many names

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2006
many names
5
Fri, 09-29-2006 - 5:28pm

So I have a problem.

I have two middle names; my ancestors has the latter for the last 600 years, the former for about the last 250 (seriously). My fiancée and I plan to hyphenate our last names. We want to, in abstract, pick two "individual" names for each child, a first and a first-middle. I rather want to keep my middle names going, and F has no problem with this...

So each kid theoretically ends up
first ownmiddle mymiddle1 mymiddle2 f'slastname-mylastname

So that's clearly too long... What should we do? Part of the reason to have two names per child is that we're a multicultural family (basically I'm Asian Indian and she's "standard" American (Half French Half British) and we had thought that instead of trying to blend the two, we'd go "shopping" for names, try to pick interesting ones, and have a second so that the kids had a backup...

What should we do? I'll post some of the first name ideas seperately.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2005
In reply to: blueamerica
Fri, 09-29-2006 - 6:10pm

wow, that's a whole lot of names. My first suggestion is that if you plan on having two children, give the first one your first middle name and the second can get the other second middle name. Then your kids will be:

ownfirstname ownmiddle yourmiddle1 last-names
and
ownfirstname ownmiddle yourmiddle2 last-names

That's still really long, but not QUITE as overwhelming and together they are still carrying on both family names. If you are adamant about giving both of them both of your middle names, then I would nix their own middle names and make them each:

ownfirstname yourmiddle1 yourmiddle2 last-names.

PERSONALLY, I would cut it down even more and make them:

ownfirstname yourmiddle1 last-names
ownfirstname yourmiddle2 last-names

I love that format.




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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2005
In reply to: blueamerica
Fri, 09-29-2006 - 7:30pm

Wow ... that is a LOT of name.

I'd say some sort of compromise is definitely in order here.

As Annie mentioned, if you plan on having two children, you could give your first mn to one and your second mn to the other. But I'd only do that if two children was absolutely set in stone ... otherwise you might end up with the odd child out if you have a third or only end up passing on one of the mns if you never have a second, KWIM?

I think giving each child both mns, but not another, was also suggested. Then they'd be

ownFN yourMN1 yourMN2 last-names

Not quite as overwhelming without the extra mn in there. And you could reverse the mns (yourMN2 then yourMN1) for the second to mix it up a little. ;)

You also mentioned that you and your fiancee would be hyphenating YOUR lns, but that doesn't mean you have to give both to your children as well. If this is very important to you, by all means do it, but if you wouldn't mind the children all sharing just one of the lns it would certainly cut down on the lengthiness.

Basically, you just have to decide what's most important to you: a name that is uniquely the child's and flows well (ie. isn't too legthy and cumbersome), a name that gives the child their own fn AND mn, as well as carrying on both YOUR mns AND both lns, or something in the middle.

Just a side note ... my oldest just started Kindergarten about a month ago, and I can't tell you the number of times I've had to write out her FULL name already. Not just on all the school forms (although they never seem to stop LOL), but on simple, everyday things like medical forms, insurance claims and other mundane paperwork. So whatever you decide, keep in mind that you will have to live with the names -- all of them -- and plan on writing them (or spelling them out for people filling out forms via telephone) many, many times throughout your child's lifetime. ;)

~Kelli


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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2006
In reply to: blueamerica
Fri, 09-29-2006 - 10:12pm

Thanks, both of you :-)

You're right, we'll have to cut things down somehow... I have to admit the ownfn m1 m2 lns idea was my first thought, but I don't want to drown out my F; at that point, each kid has a name, one of hers and three (!) of mine... doesn't seem quite fair.

I guess part of the problem is that having the same mns as all these other people, I'm not really used to thinking of any name past my fn as mine; I don't really know what to think about a "random" middle name; all I know is F (in abstract) likes the idea, and (like 99.9% of the US) has one. You'd be surprised how much of our thinking about all this is culturally contingent. So I see the own-mn as pretty trivial deep down, but realise that's just a cultural bias (and very much a minority one; ethnic Indians are like 1% of the US or something (if even)?).

*sigh* more to ponder. It's surprising how much there is to deal with, cross-culturally, even though I was born and raised here. I have this massive visceral urge to prevent what I used to call "wood cut out names" (I went to an amusement park when I was little where they had woodcut souveniers for people in the shape of most common first names. Naturally mine wasn't available, and I guess I took some perverse pride from this), so when DF mentions "Anna" I cringe. Its not cultural parochialism per se; I don't need Indian names as such, just... ones that approximate the rarity of my own.

It's easy to call this all selfishness, but... it gets weird when it's one's kid. This crazy possessiveness erupts.

Anyway, we're quite far afield of the topic of this forum. Thanks again for the advice :-).

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2005
In reply to: blueamerica
Fri, 09-29-2006 - 10:25pm

<<>>

Just a quite note. I know I mentioned possibly giving the children only one of your lns, since you and your fiancee will be hyphenating yours, but since you mentioned the child(ren) having their own fn, both your mns and then the lns, I was just wondering if you'd considered letting the children use your fiancee's ln, rather than the hyphenated version? That way they'd have their own fn (which I'd strongly encourage you to give her final say on, given the mn allowance ), both your mns and HER ln. So one fn she had a strong hand in choosing, two mns for you, and her ln ... sounds about even to me. ;) Just a thought!

~Kelli


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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2005
In reply to: blueamerica
Fri, 09-29-2006 - 10:37pm

I totally understand what you mean about the "wood cut out names". A lot of times when people ask for opinions on more unusual names others will warn them, "You won't be able to find their names on pencils or stickers!" like that is the worst thing ever. I could never find my first name on anything either (Annie is my middle name) and I liked that. I'll be quite pleased if my kids can never find things personalized with their names either. I commented on the names in your other post, but I don't mind saying again that I think you've got some excellent choices among them. I think you're well on your way to finding a great, unique name.

The middle name thing is very interesting culturally. I've discussed it with a number of friends from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and it's interesting to see how opinions vary. Personally, middle names are really important to me. All the girls in my family are called by our middle names. So sharing my middle name with my siblings would seem very strange to me. At the same time, our names are all family names passed down for generations. Just not the same ones. I'm planning to do the same when I have kids -- they'll all have more traditional first names paired with a family name as a middle name (in my case, I'm passing down surnames rather than first names). So they'll have a first and middle names that are unique to them, but their middle names will all have significant emotional meaning. Anyway, that was probably far more than you cared to hear. But the condensed version is -- I like that you want to pass down family names as middle names and I don't think you need random middle names since you are trying to pare down very long potential names. And, I agree that the concept of middle names is an interesting one.

Good luck!




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