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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Help me find a surname

154 replies

IAmSproutycus · 05/09/2018 20:33

I’d be glad of any ideas suitable for a surname for a woman who no longer wishes to be named after the men in her life. She would ideally like something three or four syllables (although would consider two), must not be a derivative of a male name (e.g. Oliver, Jackson, etc). It would be nice if it had some meaning associated with women, strength, resilience or similar, or something with a good female history. She would prefer to not have a surname at the furthest end of the alphabet due to publishing, but would be open to all suggestions. Sorry that I won’t be going into more detail than that, so will understand if people wanted more information before contributing, but for anyone up for a bit of free thinking fun, bring us your best! Many thanks collective womyn (this is like the ‘name my baby’ threads, but for an adult) 😊

OP posts:
wafflyversatile · 06/09/2018 05:07

Are there no place names round your way that would do?

From my area there could be few.
Montrose
Tealing
Airlie
Lunan

Dundee is a strong name but has too much association with a man...

inquiquotiokixul · 06/09/2018 04:55

When surnames were originally invented they went by some personal characteristic of the original - be it hair colour, location, personality or profession. So use that as a starting point.

One way to achieve this might be to ask 5 or more friends to each write a 100 word description of you which covers physical appearance, personality and skills - then feed all the resulting paragraphs into one of those "word cloud" generators which create an image according to word frequency, and see what stands out.

Purpleartichoke · 06/09/2018 04:26

I was thinking for Ada Lovelace, using the similar Adaline. I believe it means Nobel.

MagicMix · 06/09/2018 00:15

Andrea literally means man. It's a feminised version of Andrew. Bernadette is a male name with a little feminising frill as well.

Of course there are a lot of these kinds of names, Charlotte, Roberta, Stephanie etc etc and plenty of them are very nice names. But would be an odd choice for someone consciously choosing a new name because she was fed up of being named after men.

HandbagsAtDawn123 · 06/09/2018 00:03

Bernadette?

HandbagsAtDawn123 · 06/09/2018 00:02

Andrea? Pronounced And-ray -ah!

BikeRunSki · 06/09/2018 00:00

^I'm not sure, really - in that case maybe Lovelace, after Ada Lovelace?
Most people would think of Deep Throat^

I was going to suggest Lovelace, as in Ada

Nightingale?

YetAnotherThing · 05/09/2018 23:46

Aardvark

Bardolino · 05/09/2018 23:43

It's short (too short?), but what about Alba? Gaelic for Scotland and a girl's name, from the Latin for white.

Doobigetta · 05/09/2018 23:36

Why don’t you trace your family back through the female line and take the oldest surname you can find? Or just the oldest name you can find and use it as a surname?

Neverplayleapfrogwithaunicorn · 05/09/2018 23:20

There is Gwenllian the welsh warrior princess

Neverplayleapfrogwithaunicorn · 05/09/2018 23:20

How about Jemima as a surname
My ancestor jemima Nicholas defended wales against the last British Invasion
She lived in Milford haven and found several French sailors attempting to invade. She rounded them up with a pitch fork and marched them to the town hall x
There is a statue of her in Milford haven
She was also known as jemima fawr as she was tall and very broad for a woman

Neverplayleapfrogwithaunicorn · 05/09/2018 23:07

Or Aviatrix
It is the name for a female pilot (as in Amelia earhart)
Nothing stopping you flying high!!

Neverplayleapfrogwithaunicorn · 05/09/2018 23:04

How about Soames
It is the former surname of Olave Baden Powell who was the wife of Baden Powell and ran Girlguiding for many years as the Cheif guide. She was inspiring and stood up for girls and their right to be girls!

Neverplayleapfrogwithaunicorn · 05/09/2018 22:59

Carruthers (it’s my old surname but everyone always thought it was posh/Celtic)

PinkSquidgyPig · 05/09/2018 22:51

I've always wanted the surname Scattergood

Was watching the film 'The secret life of bees' last night and the (strong, wonderful) family of sisters had the surname Boatwright

Whwhywhy · 05/09/2018 22:48

Grammaticus. When I got married I suggested we both changed to Grammaticus.

w4yty · 05/09/2018 22:47

Liberty!

MamaMilkMachine · 05/09/2018 22:39

@Turph it was a reference to an episode of friends, I was just messing

NewUserNameTime · 05/09/2018 22:34

Fabulous idea! Struggling for ideas that have not been mentioned

arranfan · 05/09/2018 22:32

Beatitude

Serendipity

-----

A really bad name for someone interested in academic publishing, you ask?

Flapdoodle (as in quantum flapdoodle).

Physicist Murray Gell-Mann coined the phrase "quantum flapdoodle" to refer to the misuse and misapplication of quantum physics to other topics. Or stringing together a series of terms and phrases from quantum physics and asserting that they explain something in our daily experience.)

kayaking · 05/09/2018 22:32

Liberty?

Iused2BanOptimist · 05/09/2018 22:17

I worked with someone whose surname was Scattergood
I think a positive, cheerful name like this would be lovely. You might find yourself unconsciously adopting some nominative determinism.

Toofle · 05/09/2018 22:15

Bluestocking. Nice for an academic.

MrsBertBibby · 05/09/2018 22:12

Halcyon!

www.dictionary.com/browse/halcyon