What do you think your parents were/were not thinking when they chose your names?

[DrMadelineMaxwell]

Mine were thinking...

Ooo that's a nice unusual name from a book I read that I've never seen before (Dad).

Let's go with a Welsh spelling for the middle name.

They were not thinking...

Noone will know how to spell either names and they will have to be spelled out every time. Tedious.

We live in Wales but not in a Welsh area and don't speak Welsh.

My parents were thinking:

1. "I love the Beatles and love that song with the girls name as a title! Perhaps we should name baby #1 that..."

1. "Actress is so beautiful and amazing in West Side Story, I love the name, perhaps we should name baby #2 after her..."

1. "Surname for first name? Cracking"

My parents were thinking: what a lovely first and middle name, they sound so lovely together with our surname

My parents were not thinking: nobody actually uses the middle name in normal conversation, but our child’s first name doesn’t sound right with the surname so maybe we should go back to the drawing board

This was one time I would accept the patriarchy and happily changed my name when I married DH, it sounds much nicer now 😁

I have a very usual first name. I was born in Belfast in 1970 and I imagine there were plenty of raised eyebrows when my name was announced.
its a weird actually because my parents are very conservative and all my siblings have very normal names and some are named after family members.
My middle name, which I hate, is my mum's best friend's name, or rather her best friend at the time I was born. She moved away not long after and they lost touch.

Mine had already used the crap names they liked so I got the best of the bunch.

My parents wanted to call me a flower name which I do not like but guess am lucky not to have been named Bluebell.

They didn't choose my name.

I was born at home but taken to hospital with my very sick mother. I had the standard baby wristband, and the nurses wrote on it 'Name?' giving me one of the most common popular names of the time. There were five 'Name's in my class at primary school. My mother was superstitious and would not change a name I'd been given.

Mine were thinking - we can't give her the first name we want as it's her cousin's name, so we'll give her a similar one that's not quite as nice. Her middle name can be her grandmother's middle name, that'll do fine. Oh, and we'll actually always call her by her middle name.

What they weren't thinking - that being known by your middle name would be a pain in the arse.

I see others on the thread were similarly inflicted.

That I'd shorten it to make it gender neutral

My mother was thinking - I went to school with a Protestant girl (very unusual in 1950s Catholic part of Ireland) which means it’s a great name for various reasons but loved the name so her first girl would be called this name. It is a very unusual name, mostly associated with Jamaican women these days.

I’m the first girl so it was mine. No middle name. On the day I was born another woman had a baby girl and asked my mum what she was calling me. Decided to call her DD the same name as me.

I later met the other same name years later: I actually looked after her dad in hospital when I worked there one summer - he was a total perv and stroked the whole way up my leg when I was changing his bed. I think I said to him, though not at the same time, your DD and I share a birthday- and name ( I was only 18 at the time).

Had a weird experience in London Victoria station many years later: waiting for a family member to arrive from abroad - flight delayed so I went to the bar. A man was harassing a young g woman (there with her mum) who kept saying “you can’t be called X. My ex was X, no-one else could be X”. After a few minutes of watching his drunk face saying the same thing on repeat to her I leaned over and told him my name was the same as hers and his ex (showed him my ID). Weirdly that shut him up.

I really have digressed…

My mother was thinking, "I don't want to fall out with my mother and all my aunties, but my mother has already made it clear that she expects to be allowed to name my first daughter, and she's hinted that she'll give the baby her own first name, which is also my first name, and the first name of my recently deceased MiL, and my brother's wife, and one of my cousins, and one of my husband's nieces. How can I persuade her that one of the more modern names I like is her own choice?"

(Mum won, I got the name Gran had wanted as a middle name, and the family tradition of the maternal grandmother naming her oldest daughter's first daughter came to an abrupt end when Mum told me she wanted MY oldest daughter to have the first name she'd been keen to avoid inflicting on me.)

My DM has a name that is often shortened so her only criteria was names that couldn't be shortened. She also doesn't believe in middle names.

My boring one syllable name can be spelled several ways so they picked the longest spelling. Nobody ever spells it right.

My parents were convinced I was a hot so has no suitable girls names. My dad wanted to bake me after his mother who had a god awful old fashioned name. My mother was determined I would not be named after her.