Just curious...which place name?

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-08-2004
Just curious...which place name?
24
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 7:52pm

Just curious...which place name?

India
Georgia
Caroline/
Carolina
Aja (like Asia)
Savannah
London
Paris
Ireland
Other (please specify).

You will be able to change your vote.




Edited 7/13/2006 7:55 pm ET by ab2203

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2005
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 9:22pm

I voted for Georgia, which I adore. I've loved it for eons and never used to hear it at all, but now I'm starting to hear it pretty regularly. I'm not planning to use it (I think it would be weird for a little girl who lives in Georgia to be named Georgia) so I don't mind the rise in popularity. I also love Caroline. It was actually my #1 name for almost a decade.


The others are just nms at all. Savannah has a very lower-class rural association for me, and most of them sound to me like parents trying (and failing) to sound like worldly jetsetters. And Ireland is one of my most hated names of all time, as you know. :)




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iVillage Member
Registered: 12-08-2004
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 9:40pm

Yes, I know of your hatred for Ireland. Mine isn't quite as vehement, though it's close. Savannah is the one that I most loathe, I think.

Caroline was my #1 name for years and years and years, and then I saw a increase in popularity, so I let it go (sadly) in favor of Rosalie. Now, though, Caroline hasn't gotten as popular as I anticipated, so it's back in the #1 spot, paired (I think) with either Victoria (my middle name) or Ruth (my grandmother's name) as a middle name.

I'm loving India, though people tend to run hot and cold on this one. I love it because of the "Gone With the Wind" association (really, I don't even think of country when I hear the name, though I know how completely ludicrous that sounds). I knew a girl named Aja in college, and even though it's not a name I'd usually like, it definitely fit her perfectly.

Like you, I love Georgia. Paris just reminds me of Paris Hilton (*vomit*), and London is a little too "I really wanna' name my kid after a famous city, but Paris was already taken."

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2005
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 10:04pm

If I wind up being unable to use Irish names, Caroline is back in the #1 spot. I just love it. And it has special meaning to me because my grandmother's name was Carole. My plan was always to use Caroline Harper and have her go by her middle as I do. I'm worried that Harper is becoming trendy, along with all the other androynous surnames. When I grudgingly gave up Caroline Harper, that's when I started focusing on Irish names. Before that, my plan was to use classic, southern first names paired with literary surname middle names. Like I said, if I wind up unable to use my Irish names (my friends joke I screen my dates based on their love of Irish names, but I really don't ), I may well go back to my original plan.


I love both Caroline Ruth and Caroline Victoria for you. Victoria is also on my list. I've never loved India. I do like the GWTW connection, but I just can't divorce it from the country. I laughed at your reactions to Paris and London. That about sums it up for me too.




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iVillage Member
Registered: 12-08-2004
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 10:12pm

>>My friends joke I screen my dates based on their love of Irish names, but I really don't ."<<

Yeah, right, Annie. You keep telling yourself that. I know the truth! :-)

I'm loving the literary middle name thing. How cute would it be to have a little boy Fitzgerald, nn Fitz? That's part of the reason I so love Eliot for a little girl...T.S. Eliot, George Eliot, there are so many great references. Harper is precious; I don't know of any, yet.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2005
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 10:35pm

I'm loving the literary middle name thing. How cute would it be to have a little boy Fitzgerald, nn Fitz?


How did you know that is one of my favorites for a boy? I ADORE it. Absolutely love it.


Here are my secondary (ie non-Irish ) lists:


Girls first names: Caroline, Eleanor, Victoria, Felicity, Amelia, Susanna, Josephine, Jacqueline, Rosalind


Girls middle names: Harper, Graham, Austen, Bronte, and lately I'm loving Eliot too :)


Boys first names: Henry, Calvin, Thaddeus, Theodore, Wesley

Boys middle names: Beckett, Fitzgerald (nn Fitz), Keats, Kipling (nn Kip), Whitman (nn Whit), Clemens (nn Clem)




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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-23-2004
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 10:46pm

I'm going to interrupt here, lol. I love Keats, it would be sooo cute on a little boy. I like Fitz and Kip, too. Great choices! I like Whitman by itself but Whit reminds me too much of Whitney. :)

Terra.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-08-2004
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 11:07pm

Oh. Sweet. Lord. I've only ever talked Irish names with you, and though I love all the Irish names on your list (well, most, Siobhan is slowly growing on me), I had no idea that our non-Irish lists were so similar. I've loved Rosalind ever since I read "As You Like It." Did you know that she has more lines than any other of Shakespeare's female characters? I also love Rosaline. And Cordelia (you know the family connection) and Juliette.

I have a really good friend named Eleanor who's named after her grandmother. She wants to use Eleanor as a middle name for her child, and that is the ONLY thing keeping me from using it. I prefer Elinor, though, because of Austen.

I wanted MY name to be Josephine after I read Little Women, and I wanted to name my daughter Margaret and call her Meg.

You know about the Victoria connection.

Henry and Calvin are both at the top of my list for boys (my favorite great-uncle's name is Calvin). I love, love, love Walt Whitman...I just took a graduate English class on him last semester (much needed respite from law classes). I never thought of Whitman, though. Whittington was my great-grandmother's maiden name, so if I had a Whitt, he'd probably be a Whittington, not a Whitman.

Jacqueline is great...there was a girl in one of my classes named Jacqueline, pronounced the French way (which I love). She sometimes signed emails and such as Jacqui, which I thought quite cute and cosmopolitan...and much more interesting than Jackie.

And Keats! Keats! Keats and Yeats are the reason I was an English major! Until all these dang -aden names became so popualar, I also wanted to have a Haydn (even though it's pronounced hy-, not hay-) after the composer, but now that's pretty much shot. And I thought of having either a Hart or a Crane after the poet Hart Crane. Have you read him? If not, you should. Right now. Start with "Voyages." It's tough, but worth every minute.

I'm hoping to eventually have a boy named Mitchell, though I do not plan on telling anyone about the Margaret Mitchell connection until the ink is dry on the birth certificate. I don't know of a man alive who'd consent to that reasoning for a boy's name. I'm very sneaky that way...

I'm assuming that Clemens is after Samuel Clemens. You could call him Twain if you wanted to make all the under-read people feel really stupid. :-) Just kidding.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-08-2004
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 11:09pm
Ha! Interrupt anytime, Terra. I think that Fitz, Kip, and Keats are fantastic, too!
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2005
Thu, 07-13-2006 - 11:34pm

Margaret! How could I leave that off my list. Margaret is a family names three times over for me, and I was VERY nearly Megan so that I could be Meg without adding yet another Margaret to our family tree. It's definitely high on my list of girls names. And yes, Meg and Jo always make me think of Little Women. Oh how in love I was with Jo.


I think, sadly, Henry is about to be out for me. The family I've just accepted a job from in ATL (a gay couple having a baby via a surrogate, how exciting is that!) are due to have their first baby in early December. I'll be there basically from day one (at least, as soon as they get home). Their baby will be either Henry or Katherine, and I'm sure this child is going to have a huge part of my life for the next couple of years so I wouldn't be able to recycle his/her name.


I adore Whit(t) no matter what the full name. Actually, there is a part of me that wants desperately to have two little boys and name them Ashley and Whitney. I know the thought of that probably makes 99% of the people on this board collapse of a heart attack, but I just love them. But only for boys.


I love Keats and Yeats too. I thought about putting Yeats on my list, but I just don't love it enough as a name. Who know though, I could see it growing on me over the years.


I love the idea of using Mitchell for Margaret Mitchell. And it's just a great name. Good luck with the sneakiness!


Yes, Clemens would be for Twain and I actually love the idea of calling him Twain as an occassional nickname. I toyed with putting Twain itself on the list, but something about Clemens really appeals to me. At first glance Clem looks so outdated and old and not just a little bit backwoods-hicksville sounding.



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Registered: 06-09-2006
Fri, 07-14-2006 - 12:02pm

As usual, I'm with Annie on most of the names on her list. I'm still a bit iffy on place names though. I've always liked Caroline, but I live in Caroline Co. and my family is from North Carolina I went to UNC, so it just seemed a little TOO easy to use Caroline.

I disagree on India though. For some reason I've always loved this one. It's so 19th century that I think it's just charming. And it's a family name for me, I've mentioned my fetish for family names. The only drawback I would see to India is it's rapid jump in popularity over the last decade.

As for literary names, as an English Major I've always found it hard to choose. I love most of Annie's. I'm also very fond of Beatrice, Juliet, Ophelia, and from Jane Austen I adore Emma (although far too popular now), Jane, Lydia and Fanny. In this day and age I would NEVER name a girl Fanny, but Fanny Price is one of my favorite characters of all time. Of course, Dickens is also a great source for names. He was a genious at naming characters. My family seems to like Samuel Richardson as I have a cousin Pamela and I was going to be Clarissa until about a week before I was born.

Meredith

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