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CCMartin's avatar

The teenagers whose babies I delivered often chose "interesting" names for their babies, too. And I smiled and used the babies name whenever possible. Names are important. We named our oldest Lydia after my grandmother. I didn't realize that there are tons of people with the middle name of Lydia scattered through my family tree! When you have hundreds of cousins, that tends to happen. And we named our son Christopher because we liked the connotation of "Christ-bearer." He has rejected Christianity, but we still like the name. And, Lydia is non-binary, but is keeping their name even if it is coded as female. I'm glad about that. Anyway, good post. Lots to think about.

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Janice Airhart's avatar

There's so much that goes into choosing a baby's name, but it's always super important to honor that choice. We were determined not to use family names because we didn't want anyone to feel offended their name wasn't chosen. So we chose names we liked and that were easy to pronounce. Thanks for your comment.

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Dawn Smith's avatar

It's true that coming up with a name for your child is often difficult.

With our very common last name _Smith_ my mom tried hard, within bounds, to come up with unique names.

Unfortunately for her, one of my aunts sent a clipping announcing the marriage of Dawn Marie Smith on the same day that I had been born. She gave up, younger siblings became Susan and Mark.......

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Janice Airhart's avatar

Funny. There's something to be said for simple. You don't have to spell your name to everyone you meet. We went with "Marc" for our son. I think he's finally given up correcting people.

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Mary Cantrell's avatar

These days, I encounter many more difficult (for me) names than I used to. But you’re right, of course: we need to take the time to say the names correctly.

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Mat Poehler's avatar

An interesting topic, thank you

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