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A rose by any other name

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10:56 / 29.08.03

I've been thinking about this a lot, lately. I've never felt quite comfortable with my name. I don't mind it, don't get me wrong - it's a nice enough name, and it has grown on me in recent years, to the point where I actually *like* it, but, you know...

So anyway, I was wondering about other people. Do you like your name? Would you change it? Have you changed it (either legally or socially, or even in your own head)? More than once? Do you have a different working name? Have you got a different working name set aside for when you need it? Do you feel like your name is an important part of your identity? Or just a useful tag? Do you care what people call you?

This thread is about given names, or whatever people call you, or whatever you call yourself. So if people really do call you the Technicolor Prophet of Doom and that also happens to be your Barbe-handle, then feel free to talk about that. You get the picture.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:16 / 29.08.03

I used to dislike my Christian (and I do mean Christian) name because I thought... I dunno, it made me sound too posh. That was when I was a kid.
Then I disliked it because my mother told me I'd been named after the first Christian martyr and I didn't like the idea of martyrdom. (Also explains why, despite having been brought up staunch CoE, I have a colossal guilt complex. Should've been a Catholic, I reckon.)
Now, many years later, I don't care. It's me, or what people call me at least. I could change it to something really cool, but I probably wouldn't react if I heard someone shouting that in a crowded bar.
It's my name. It's no longer good, or bad. It just is. I like to think I've given it my own associations along the way.

12:00 / 29.08.03

I rather like my name. It's common enough that people have heard it before uncommon enough that I very rarely meet anyone with the same name. This makes me fairly unremarkable when I want to be but still unique in my social circle.

12:02 / 29.08.03

what's in a name? from a few months ago.

12:10 / 29.08.03

I remembered that thread before I posted this, but it's not the same thread. That was about associations, this is about how you feel about your own name, name changes, nicknames, etc.

12:14 / 29.08.03

But I'll move that the title of this thread be changed to avoid confusion.

Tryphena Absent

12:29 / 29.08.03

I don't like my name. I like long, winding names that charm you and belong to charismatic fictional characters. My name is short and 'pretty'. My name does not represent me, I'd like to have a name that was longer or simpler, Cassandra or Liz. A girl's name but not as girly, more adventurous or sturdy. My name is only girly and not weird enough to warrant never getting nameplates or keyrings or badges with **** on them.

12:32 / 29.08.03

once i was talking to a super mean french man. he was very angry about financial matters, and right at the end he asked me my name. and i had to say sophie and of course he said oh! a french name! that made me mad. in france there is a whole day for people called sophie, which is very cool. so that's a double edged sword.
sophie is a french name but also a greek name and when i went to india i was told that sophie is from sufi, a muslim name.
my name means wisdom, which is a fucking joke, & i like how it sounds. you can't really shout it, it's too soft. i find most sophies to be creative and many are alternative.

unheimlich manoeuvre

12:55 / 29.08.03

my name is ridiculously common, there were five people in my year at school with the same name as me.
it is a scottish name, derived from a name in the bible, and yet it is quintessentially english. there are loads of nicknames and i've been called most of them at different times in my life.
yet im happy with my name. my mam tells me that when i was born my dad, mum, grandad, nan, brother and sister voted and it was the only name they could agree on.
my "proper" name reminds me of a privileged child, a chauffeur or a career civil servant.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:04 / 29.08.03

interesting thread.

My given name is beautiful,lyrical(i'm named for a famous bengali poem),picturesque and *very* girly.

Nobody uses it. But people often tell me how pretty it is, it's a flower name.

I think it's a lovely name, but it's *not me*. Class rears it's head again, as it's similar to a bunch of very posh english girls' names, which i'm not keen on.(and i'm named for a poem, for godssake)

The name that everyone since the age of 13 has called me is non-girly/gender-specific(have never met a female one, but a couple of males), not frilly, odd and memorable.

I like that. These days, it's just my name, even work colleagues use it. A few people don't like it, and make up something else.

I also have several different family nicknames which are much more 'me' than this name or my given name, in the right context.

Feels very odd if someone else calls me by any of these. Somehow wrong.

15:23 / 29.08.03

the best thing about my name is that my initials *spell* my nickname, which is just the first 3/5 of my name (think jon for jonathan).
i think that's just swell.

17:32 / 29.08.03

I like my name.

It's right there, up to the left of these words.

Hi, name! You're doing a great job! Keep it up!

----

At home, Sophia is currently leading the race for daughter names. Partially for gnostic reasons.

Matthew Fluxington

18:39 / 29.08.03

My name is Matthew, and I love that name. The only thing I don't like about my name is when people call me "Matt." I really don't like that at all.

21:09 / 29.08.03

My name is has been in the top twenty for girls names since the 1800s, I think. I don't even respond to it anymore, generally going by my last name outside of my family. I do a lot of history research, and I come across all these gorgeous, distinctive names, and I'm jealous. I like the actual Biblical source of my name, she was pretty nifty, but on TV these days, it's skanks galore.

Brigade du jour

21:15 / 29.08.03

My name's more common as a surname really, which is why I've unofficially shortened to its first syllable. That, unfortunately, makes me sound like food. But sounding like food is better than having a surname as a first name.

Always liked the idea of Alexander, which is one of the names my mum considered.

07:45 / 30.08.03

I love my name. When you meet new people you can ask them to guess what you are called. They always get it right because David is the most common name in the whole entire world. No end of fun!

Additionally, I can remember that David downed Goliath in the bible. Then he cut of his head and held it up. So you see where my life is going...

Morlock - groupie for hire

10:34 / 30.08.03

I seem to have this knack of collecting names that need spelling out. First name, last name, place of birth, addresses. Gets rather tiring. Ohter than that it's just a name. Nothing fancy, nothing negative.

14:29 / 30.08.03

I like my name, and always like meeting others. Any other Andrews out there?

I hated 'Andy' like nothing else until last year, when no one in England would call me 'Andrew'... and 'Andy' sounds a lot better being said without an American accent...

15:50 / 30.08.03

My name is alright, Alexander. Plenty of shortening possibilities, not too common, not too unusual, though there are lots of people a few years younger than me called it. Also it's a name that many countries seem to adopt as their own, I've met greeks, russians, scots all of which have claimed Alex as a good greek/russian/scots/whatever name, which is nice. The problem comes when people especially older people call me Alec, which I hate sooo much. When it comes to names I think the russians have the right idea with all their crazy diminuitives some of which seem to have no relation to the name that they came from. this does however make reading russian novels even more difficult.

19:07 / 30.08.03

The spelling of my surname is unique to my family. (I must have had an illiterate ancestor...) It therefore has a vaguely classy, 'exclusive' and aristocratic air. Well, I like to think so, anyway. The disadvantage is that virtually no one can spell it properly.
As a result, I have always been scrupulous about remembering how to spell other people's names, because I know how annoying it can get when people totally mangle them.

19:28 / 30.08.03

some people's descriptions of their names really make me want to know what they are. being given clues but not the name--it's like another riddles thread!

05:58 / 31.08.03

there's a story behind my name and the names that my mother rejected. i was the first born daughter's first born daughter. my mother had no idea what to name me so she asked for suggestions. she got three. the first was, jennifer, from my grandmother who thought i should be named after a valley of the dolls character because she had big boobs. in later years i found out that sharon tate played jennifer. Perhaps granny should have suggested sharon instead. in any case, my mom rejected jennifer as my name. The second suggestion was Adriana. This one was from my aunt's boyfriend. My mom almost went for that one but in the end she said no. then in walks this hippie guy that was a friend of my mom's. he wanted to discuss the possiblity of her donating some mother's milk because he had heard that it helps to remove tatoos. in the course of the discussion of mother's milk he suggested the name that my mother decided to use. i don't know if his payment for giving me a name was mother's milk...i'll have to ask my mom when i talk to her next time

My aunts had a series of boys after i was born and then about four years later my first girl cousin came along. My aunt named her Jennifer after much lobbying from my granny. Poor jenny never did get large breasts. More boys after her and finally the third girl and last of my cousins was born. she was named Adriana. I sometimes wonder if the other girls know that they received my mother's rejected name suggestions. I hope not. They are both nice names and I wouldn't want them to feel bad or anything.

But anyway, my name is great. It is a shortened form of the name of a notorious russian princess. There i just gave it away! the only complaints that i have is that on first meeting a person i always have to repeat my name at least twice...are they hard of hearing or something? I almost always have to resort to the russian princess thing in order for them to really 'get it'. And for some reason, people can never pronounce it correctly if they are reading it out loud (teachers and such). other than that, i love my name. i have never met anyone with my name but i have met people who know someone with my name. and that suits me just fine.

all in all, i think that hippie guy did my mom (and me) a great favor. i hope he got rid of that tatoo!

10:24 / 31.08.03

I used to like my name because it was unusual, but then in the late eighties it suddenly became popular

.
Luckily I spell it with a different first letter (to match my surname) so it's still kind of unusual. Post used to be confusing in our house though, because my Dad my brother and I all have the same first initial.
My brother and I also don't have any middle names which always seemed cool as most people seem to be embarrassed by theirs.
I was nearly called Holly as I was due Boxing day, and I sometimes wonder if my personality would have been different if I'd had a different name.
I was in an Advertisment for a fabric condidtioner when I was four and in one of the shots, where I'm being wrapped in a fluffy blue towel, you can see me mouthing my own name. I always wondered how that came about. Maybe something to do with taking ownership of my alter-image.

13:09 / 31.08.03

Went to an old, old church in Yorkshire for a wedding yesterday and scouted round the crumbling tombstones while pictures got took and confetti flung etc.

I rather fancied Wheldrake and Count Gleichen but my favourite was Noah Pharaoh. May change my name by deed poll to that. I feel like being an old testament prophet for a while.

My real name is dull. Not embarrassing or unpleasant, just very dull. And all the males in my family have the same name, apart from a few lucky Richards.

Jack The Bodiless

13:39 / 31.08.03

I've ended up liking my name, after years of hating it. Hating it was partly because of the fact that it, together with my surname, will look arse on a dust jacket. Coming up with decent pen names was a bugbear a few years back - still don't like my surname all that much.

My name means 'son of the right hand', apparently, which works in the sense that I'm the eldest kid in my family, from a Christian family, and also in the sense that I love the fact that, although I was the product of a sex act with motivation, my name can be taken to mean that I am the product of a directionless sex act, hence one of the many reasons for choosing 'Jack' as an online name. I also like the fact that, in turn, this foolish whimsy lead me to pointless theorising concerning the human condition as product of constant and consistent attempts to reify/deify the inconsequential, and the marginalise and reduce the consequential, Hence my favourite phrase of all time, bastard-apothoesis. Which was also the name of my ship in Pirate Wars, until I changed it to come in line with the Barbelith mini-league's penchant for naming their vessels after Z-list actors.

By the way, for those who I've befriended in real life who've mentioned it (Bill, KKC, stoatie) - I really don't mind if you continue to call me Jack through inertia, as if I ever did a 'Reggie Perrin', that's what I'd probably call meself.

09:05 / 01.09.03

I fucking *love* my first names, which are Benedict Quantum Fierdash. I have made many friends through strangers approaching me to ask if it really is my name, and for introductions it can't be beat. Here's the lowdown-
BENEDICT after my mother's friend 'Ben the ultimate dope freak'
QUANTUM after quantum tunneling, a bizarre and seemingly impossible phenomenon my dad read about, and thought it was about as wonderful as a baby. And all children should have a Q or Z as their middle initial. It also serves as a handy username of course...
FIERDASH made up by my dad, I like to think it's a correption of Fearless and Dashing

I challenge anybody to have a better name, the gauntlet is thrown down! Any Xaviers or Nizlopis out there?

(PS JtB- I mis-parsed your post and thought you said it was OK to call you "Jack Through Inertia", which would be a cool name I have to say)

10:18 / 01.09.03

Hmm, Well, I like and dislike my name. I guess I think names are pretty important, like a lot of the posters here seem to. It really seems to say something about your identity. Well, my name is Jessica, after my great grandmother... Well, it seems stodgy and old fashioned to me, so everyone calls me Jess. Or Jessie, if they are feeling bold

But, my online handle obviously comes from my name: although it's also tied in to my unhealthy fascination with Harley Quinn, and tendancy to smile constantly

People do actually call me Jester sometimes, or Jestika, both of which appeal on various levels

11:24 / 01.09.03

If Xoc's dull, then so am I. Which bit of Yorkshire where you in, by the way?

14:02 / 01.09.03

Escrick, North Yorkshire, Sax. Of course, neither of us is dull. We just belong to a large tribe with a common name. I wish I had been called Napoleon after my great grandfather.

Whisky Priestess

14:29 / 02.09.03

I know someone called Napoleon. He is, of course, an actor in panto.

Knickers, I hear you about the misspelling thing - I too always ask people how they spell their names even if I don't have to write them down, just so I know how if I ever do have to. It also helps me to remember their names if I have an image of what the word looks like.

My names, by Whisky (answers at bottom of post)

My first name (1) as given (full length) is extremely common, as is the contraction of it by which I have been known since I was two. The spelling of that contraction isn't common however, so again I can never find keyrings etc. with my name spelt correctly.

My middle name (2) is a Jewish girl's name that sounds (to me) terribly worthy and Victorian. I'm not Jewish but my Mum's a huge Judaeophile so I suppose it's like a Elvis fan's child being called Priscilla or something. It begins with E so people always guess Elizabeth, even though it's really fairly common. People can always spell but never pronounce it: instead of pronouncing the "th" they say it like it's an organic compound formed when a carboxylic acid reacts
with an alcohol. It means Bright Star or something like that.

My third name (3) or second middle name if you like, is really cool. It's my mum's maiden name and very unusual so she wanted to keep it in the family. I sometimes use names 2 and 3 together as a pseudonym if one is required for entering competitions and so forth. She doesn't write as well as I do, though - she hasn't won anything yet. My other commonly used pseudonym is a male anagram of my commonly used (i.e. first and sur) name.

My surname (4) is a not too unusual, not too common solid English name that is homonymous with a largish English city, but the vowel is different (i.e. the name is spelt how it sounds, but people always misspell it anyway). Imagine being called Miss Londun - it's like that.

(1) Katharine (Katy)
(2) What, do I have to all the work? I've given you enough clues - go ahead and guess, you lazy buggers!
(3) Cleverly
(4) Keep guessing. Ha ha.

14:48 / 02.09.03

Whisky - your first middle name is Esther, right?

Edited to say - actually, it's so obvious it wasn't even worth me posting that, sorry. I've never heard of anyone enunciating the 'th' in it before though.

Whisky Priestess

14:56 / 02.09.03

On the nose, Chol. Most people never guess it - mind you I didn;t give them so many clues. About pronouncing the soft "th" - I guess I'm just awkward.

The Natural Way

15:17 / 02.09.03

There are probably a billionskillion people with the startlingly unoriginal combination of my first and surname.

Utter rubbish.

Like Jack the Bodiless, my major gripe's that it won't make an even half decent pen-name.

Hence my wonderful barbe-names.

21:02 / 02.09.03

Some role-playing geek somewhere is using my real name as her character name.

Most displeased.

Ack! And she's using my mother's first name as her last name, wtf.

Not that I blame her. I wouldn't want to be named 'Peterson-Gillespie' either.

21:18 / 02.09.03

Jack and Pig, I hear ya about the pen name thing. Totally.

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