Tell me your name stories

[Claire]

I was talking to one of my friends recently when we realized we'd told each other the same stories about our brothers' names 3 times...and thats when I realized that I'm obsessed with names.

-My older brother was originally supposed to be named Alexander but that first name along with our last name was a mouthful so they ended up naming him Ryan instead- which turned out to be one of the most popular names for kids his age.

-My mom really wanted to name me Carla but my dad won with Claire.

-I know a kid whose parents let his older brother name him...so his name is Indiana Jones. No freaking joke.

-One of my first posts here was bragging about my bird who has since died, who I named Ollie. I didn't know that there was an Oliver here on the boards, and I was sort of making fun of her in the post, and someone (my memory says that it was Jayelle but I could be completley making that up) said something like- 'oh, it must be in the name', to poke fun at our PWEB Ollie.

Anyway, tell me your name stories.

[Dr. Mobius]

Um, I think there's a St. Joshua, or it might be because Jesus is supposedly a derivative of the ancient form of Joshua. Something religious like that. The religious/linguistic types (and I know there's at least a few of you around here) would probably know more about my name that I do.

My brothers, Michael and Timothy, are named for saints too.

I named my sister Abby, though. (And I don't think there's a St. Abby anyways) At five, I was the only one of the three brothers old enough to even half-way understand what was going on. My parents asked me for name suggestions and I said Abby if a girl and I think Kyle for a boy. I think that's also one of my earliest memories.

As for my preferred SN (which this thread may or may not be for as well), Dr. Mobius is a character from one of my favorite computer games. It wasn't until later that I found out there's a real Dr. Möbius, which is where my avatar comes from.

Mobius/Möbius/Moebius, three spellings for one word. All accepted, I think (something else for the linguists, I guess), although I stick with just the one myself.

[Bevis]

My name, Nicholas, came from an old TV show. My mom thought that the little boy on Eight is Enough was cute. My dad wanted to name me after his father, Byford. I'd say I dodged the bullet on that one.

I've never been fond of Nicholas Bevis as a name, though. Go ahead, say it out loud. It has a Greco-Roman handicap brought on by those s's.

My daughter was also saved from being named by her father (me). Since I'm Nick & my wife's Nikki, I thought it would be great to have another Nick name in the family. Alas, the wifey won out with Aubrie. I know it's a good thing in the long run. Teenagers have enough reasons to be pissed at thier parents, right?

The most twisted name I've ever thought of is Twoplustwo. It would be pronounced Four.

[fawkes]

My sister, Toni, and I were supposed to be boys, or at least my dad hoped for boys.

Our boy-names were supposed to be Tony and Eric.

I think mom wanted to name me Jessica or something, but by then my cousin Jessica had already been born. I think Samantha was also on the table.

[eriador]

I was going to be Seth, no matter what sex I popped out as. Kinda funny.

That's all folks!

[Jebus]

The most twisted name I've ever thought of is Twoplustwo. It would be pronounced four.

I don't get it.

[Gravity Defier]

My mom found my name in a baby name book when she was pregnant with my oldest brother, and not immediately knowing what my brother was going to be, decided whoever her first girl (turns out, her only) was would be named Alea. Three boys and 7 years later, I finally come along and she got to use my name. The both of us have a really hard time finding my name with my spelling in books these days, and back then she couldn't find it again after the initial discovery, but we find the variants Aaliyah, Aliyah, Alia, Aliah, Aleah, etc.

My middle name was my mom's confirmation name.

My last name will one day be a middle name for all my children (one of two).

[starlooker]

My parents couldn't decide at all. I was almost named Stacy, which does not suit my personality at all. Finally, they decided on Kirsten because my father liked it (he was hard to please) and my mother liked that it's Scandanavian (I'm a quarter Norwegian).

Sadly, they did not stop to consider that my name is more commonly mispronounced at first than pronounced correctly.

(It's pronounced Curse-ten, by the way. Not KEER-sten or Kyersten.)

My middle name was after my great-grandmother Louise and also my aunt/godmother's middle name.

If I was a boy, I would've been Patrick Tavis (Patrick for my great-grandfather and to celebrate my Irish heritege, and Tavis because it means "Son of David" which is my father's name.)

[Nova]

i don't know what i would have been named if i was a boy, but my mom wanted to name me Greer(sp) because it is the female form of Greg which is my dad's name. but my dad didnt want to, thank god!

and my brother was gonna be named Benjamin but when my parents told my aunt and uncle that idea my aunt said "aww...we could call him Benjy!" which my mom hated so that was out. and if he was a girl my dad wanted to name him Coleen but then my mom found out that that was one of his ex-girlfriends name. they were also gonna name him Devin but my aunt was having a baby at about the same time and was gonna name her son Kevin so that would be too confusing.

[Virlomi]

I also loathe people calling me Lea; it's another name entirely and it's so boring and ordinary.

*cough*

[Young Val]

i hate my name. well, my middle name i'm ok with, and my last name i LOVE and would go by it if anyone would consent to call me that. but no one will.

i'm Kelly because i was supposed to be a boy and my father is super irish. surprise: i am not a boy. my dad decided to stick with the name anyway and then concocted this elaborate fantasy about me growing up to be the best motorcycle racer ever (my father raced in his youth, two broken jaws and the birth of yours truly put an end to that career path... my dad is probably the most interesting person i know, ps). and no one would know i was a girl, until i took off my helmet and all of my hair came tumbling down.

alas. i do not race motorcycles, and in fact, i'll barely ride. once every year or so. my dad is horribly disappointed.


i don't like my name because 1. it constantly reminds me that my father wanted sons and didn't get them. 2. i don't think it suits me at all.

certain, super-special people are allowed to call me Kel. ONE L. NEVER EVER TWO. "Kell" just looks like you got lazy and forgot to tack on the Y.

my middle name is megan, and i have one friend who calls me Meg. but that's it.

i've got a bazillion nicknames, though. some which play off my name (Kel-Bell) and some which don't.

[Fris]

I have no idea where my parents came up with Christopher. I'd be willing to guess it something to do with them not knowing any other Christophers at the time, so it was something different.

After discovering that there were in fact other Christophers in the surrounding area, they made sure not to make the same mistake with my sister; Kjersti. Pronounced chair-stee. We're both 3/4 Norwegian, so you can guess where the name came from.

[starlooker]

In retrospect, my mother wishes she'd gone with Kjersten or some such, and pronounced it "Chyursten."

Since we lived in the south where no one was Scandanavian at all or had ever heard of such a thing (I've seen it a few times in ND) I'm very grateful she didn't.

I'll never forget, in undergrad I was sitting next to an anthropology professor who asked me my name. "Kirsten," I said. "What's your last name?" "Williams." She looked annoyed and brushed that away, "No, that's not right. What's your mother's maiden name?" "Gallagher." I replied. She honest to God looked personally affronted. We sat in silence for a minute. "My mother's mother's maiden name is Bjornhei," I timidly volunteered. "THERE it is!" she practically hollered. We're talking gleeful.

Anthropology professors are weird.

[Virlomi]

If I were a boy, I would have been Ryan David. My parents were all set to give me the name they had picked for my older brother if he were a girl, Alyssa Joy, but they were sitting on a bench and talking to an old man with a daughter named Janelle a few days before she gave birth, and apparently when I was born I "didn't feel like an Alyssa."

I've never experienced that "oh, someone else has my name" feeling the Davids and Nicks and Katies of the world experience until I came to college and met two other Janelles. I've got to say though, I like my name. It's very nicknamable, which is important, I think.

[Young Val]

my mother wanted to name me Chloe, which i think would have suit me MUCH better than Kelly, and i sincerely wish she'd won out over my dad. (wow, i don't think you'll ever hear me say that phrase again).

[zeroguy]

My sisters wanted to name me Ferris, after "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". One of our neighbors even thought that was my name a few months after I was born, heh, and thoroughly confused my parents.

My SN was originally partly formed from the character Zero from the Mega Man series (which I don't actually play much, but I still really like the character of Zero), and has evolved over time.

[Eaquae Legit]

My parents had boy and girl names picked out for all of us, but I can't remember mine.

All of us were very consciously NOT named after anyone in particular. My parents didn't want to saddle us with that.

I know a guy who was allowed to pick his own middle name when he was five. He's still "Snuggles" to this day (hated the name in highschool, though). I'm not sure if that's better or worse than having your brother name you something stupid - better for less family tension, and worse because if you never get over it, you've got no one to blame but yourself.

[Rei]

I have no clue where my parents got my name from, but my middle name, Joel (which I've taken up pronouncing Yoel, as my Hebrew prof had us all take Hebrew names) means "Jehova is". My sister's name, Chantal, is actually her middle name, but she did not answer well to her first name, so when she was little we began calling her by her middle name. And my youngest sister's name, Jolynn, is formed from Jolene and Lynn (and is, without question, not pronounced like Jolene).

[Jayelle]

Janice means "gift from God". Because that's what I was to my parents

[Virlomi]

Heh, our names derive from the same root... because so does mine. Copying you again, Jan.

[Eddie Pinz]

I forget what I was going to be if I was a girl but my mom wanted me to be cory...*shivers*...my dad refused...thank god...my mom also liked colin...which I wouldn't have minded but probably good in retrospect...becuase I know I would have to put up with people asking me if I was related to Colin Quinn...reminds me of office space when I think about it...then my mom wanted to name me james after my dad...but he hates his name so that was out...so they settled on edward after my grandpop...

[Young Val]

i was allowed to name my sister when i was three (i was given a list of ten or so options, i think) and i chose Maura. which i think is GORGEOUS, but she resents me for it to this day.

her middle name is katelyn, and in our family she's called maura-kate, which i also think is pretty damn cool. no one outside of us calls her that, though. although she tried to enforce it in college.



also: people here who call me "Kel" --it's fine. it's mostly an in-person restriction. and it's not an elitist rank thing. it's just the way it sounds coming from some people.

Kelly means "warrior."

i was SO misnamed.

[Mahatma]

My mom wanted to name me Sara after one of her old friends, and my dad had no objections, so if you ever wondered my real name, there it is. She didn't want the 'h' because it's not pronounced. (Recently she wondered aloud why the 'h' is there at all, so I explained to her that it was most likely pronounced in Hebrew, but she didn't get it, so I gave up.)

I chose this sn because I was working on a project on Gandhi, which was very interesting, at the time, and I had also just read SotH, which used the concept of satyagraha, so I wanted to be a 'great soul' like Gandhi... and Petra.

[Jayelle]

Heh, our names derive from the same root... because so does mine. Copying you again, Jan.

heehee... it's actually any name that comes from Jane.

[Seiryu]

My name, which is Micah, comes from the bible...or so my parents say. I think they were fans of The Riffleman.

[Dr. Mobius]

I believe it means exhalted or high (as in queenly, not as in drugged).

Queen of Stones?

i'm Kelly because i was supposed to be a boy and my father is super irish. surprise: i am not a boy. my dad decided to stick with the name anyway and then concocted this elaborate fantasy about me growing up to be the best motorcycle racer ever (my father raced in his youth, two broken jaws and the birth of yours truly put an end to that career path... my dad is probably the most interesting person i know, ps). and no one would know i was a girl, until i took off my helmet and all of my hair came tumbling down.

Almost sounds like a made-for-TV movie. Almost.

After discovering that there were in fact other Christophers in the surrounding area, they made sure not to make the same mistake with my sister; Kjersti.

Yet she somehow managed to be a Chris anyways.

Janice means "gift from God". Because that's what I was to my parents

You know, I never really stopped to think that Jan might've been shortened from something...

[KennEnder]

I was saved by indecision, in a way, and some strong rejections by my mom. My dad wanted three sons from the start (which he eventually got), and wanted to name us Huey, Duey and Louie... yes, REALLY. My mom refused, but had to relent eventually to his second set: Bret, Bart (Bartholomeau) and Beau (Beauregard), from the TV series "Maverick." The older brother has that luck...

Five years later, I was going to be my momma's little girl, so I was dubbed "Kendra"... after my dad. When I turned out to be a boy, my dad had no time to argue for Bart, but instead fought to make me a junior. My mom refused, on account of my cousin Jerry, a junior, who was always referred to simply as "junior" or "JR," both of which she hated. So I was officially named after my great-uncle (whom my father was also named after), but I received my greatgrandfather's name as my middle name instead of my grandfather's...

My little brother was to be the next attempt at a girl, and was to have been Rebecca Sue ("Becky Sue" - Dad's choice) or Stephanie (Mom's favorite)... but alas, as a boy, he got my mom's choice in masculine form.

[primevere]

I will keep my story very short. Well first off my name is Kristin-Lynn, there have been many stories floating around the last 17 years as to how i was named. Apparently my father wanted my name to be Christina and my mother wanted Lynn. Anyway, they fought and fought and they some how came up with Kristin-Lynn. If you are wondering, no I wasn't named after anyone.

[powerfulcheese04]

My parents picked out names with no particular meaning besides what they thought was pretty.

They had it narrowed down to Kimberly Ann or Kristin Lynn. If I'd been a boy I'm not sure what they'd have named me. I know they had one picked out, though.

[starlooker]

Kirsten means "anointed" and Louise means "battle maiden."

Anointed battle maiden.

I think I am the reincarnation of Joan of Arc.

[steph]

I wasn't named after anyone. My mom just liked the name. It means royalty. I hated my name as a kid. It sounded like a grown-up name, and not a child's name. I'm mostly ok with it now. In fact sometimes I wish Brian would call me by my name, rather than pet-names.
If I was a boy, my mom would have named me Jeremy, which I'm soooo glad that didn't happen. I went to school with that jerk Jeremy Bloom, and I would have hated to be associated so closely with him. It's bad enough that he had a crush on me in elementary school. Ug.

I won't say that Tyler is named after anyone, but I did get the idea for his name from 2 sources: Ty Pennington (I was a Trading Spaces fan from season 1) and Tyler Florence. I thought Tyler would be a cute name as a kid, and then as he got older he could switch to Ty if he wanted something more grown-up. It has a dumb meaning, but we didn't name him for the meaning. His middle name is after his father, Brian.

[Bevis]

The most twisted name I've ever thought of is Twoplustwo. It would be pronounced four.

I don't get it.

2+2=4

[Petra456]

My dad named me Nicole because he thought it was pretty. If I were a boy I was going to be named Allen, i'm glad I wasn't because I hate that name.

My middle name comes from my grandma (June) because my older sister was named after my other grandma.

I'm not too fond of my first two names, but I love my last name.

[Buggerwugger]

Daniel was one of my mom's random relatives (though she likes to say it was also for her favorite kid's book Daniel the Cocker Spaniel

And Cullen was one of my dad's random relatives. It might have been him that was murdered by his wife... I hope not.

[Kaira]

i have fallen in love with this thred.
i have an obsession with names. its rather odd i thought but, aperently not so much...
my mom wanted a girl but got 3 boys first... my brother josh was suposed to be tasha, my brother brian was suposed to be marie, and my brother travis was going to be alaina. im marissa, named after her (marilyn) and my middle name is my great grandmas, leone.

i happen to have a list of names for my future children, which keeps growing.... my most recent ones i thought you would all like is Suria-- i got it from the latest shadow book, ya know, suri? well i added an a hehehe, i think its adorable. another one i just came up with is lily-kay, and then Emelina-- i would probly end up calling her ema but i think thats very cute to.. very soft i think.
then theres my boy names and everyone makes fun of me for those... its anoying... anyway theres Sayden Strife and Koden, and Etias, and Rigel. i love them all, but everyone says saden strife is an aweful name and that they will call him satan... grrr