What's in a name?

[Aggie_Ama]

I am fond of having a name with meaning. Mine does not, it was popular at the time and my mom found it beautiful. My middle name is her middle name (or was now it is my maiden name) but she just used it because it went with Amanda. My brother was named after two boys in her pre-school she was teaching. Not that they were her favorites, she just liked their names. Oddly his middle name is my father's but that is not why my parents picked it initially!

My niece is named after my husband, I think it is such a sweet tribute. He and his brother are extremely close and if we are to have a boy his middle name will be after my brother in law.

[Tuckervill]

From today's paper, a new twist on Chloe.

Khloee

No kiddin'.

The rest of her name was, apparently, unremarkable.

Karen

[IFjane]

I learned this last week - one of the parents in our program has a child - her firstborn - named Genesis. I like it! Of course, my first thought was of the progressive rock group and not the biblical connotation...

[oxysback]

I've had a good laugh reading this thread!

Now, for the downside of growing up with an unusual name...

I have an aquaintance named Mireille. I, personally, love how the name sounds, but she has an equally unusual last name. She's now old enough to get her first job, but she's finding that potential employers don't want to call her back because not only are they unsure of how to pronounce her first name, but her last name is difficult, as well.

She's taken to spelling her name phonetically (she puts 'Maray') on her job applications, but then they call back asking for 'Murray'. The poor girl can't win!

[margo49]

It's a lovely name.
The woman who wrote French Women Don't Get Fat is Mireille.

[uk elephant]

I didn't think I grew up with an unusual name until I went away to college. In Norway my name, Eli, is a fairly common girls name. The same name in the US where I went to college is a fairly common jewish boys name. And I have had many surprised professors who expected me to be a boy when I showed up in class. But I like my name, and where it came from. It's my great-grandfather's middle name.

[silver]

Back in my previous life as a CPA, I had a client who had the pronunciation on his name on his business card. Looks like this could be a good idea.

Our last name is German. In German when there is a two vowel combination, the second vowel is pronounced. Our community has a strong German heritage and they say that years ago that German was as likely to be spoken on the streets as English. Many streets and companies have German names and people pronounce them correctly.

An example would be Weinbach would be pronounced like winebok, not weenbok

Sooo.......why can't they pronounce our last name correctly???

My first name is Elaine (not a German name, so pronounced E-lane, not E-line). Not extremely common, but somewhat. It's more common here in the Midwest than it was in in the South. There was the character on Seinfeld (german name pronounced signfeld, not seenfeld). But just recently, I realized that an acquaintance here, that I've known for 6 or 7 years was calling me, El-a-nay. What to do?

[Meaux]

My mom knew someone who had a OBGYN with the name...wait for it...wait for it...Dr. Beavers. Wow.

I've seen first names like Princess and Sparkle before. Can you imagine going to school with the name Sparkle??