Are you named after anyone?

The God of War.

Named after both grandmothers.

I was named after the dude who was born in a stable next door to Jeeshish. Dude spent his life being mistaken for a messiah.

My middle name is “Rowena” after the heroine in the Sir Walter Scott novel “Ivanhoe.” My first name is a part of a traditional Scottish song, ” Annie Laurie.”

Yes, but telling you my real name and giving the story behind it would, I feel, reduce the anonymity that I have here.

Egbert

There are two women’s names used on my mother’s side of the family. I share a name with most of my female maternal relatives over a certain age. My generation, sick of that, gave our children their very own names.
It always makes me chuckle when someone complains that a cousin is naming a child the same as their child.

I’m not. But my daughter is named after my Mom. I had no choice, apparently.

My son is named after my boyfriend in 3rd grade. He’s the only grandson on either side, so he got both grandpa’s first name as his middle name. The whole name doesn’t fit on the police reports. :)~

My parents did not give us family names, to avoid making anyone feel excluded.

According to the Social Security records (Popular Names by Birth Year) my siblings and I all got popular names, from the top 10 at the time.

But with my funny East European last name, my name is unique. According to all the databases I have searched, nobody shares my name. This includes paid databases with restricted access.

@Dutchess_III That site is interesting, in the top 20 names in my birth year I didn’t make the list. haha

^^^ Oops, I meant that for @jaytkay

My first and my middle names are taken from my grandfathers.

Two songs. One by Jefferson Starship, one by Fleetwood Mac.

When we were kids, we told the joke:

“i was named after Abraham Lincoln”. My friends would say, “no way”.

My answer: Lincoln was named in 1812. I was named in 1954. Therefore I was named after Abraham Lincoln.

Two songs. One by Jefferson Starship, one by Fleetwood Mac.

Sara Sara !

@elbanditoroso Lincoln had no first name until he was 3?

Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows.

@DrasticDreamer Rhiannon Alice? lol

Sho am. My dads name is Dennis. Mine is Deni.

Winston Churchill

Named after my maternal grandmother but not exactly. Her name was Fanny and my Mom was afraid I’d be teased.

Wow, @canidmajor. It must have, at least, made calling everyone in for dinner quite easy…

I’m named, by my father, after an Elvis Costello song. Spelled differently, though, because my mother likes to make things needlessly difficult.

@Seek,:Well a bunch of us had nicknames, but I remembers Thanksgivings where there would be ten women at the table, and four names. My mother was outraged when I didn’t carry on the tradition.
It was silly.

Wow….playing with your link @jaytkay, and just doing a quick check, From 1880 to 1962 Mary was the number one female name.

Then, in 1961 “Lisa” showed up at #2, and hit #1 in 1962, and stayed there until 1970, while Mary sunk rapidly.

1966 Mary moved to 3rd, Lisa #1.
1967 Mary fell back to 4th. Lisa stayed #1.
1968 Mary is floundering at #6, Lisa still on top.
1969 Mary drowning at 9th, Lisa still at #1…wasn’t that the year News Week came out with the cover, “God is Dead”, or something like that?

Then, in 1970 Jennifer hit #1, Lisa #2, and Mary is completely out of the race. Rather sad, really.

What I want to know is….who the hell is Lisa?

@jaytkay Yep, those are the songs. :)

@Seek I’m named, by my father, after an Elvis Costello song

My Aim Is True is an album I bought when it first came out and I still love it.

I was named after this kind of flowers. Not sure why they chose this but my grandma used to say she had high hope that I would be a model.

My middle name is my grandfather’s first name (it’s Russian), but my first name, Dominic, is just a name my parents liked the sound of.

Lisa is a diminutive of Elisabeth, which has been a popular name since OMGforeverago – Seriously, I can easily document it to 1200 without leaving my bookmarks folder.

My middle name is from a race car driver from the sixties,mom and dad just really liked the name,not any more to it.

I was given my great-grandmother’s surname (as my first name) and my father’s middle name.

I was named for my father and grandfather, and my nickname is from one of my father’s coworkers.

Not really. My mom just thought the name was cool. However, my name along with my brother’s make up the names of two well-known members from one of my mom’s favorite 80s bands.

I was given both my grandfathers’ names. I like it a lot. I like names with history.

It was the late 60’s and Lisa was already taken by my sister who was born a year and 9 months before me. I ended up with a boring, sort of quirky, name. Very white bread, Midwest. When the movie ‘Poltergeist ’ came out, my sister Lisa said loudly in the theater, ‘That’s my sisters name. I wish she’d get sucked into the tv!’

My great aunt. I don’t remember meeting her, but my dad told me I was named after her.

Yes. My name is Olesia.
I’m named after the main hero of Slavic soap opera my mother used to watch during the pregnancy.

My middle name is after a guy who use to be a close friend of my parents become he became an alcoholic burnout. My first name came from no one in particular, it’s just that my dad refused to name me after himself (his first name had been recycled through a few generations in his family, ether as a first or middle name).

@SQUEEKY2 Is it Mario? lol

I am named for my parents. My first name is a nickname of my dad’s name and my middle name is my mom’s first name. They had been discussing a completely different name for me, but couldn’t agree on which order it should be. My mom finally decided to name me for her and my dad.

I don’t see why you say the last century? I think children have been named after family members for thousands of years. Maybe I’m wrong.

Story time: When I was getting married the Rabbi needed to know my Hebrew name. I didn’t know, or didn’t have one. He said J often translates to Hannah. I asked my grandmother and she said I was named after her mother Lena. Then I asked my mom, and she said I wasn’t named after anyone. I don’t remember what I finally decided to put on my marriage document. I have it hanging on a wall 20 feet from me, but I’d have to look up the Hebrew alphabet to figure it out.

For people who are unaware it’s a tradition among the Ashkenazi Jews to name your children after a dead relative. The last 75+ years or so they changed it to just using the first letter of the name so parents could modernize the names and not have 5 Samuels in one family.

My husband is named after his father. His sister after their paternal grandmother. His brother’s second name is after their paternal grandfather.

@Dutchess_III I wonder if when Mary declined if other variations of Mary picked up? Names like Marie and Meredith? Maybe it was just modernized? I know quite a few Mary’s. I think they are found more often in certain states maybe? I’m sure it’s not as popular as it was, I don’t mean to say it is. I think of Mary as being similar to Carol, Barbara, and maybe throw in Sharon too.

Fun fact:

Over 50% of documented women in Tudor-era England had one of five names: Elizabeth, Anne, Joan, Margaret, and Alice.

You can get up to 64% by adding in Mary and Agnes.

Modern American name habits are outside the scope of my area of study, but I can tell you that the name “Mary” is interesting to follow. In England, as shown above, it was quite popular. In Ireland it was unheard of to name a daughter after the Holy Mother until comparatively recently. That in and of itself is almost hilarious since pre-Christian Ireland is full of people naming their kids after gods and legends.

@Seek Interesting about Mary. It led me to think about how Latin America, a mostly Catholic continent, uses the name Jesus, and in the US we rarely do. It seems like it’s the opposite of very Catholic Ireland. I assume it was the Catholics in Ireland you were speaking of in your example?

At the time period mentioned, the only Christians in Ireland were Catholic. Protestantism didn’t exist yet.

@Seek My Irish Catholic friend’s son is named for Brian Boru so the old tradition continues.

I once did a Q asking about the name Christian. That name really throws me. When I see it in a sentence I always first think the person is writing about the religion until I actually really read and realize they are talking about a person. I wonder how that name became popular?

@janbb – Yay! The first true High King, and final vanquisher of the Vikings! Grand choice of name.

I can document the name Christian in England to the mid-1500s without breaking a sweat, but it doesn’t appear to have been terribly common until the 17th century. From a cursory search, it may have come from Spain – I have documentation for people being named “Cristino” and “Cristina” in land use records dating from 1500–1505. Since Spain and England were in an allied relationship during those years (Catherine of Aragon married Prince Arthur in 1501), they traded trends like hotcakes, including naming practices.

Were the Vikings ever truly vanquished, @Seek ;)

My son’s name comes from a very old Nordic name. (but has some wonderful more recent shared namesakes as well. ie: last name ‘Wilde’.)

@JLeslie. I don’t think the notion of naming children after people has gone out of fashion either. Both of my daughters have middle names to acknowledge their grandmother and great-grandmother.

However, I did adapt my mother’s name (Mary) and my daughter’s middle name is Marie. Mary wouldn’t have worked so well with her first name.

My niece’s middle name is based on my first name.

@Earthbound_Misfit I thought the OP was saying that way back in history people didn’t name their children after family members. That it was a newish thing. That sounded incorrect to me. I don’t know much about the history though.

@cazzie – Surely not, but in Ireland the aggressors were sent home, and those that stayed became more Irish than the surrounding Irish became Norse (or, Danes, as the Irish called them. The first Viking presence were Danes and the name just stuck, even though the second wave were all Norse).

@JLeslie, I read it as the naming of children after others was more common in the last century than it is now.

I think @m s h is right that people are less likely to give a child another friend or relative’s first-name, but second-names are used to acknowledge others.

@m s h, sorry for the spaces. I have a new phone that insists on changing your name to may.

@Earthbound_Misfit I must have misunderstood. I think from the 70’s forward there was less of it. People favored new names and creative names more I think. When I hear the last century I think the 20th century. I think most of the 20th century we were still doing it a lot in America. You’re right, often it was middle names, but I know plenty of people named after relatives or parents; first names.

My mom says I am named after my dads best friend and my grandfather.

When they were newly weds my mum and dad were on holiday in America and they met a little girl called Leanne. They decided there and then that Leanne would be the name of their first daughter. My mum wobbled a bit and wanted to change my name to Megan but dad wasn’t keen do I remained Leanne.

I have a niece named after a major department store.

I guess she is lucky her mom wasn’t as impressed with Walmart.

@rojo Bahaha! GA :)

@rojo Love it.

@rojo Macy right? I know a Macy too.

My daughters claim to fame, after the fact, was the 2005 horror movie ” The haunting of Emily Rose.” about a possessed teen. haha
My poor daughter got razzed about that in high school.

Macy Gray is pretty famous.