pieces of paper and sat me down on the floor in the middle of them. I picked up the one that said Mary Lou.
ReplyDeleteCan't blame anyone but myself. . .
I am named after my paternal grandfather and I'm proud of that. names are a real identification.
ReplyDeleteMy mom was going to name me Gwendolyn if she had a girl, but my older brother had a crush on a little girl at school and her name was Kay Lynne. My brother wanted to name me that if I turned out to be a girl. Well my mom thought for sure she was going to have a boy and if that was the case, she was going to name me Dennis. Well she promised my brother that if I was a girl he could name me Kay Lynne. So THAT is how I got my name.
ReplyDeleteKay
Well, I have a friend who did like the name Travis, and guess what...
ReplyDeleteWe decided to avoid name-afters when it came our turn to name the baby. I'm pretty glad we did. My husband, born into a true Catholic family, was named after a saint who was subsequently relieved of his position. Thankfully, Muffy, my husband was evidently baptized before the de-sainting, so he didn't have to give up his name :)
I was named after two aunts' middle names...although the one was actually spelled Gene. I didn't find out until after years of family tree research that her name was really Eugenie...and didn't find out until after years of my daughter studying French that "Eugenie" SOUNDS a lot prettier in French than it does in English...and was the name of Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon.
LOL! I wrote recently about my son and I naming ourselves. So it did me no good to try to pick out a name. ;) I think it is always interesting finding out how and why people's names are picked. In our family the first born boys get the father's first name as a middle name and the first born girls get the mother's first name as a middle name. Dagan would have had to be Dagan Jerome McGregor. I refused to give him a middle name--LOL! ;)
ReplyDeleteHe was a handsome guy and he looks tall! I got gipped on my name...I have no idea where the Sandra came from. My Aunt told me once that I was almost named Robin because my eyes were as blue as a Robin's egg. I'm lucky they didn't name me Egg! I would have preferred Robin to Sandra and my middle name is Kay and get this....I was named Kay after my cousin Ellen Kay who was only a year older than me! What's up with that plus I got all her hand me downs without the benefit of a sister. I asked my Mother once why she didn't name me Robin and she said she never picked that name. Then she told me she wanted a boy so she didn't even have a girl's name picked out. Talk about feeling like I was a disappointment! But my Aunt really made up for it because she already had a boy and he was grown and she always wanted a little girl so to her I "fit the bill". (I think my Aunt made up that story about Robin just to make me feel better...she was sweet that way.) My stepfather called me Sam because he wanted a son. I'm sure a therapist would have fun with all that!
ReplyDeleteBill picked out our firstborn's name and I let him since he didn't get to have the "experience" of being pregnant. We chose our second one from the dictionary because we liked the meaning and the way it sounded. I love "Jennifer Joy". It makes you smile to say it!
ReplyDeleteLove this post. My friend across the street has a daughter with the middle name Gene as well, but it is after an Aunt Eugenia. My two oldest girls would have been named Henry Stewart if they had been boys. By the youngest two I quit saying what I would name a boy. Names and how we come by them, or not... a good conversation.
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