Chandra was born before a child's gender was known prior to the birth. We had decided that, if the baby was a boy, his middle name would be Raymond, for SSS's uncle. If a girl, that would be shortened to Ray. For a first name, we had chosen Robin, as a good, unisex sort of name. As recounted in a previous post, she looked nothing like a Robin, and we were back to the drawing board. SSS refused to accept any name with a Christian reference, not wanting to impose his parents' form of hypocritical Christianity in any form. I was very surprised to find out that most of my favourite names had some sort of Christian connotation, either Biblical, saints, or other references to God in their meaning. Our choices became very limited, and I had to be forcibly restrained from calling her Galadriel.
Never mind that the name we finally picked (after eight days) is Hindu. I probably would have agreed to anything at that point!
"Yes, Dear, call her Flowerpot! It's a name!"
By the time Vanessa was expected, SSS had rather burned out on the baby project, and was not nearly as interested in the impending birth. Not to put too fine a point upon it, he decided she couldn't possibly be his, and I must have been straying from the nest. So, Chandra wanted to call her (still no sonar gender identification) Bright Coloured Butterfly. That seemed to be a bit of a burden, so I got a book on butterflies from the library and searched through the Latin names until I found one that was actually a name--Vanessa. The moment she was born, SSS's reluctance vanished, and she was Daddy's girl from then on. So, he was given the final choice between two names for her middle name, Ruth or Renée. As Ruth is one of my middle names, as well as being Biblical, I was pretty sure he would choose Renée, and he did.
Brendan came much later; his father and I were an on-again-off-again item for about 10 years. Once again, the name was not my first choice. I did get to insist on something more-or-less Gaelic, but, as James was pre-ordained as his middle name, the first name had to go with that. I was pleased with the choice.
I'm sure all three of them prefer the names they got to what I would have chosen, left to my own devices. They would have been Ysobel, Elaine, and Blaise.
That whole King Arthur thing would have ruled.
I must admit to a quick run through a book of names, Ronni.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, I could have had a boy! In which case, I would have had to have William in there somewhere, for my Father.
My mother's names where Isobella Anderson. I really like the name Anderson, it is very Scottish.
Have a great day!
Both SSS's and my parents had names that were unacceptable for one reason or another. Not to mention, we both wnted a complete break with tradition!
ReplyDeleteI've forgotten why, but it seemed a good idea at the time.