Thoughts on Reagan?
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Thoughts on Reagan?
| Wed, 08-08-2007 - 10:18am |
I was just wondering what everyone's opinions were on the name Reagan. I like it spelled like this.
| Wed, 08-08-2007 - 10:18am |
I was just wondering what everyone's opinions were on the name Reagan. I like it spelled like this.
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I wouldn't do it. The main reason is that Reagan sounds quite masculine. You have given your son a masculine surname sounding name and your daughter a feminine firstname sounding name. If I heard your children were Hanna, Grant and Reagan I would assume you had a daughter and two sons.
I know you said that the associations with President Reagan don't bother you at all, but several of the posts here say that the associations would bother them. Like it or not, your child's name is often the first thing people use to assess him/her. Not that we do it consciously, but each of us had a certain set of images and impressions that go with various names and they predispose us to like or dislike people with those names. Most of the time these images are pretty personal (I like the name Malcolm and have had good experiences with the Malcolms I've known, but my husband won't consider the name b/c there's a difficult Malcolm at work and that's soured him on the name) and there's not much consistency b/c there are so many different people who bear the name and color our impressions of it.
However, with someone as famous as President Reagan, there will be lots of people who strongly admire him, lots of people who strongly dislike him, and lots of people who think of him as an old man in the fog of Alzheimer's disease. Other presidentential names don't have the same knee-jerk visceral reaction b/c whatever you think of Madison or Jefferson, those men are so far in the past that strong emotions don't play a role in your reaction to the name. I just think it's a lot to put on a child to place her in a position where she will have to constantly overcome other people's first impressions before they can really judge her for herself.
I think if you really, really like the name and want to use it, make it her middle name.
NMSAA but since you like it, I think it's best to combine
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