Tuesday, July 14, 2020

What's in a Name?

On a recent podcast episode of The Mom Hour (great podcast about parenting!) the hosts talked about how they came up with names for the 8 kids they have between them (one host has 5 kids, the other has 3). It was a really fun episode and was a topic that is heavy on our minds right now since we have a 2nd boy on the way in December. So I thought it'd be fun to talk about the origin story for my name and how we decided on the name Paul Donald for our first child. I'll also discuss nicknames, too!

My name story:

How my name was chosen:  I was the 4th kid my parents had and my dad got to pick out my name. Wow, my mom must have really trusted him or known she would like what he picked. I can't see myself telling Phil to pick the baby's name! Maybe she had a veto option, though? He chose Lisa and I was named after.... a soap opera character!! Funny, right? My dad is a very blue collar man's man but he used to watch a soap opera when he came home for lunch each day. Apparently there was this strong, confident female character whose name was Lisa, so that was the inspiration. My middle name was going to be Suzanne, but our last name started with a D so my initials would have been LSD. My parents were NOT on board with that, so they shorted it to Anne.

Nicknames:  The main nickname I have is not derived from my name at all - I have no idea where it came from. But my parents called me Fritz when I was young. Some college friends call me "Lees" but most of the other names I've had were derivatives of my last name. At work, I used to be called "D-rod" which is the first letter and last syllable of my maiden name. Now that I've changed my name, that nickname doesn't get used as much, except by one co-worker.

How I felt/feel about my name:  well, I tried to change my name to Stephanie (after the character in Full House) in 3rd grade so that probably tells you that I wasn't thrilled with the name when I was young. I took this name change very seriously. I wrote Stephanie on all of my papers/homework and would only answer to Stephanie in the classroom. I eventually gave up and accepted that Lisa would be my name. As an adult, I'd say I've accepted my name. I know it's a very big decision that parents put a lot of thought into. And I can't imagine my name being anything else.

Paul's name story:

How his name was chosen:  We did not know the gender during the last pregnancy so we had to come up with a name for either gender. It was NOT an easy decision as both Phil and I are extremely picky. But we do both prefer strong, classic names. Early on, we decided to go with Paul for a boy. My dad's name is Paul and Phil's parents' first child was Paul. Sadly, their little boy died shortly before turning 2 due to a fall at daycare that resulted in head trauma that he did not survive. When we were leaning towards picking Paul, we talked to Phil's mom to make sure she was ok with this and said we could use it for a middle name if it would be painful for us to use that for a first name. She was completely on board with us using it as his first name, though. It is nice that the name Paul has meaning on both sides of our family and Joan has told us that our Paul reminds her of her Paul. We did not tell my parents that we chose Paul until after he was born. I remember calling my parents from the C-section recovery room, having them put me on speaker (they were on their way to the hospital), and telling them we had chosen Paul. We knew my dad would be very touched so didn't think we needed his permission to use the name. And we were right. He was incredibly honored/touched. Our Paul's middle name is Donald which is Phil's dad's name. So Paul is named after his 2 grandfathers. Family is very important to both Phil and me so I am glad we were able to use family names!

I do have a funny story about my dad and Paul sharing a name. During my maternity leave I was up at the lake for a couple of days. My mom's brother called while my mom was giving Paul a bottle, so I answered the phone for her and said my mom was feeding Paul but I'd hand the phone off to her shortly. There was this long, pregnant pause. And then my uncle realized that she was feeling baby Paul! He laughed so hard and said he was thinking - 'geez, what is going on with your dad if your mom is feeding him?' hahahaha

Nicknames: Paul goes to Spanish Immersion daycare and the vowel sound of Paul is difficult for native Spanish speakers to pronounce, so from day one he's been Pablo which quickly became Pablito because Paul is very small for his age. I think Paul knows his name is Paul, but he mostly says "Pablo" when referring to himself. And we tend to call him Pablo more than Paul. I sometimes wonder what people think when they see a white lady calling her blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned child "Pablo." But it does really fit his personality. Once he goes to school, I am sure he will start using Paul instead of Pablo, but for now, it just fits him so well.

The next baby's name:

Well that is to be determined and we won't share the name until the baby is born. I've learned from watching others share a name before the baby is born that some people tend to say awful things about a name when it's not attached to a beautiful baby. People seem less likely to tell you to your face that they don't like the name you've chosen if you wait until the baby is born. I started a list of names in the note ap of my iPhone but so far, Phil is not ready to talk about names. So I don't think we'll start seriously discussing it until the 3rd trimester. It would have been kind of nice to have a girl, because we both still liked the girl name we had picked out before - Claire Margaret. Claire is not a family name, but Margaret is Phil's mom's middle name.

It's going to be challenging to pick another boy name. I have 5 nephews and there are so dang many boys in Phil's family. We don't really want to pick a name that is already in use and we don't like any of the options of the older males in our family. Well, I like Neil, my paternal grandpa's name, but Phil isn't on board with that as it's the name of one of his good friends. So we'll see what we come up with. I will say it will likely be another traditional name - neither one of us feels like the name needs to be unique.

Your turn! Do you know how your parents came up with your name? If you have children, was it hard to come up with names? It's such a big decision so we find it kind of difficult!

13 comments:

Jeanie said...

Mine was pretty easy -- Jean after my mom and Ellen after my dad's mom. It got shortened to Jeanie or Jeanie Ellen because two Jeans was confusing! I had always known I wanted to name a girl Molly Kathleen and call her Molly Kate for ages -- LONG before Kevin married a Molly and my best friend became Kate. So I still feel I got the best of both worlds. RIck's boys were Greg and Kevin and I'm on board with both those names (like I had a choice?!) but I also like the names Mark and Jeff, which happen to be the names of the sons of a favorite cousin and whom I think of as "extended kids."

The Many Thoughts of a Reader said...

My mom always liked my first name. My dad wanted to name me Stacey. I'm glad he didn't win ha. My middle name was my mom's grandma's name. I hated it. When I got married I got rid of it and put maiden name as my last name. I don't think my mom liked that. My mom always liked my dad's first name and would have named my brother after him but my dad's family has a habit of then calling that person Junior for their entire life and she was not down for that. So she liked the name she gave him second to that and then used my dad's middle name as his middle name. For our oldest, I had come across the name 2 years prior and fallen in love with it. Knowing my husband I didnt really share it with him until we were closer to having her and I knew he eventually go along with whatever I reallllly wanted because I cared more. Her middle name is my grandma's name and also the name of one of his aunts. For our second, I had used the name I loved the most and couldn't find a second name I loved as much. I did have a front runner but had a vision of a dark haired child with that name, not a red headed one, so I was okay when we went with something else. Which we literally had the conversation while I was in labor. While Adeline was on my list and probably the least favorite of the names on my list, he went agreed to it after I vetoed all of his names. Though they were better than his names from Isla! Elizabeth is my mom's middle name and my cousin's middle name. It was in the running for Isla's middle name as well. But we didn't like IED as initials. I had suggested Margaret as it is his grandma's middle name but he didn't want to use it, so about an hour before she was born we were like sooo Adeline Elizabeth? Maybe. Then she was born and we decided okay. :)

missris said...

My parents named me after an actress--Marisa Berenson. I'm not sure how or why they picked it but after not liking it for a long time, now I think it suits me. I grew up in Texas, which has a large hispanic population, and in Spanish the name is usually pronounced differently and often spelled with a double S so I got a lot of that growing up. It used to bug me but now it seems like a silly thing to get upset about!

Carolina John said...

We tend to name things after jazz musicians - the kids are Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne, although both are also family names, and their middle names also appear in the family tree.

My dad and his dad are also both John Flynn, so I went by my middle name Marshall as a kid, and my parents/brothers still call me that. I always hated Marshall, so the day I got out of there I checked into the college dorm as John and never looked back. My cousins still look at Kelley funny when she refers to me as John.

Stephany said...

Ooh, this is such a fun post! And SORRY FOR HAVING SUCH A GREAT NAME. Hahahaha. :) I had to laugh at that because I haaaated my name growing up. I love it now, and especially love its different spelling, but it wasn't my favorite when I was younger. I just wanted a keychain with my name on it! Hehe.

I love the meaning behind Paul's name. <3 How special. And Claire is such a beautiful name! I can't wait to hear what the name for the new baby is, but TOTALLY respect waiting to reveal it. I would do the same thing!

Let's see... my name is just one my mom liked! Nothing really special about it. My brother is named after my dad, so I guess she got to pick mine. Hehe. And she wanted to spell it differently.

I've only ever named my cats and I had a heck of a time with that, especially Eloise! I had spent months scouring cat naming sites in the months leading up to adopting them and had a long list in my phone of boy names and girl names - most of them "people" names because I like when animals have people names, haha. Eloise was almost a Freya, as I debated between those two names for a few days. For Lila, I heard the name from my cousin who had just given birth to twins (she was a surrogate) and their mother had named the girl Lila, and I just LOVED that name so much, and stole it for MY Lila. :)

Grateful Kae said...

Awww, the story about Paul's name is so sweet! I love that he's named after someone on both side's of the family. How special for you both. I also LOVE that you guys call him Pablo! That's so cute!! That will really help him eventually feel more connected to the Hispanic culture and everything too if he continues at the bilingual daycare. If it sticks, he'll probably think it's fun too when he's older and it will always be special and remind you of his caretakers and early childhood years.

I'm not really sure how my mom exactly picked my name, but I do know that she played around with the spelling of my name (Kaelyn) on a napkin on her lunch break while working as a teacher. She just started writing it every which way she could think of, and ended up picking "Kaelyn" I think because her middle name (and my older sister's middle name) are "Rae". So Kaelyn picked up on that similar spelling. My middle name is actually "Kae". Yes, Kaelyn Kae. ;) My mom always kind of liked rhyming names and cute things like that. Haha. As a result, my nickname growing up was always "KK". My Dad and sister still call me that today!

My boys' names are not family names- just names we liked. But Ethan also has a Spanish nickname- "Patito" which means little duck, given by a close friend of my husband's who said the baby's pursed lips looked like a little duck beak when he was a newborn. That friend passed away in an accident some years ago now, so it's dear to my husband's heart now. And Asher's nickname is Scooby Doo. Haha! We don't really call him that in public but it's kind of our personal pet name for him, like I'll say "Hey Scooby!" when I walk in and see him. Not even sure where that really came from! But it's been that for years now. :)

Katie said...

So funny about the name Stephanie- I used to wait until the assignments were returned and then change the name to “Hallie” (from The Parent Trap). I just had our daughter 6 m ago and we had a really hard time coming up with her name! We kept coming up with reasons not to use a name and talking ourselves out of every name. We settled on “Vera”, which I think sounds and looks so lovely!

Shoshanah said...

This was really fun! My parents used the Jewish tradition of using the first initial from a dead relative. So I’m name after my paternal grandfather Seymour who died in his 50s when my dad was in his 20s. I hated my name when I was little because I couldn’t spell it and wanted my name to be Amy since I could spell that.

Kaylee is similarly named after my mom Karen. Jacob we agreed on first, but does share an initial with my Mom’s dad who was named John.

Gracie said...

Haha. I let David name Dominic! We really didn't have a robust name list and honestly...I kind of didn't care. I was very sure he was a boy, and after so many brothers, naming a little boy didn't see like a big deal to me. David is Sicilian, and a Sunday baby boy is traditionally Dominic, so he got that name by default. His middle name is after David's best friend, who tragically passed away at a young age. But I have a ton of nicknames for him, including "Pants", which is weird, because he doesn't even wear pants. It's a derivative of "Smiley-Pants McGee" which is what I called our happy boy when he was a little baby!

Marlys said...

Another strong family name I thought of is John. That was my Grandpa and Great Grandpa McDougall’s name, and has been used quite a bit in the McDougall family. It was Keith’s middle name, too. It’s just a suggestion, though. Picking out names can be a difficult decision.
We are so excited for your lake vacation, too, as we really miss seeing you in person. FaceTime and zoom are great substitutes, but we need in-person visits so much!

Abby said...

This is such a fitting post! I just read this hilarious chapter in a book Ryan gave me all about "choosing your child's name". She talked about how many people pick a cute "baby" name, and leave out the fact that the child will someday be interviewing for jobs and going on dates. No one in our family - but I have seen some questionable baby names that I just wonder "how will anyone take him seriously?"

I'm curious what you'll end up naming Baby Segner Dos! I am sure whatever you will pick will be perfect :)

And Pablo suits little Paul well, I think! :)

Jolene - EverydayFoodie said...

I loved this post!!!!

The LSD and D-rod parts both gave me a good laugh. I totally don't think "D-Rod" when I think of you, haha! Too funny. Christopher loves giving people nicknames, and he sticks to them for life. He'll likely call you D-Rod if we ever meet you, bahahahaha!

The story of wanting to change your name to Stephanie is totally what I was like as a kid too. Actually, my first name is Marie, but an older girl at school had the name Jolene, and I thought she was cool. My middle name is Jolene, and we were moving from a farm into the city, so at 7 years old I told my parents I was going to be Jolene from then on, and wouldn't answer to Marie. I've stuck with it ever since, but never legally changed it. The story of Paul being called Pablo is so adorable. I like it, and agree that it suits him.

San said...

This is such an interesting topic. Paul runs in my Dad's family too (it's my Dad first middle name) and I like that it's short and sweet.

When my sister and I were born, my parents originally only had one girls's name and one boys' name picked out. When they found out that they had twins, they had to come up with a second girls'name.
I was the first born (by two minutes), so I got the name they had picked out first - Sandra. It was a very (!) popular name in the 70's in Germany and I wasn't very fond of it for a long time, because there were so many 'Sandras' everywhere. Stephanie was the second-most-popular name, by the way ;)
So I got that very common name, while my sister's name is Jeannine (although she goes by Nina)... yes, French spelling and all. LOL