Naming a baby

pollypenny

MalMonroe said:

Mine is a threeh syllable name that I never liked and always wanted to shorten. But to what, that was the problem. My parents never shortened anyone's name, not mine and not even my cousin Susan's. She said she wanted to be Sue but nobody in the family could ever bring themselves to say that. She married Michael and he and all his friends call him Mick but nobody in the family has shortened his name. As yet. 

I've grown into my name now, it's about time 'cos I'm 72. Nobody can ever spell it and I have usually had to spell it out. If people don't ask me how it's spelled I keep an eye on how they think it should be spelled and then have to tell them sorry, it's not right. Why don't they just ask in the first place?!  Some people can't even say it properly. Other people have decided to shorten it on my behalf but I only ever really want to be called my proper name. I have wanted to change it in the past but felt disloyal to my parents. And it wouldn't feel like I was me anymore! (Daft but true.)

I gave my daughter the name I'd loved since I was a girl and wished it was mine. Also gave her a middle name which I loved and she's never really used it. Only for signing things. Her dad didn't really have a look-in when it came to name choices - thank goodness he was happy to go along to get along. She is very happy with her name, thank goodness.

Her name is only short - five letters but still other people sometimes think they have to shorten it for her. She asks them not to. People can't spell it either and it's not even complex. It's funny when people decide to add an extra letter here or there. Not sure why they can't just accept that it isn't as complicated as they think it is.

But what, really, is in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. I'm just glad (and I apologise profusely in advance if it's rude to say so) that I wasn't called Agnes. If I had been I'd have really had to do something about it pretty quick smart. 

A very interesting question, though. Thank you for posting it, it's certainly given me food for thought. 

Yet Agnes, pronounced as it was originally in the French way as Annyess is beautiful. 

Threebabes

We gave our 3 all short names so they wouldn’t be shortened.

seven-day-weekend

pollypenny said:

MalMonroe said:

Mine is a threeh syllable name that I never liked and always wanted to shorten. But to what, that was the problem. My parents never shortened anyone's name, not mine and not even my cousin Susan's. She said she wanted to be Sue but nobody in the family could ever bring themselves to say that. She married Michael and he and all his friends call him Mick but nobody in the family has shortened his name. As yet. 

I've grown into my name now, it's about time 'cos I'm 72. Nobody can ever spell it and I have usually had to spell it out. If people don't ask me how it's spelled I keep an eye on how they think it should be spelled and then have to tell them sorry, it's not right. Why don't they just ask in the first place?!  Some people can't even say it properly. Other people have decided to shorten it on my behalf but I only ever really want to be called my proper name. I have wanted to change it in the past but felt disloyal to my parents. And it wouldn't feel like I was me anymore! (Daft but true.)

I gave my daughter the name I'd loved since I was a girl and wished it was mine. Also gave her a middle name which I loved and she's never really used it. Only for signing things. Her dad didn't really have a look-in when it came to name choices - thank goodness he was happy to go along to get along. She is very happy with her name, thank goodness.

Her name is only short - five letters but still other people sometimes think they have to shorten it for her. She asks them not to. People can't spell it either and it's not even complex. It's funny when people decide to add an extra letter here or there. Not sure why they can't just accept that it isn't as complicated as they think it is.

But what, really, is in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. I'm just glad (and I apologise profusely in advance if it's rude to say so) that I wasn't called Agnes. If I had been I'd have really had to do something about it pretty quick smart. 

A very interesting question, though. Thank you for posting it, it's certainly given me food for thought. 

Yet Agnes, pronounced as it was originally in the French way as Annyess is beautiful. 

I like 'our' pronunciation as well.... I think Agnes is a lovely name!  But I like old fashioned names like that, I love Matilda too.

I like Anyess....I  also like the Spanish way of pronouncing Adrian  (Add-ri-AN) much better than 'our way'.

But I think English speakers would just see the name and pronounce it the way they knew best.

I knew someone who called their daughter Liane (pronounced Lee-AH-na) and she got very upset when people pronounced it Lee -ann).  But that is what it looks like to an English speaker.  Although the spelling is correct, I think the only way an English speaker would pronounce it correctly is to spell it Liana.

My name is spelt phonetically and is the same spelling (although pronounced differently) in both English and Spanish, so I was OK when we lived in Spain. 

Brie

Thinking of mispronunciation - I got quite incensed when listening to Radio 3 a month or so back and they played a piece by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.  And they pronounced his name as Gey (to rhyme with key) rather than Guy to rhyme with eye as in Guys and Dolls.  I really expected R3 to be a bit better about this but it's quite common they get it wrong.  I know a woman whose name is/was Jean which is a normal name for a woman in north America but because she was touring in Europe so often everyone started assuming she was male and pronounced it as if it was French for John (so rhyming with Sian).  In the end she went along with the French but changed the spelling to Jeanne so there was no confusion.  Annoying that she needed to do this.

tooldle

I think Radio 3 were likely correct in their pronunciation. The name is Gaetano and he is of Italian descent. 
Other European languages pronounce 'Guy' similarly, French for example is sounded as Gie

TBagpuss

MaryNB said:

My cousin was given the name Assumpta after a relative of hers. My grandmother (very much the matriarch of the family) sent my dad to his brother's to tell him they couldn't name a baby Assumpta (the only other Assumpta I've come across was an elderly nun). They still did but after a few days they ended up agreeing with my grandmother and she's been referred to by a different name ever since.

A manager of mine unknowingly spelled his own name wrong for 18 years until he got his birth cert to apply for his driving license. 

Being Irish there are numerous Patricks, Marys, and Michaels in my family, and we've long run out of shortened versions and irish language variants. In-laws with one of those first names are known by their full names, bit trickier for those using the family surname. 

elsien said:

My grandmother ended up with a completely different name to that chosen by her parents when an in-law went to register the birth and made a unilateral decision to change it to something they preferred instead. 

Wow. Some nerve of the in-law! 

a relative of mine ended up with an extra name as one of her godparents added it in at the baptism. But I don't think it is on her birth certificate , so probably not legally part of her name. 

TBagpuss

Threebabes said:

We gave our 3 all short names so they wouldn’t be shortened.

A neighbour of ours did that with her daughter - gavce her a one-syllable, 3 letter name. No middle names.
 Daughter disliked it and used a longer simialr name , and changed it as soon asshe was old ennough (think 'Kay' but chosing to  to be known as Kathryn) 

I alos had an acquaintance who had been givne the name Lizzy. She went by Liz but got so fed up of pople assuming that her full legal name muct be Elizabth than she eventually changed it. 

TripleH

From experience, always keep the name on official documents (birth certificate, passport etc) consistent.

My father used his confirmation name throughout his life which became an issue when my mother tried to sell their home and the other solicitors queried who this second person was. It was an issue with a name as rare as my father's (in the UK at least) so fould be a nightmare if you have a more widely used name.

elsien

TBagpuss said:

MaryNB said:

My cousin was given the name Assumpta after a relative of hers. My grandmother (very much the matriarch of the family) sent my dad to his brother's to tell him they couldn't name a baby Assumpta (the only other Assumpta I've come across was an elderly nun). They still did but after a few days they ended up agreeing with my grandmother and she's been referred to by a different name ever since.

A manager of mine unknowingly spelled his own name wrong for 18 years until he got his birth cert to apply for his driving license. 

Being Irish there are numerous Patricks, Marys, and Michaels in my family, and we've long run out of shortened versions and irish language variants. In-laws with one of those first names are known by their full names, bit trickier for those using the family surname. 

elsien said:

My grandmother ended up with a completely different name to that chosen by her parents when an in-law went to register the birth and made a unilateral decision to change it to something they preferred instead. 

Wow. Some nerve of the in-law! 

a relative of mine ended up with an extra name as one of her godparents added it in at the baptism. But I don't think it is on her birth certificate , so probably not legally part of her name. 

My grandfather was the opposite. Was very proud of his three Christian names till in later years he needed a passport, rummaged out his birth certificate and found out he'd only officially got the one. 

SadieO

These stories are so interesting! I wonder if digitisation will make things easier or more difficult for future historians and geneologists? Some people might have only ever be known by a name that is not actually recorded officially anywhere!

After my nanna died we found out that her first and middle names were legally the other way round and what we thought of as her name was actually her middle. Her official first name was a very popular Irish Catholic name, especially when she was born in the 1920s (think Mary or Margaret!) so I imagine multiple women in the family had the same name and so some went by their middle names.