WARNING Nerds naming a baby...

[SleepyBug]

Hello ladies :) I'm pregnant with non-identical twins (unknown genders) and we're stuck in the mud. Our current favourites are ~

Boys ~
Remus
Thomas
Castiel
Bronn
Wulfric
Ronald
Merlin
Stanley
Rogue
Percy
Azazel

Girls~
Circe
Paloma
Sansa
Minerva
Khaleesi

Honest opinions and suggestions would be lovely although be gentle, over emotional pregnant lady alert
Thank you x

Remus - not keen
Thomas - really like it
Castiel - quite cool
Bronn - sounds unfinished somehow. Like it should be Bronte but I know that's a girls' name.
Wulfric - not unless you've got some Germanic blood. Sounds odd otherwise.
Ronald - Really don't like it.
Merlin - very cool but I wouldn't quite dare personally
Stanley - don't like it
Rogue - asking for trouble surely! But does sound quite cool
Percy - quite cute for a little kid. Not sure though.
Azazel - no idea how to say this! A-za-zell? Sounds odd. Is it from another culture?

Girls~
Circe - I read a book once where this name was a really evil mythological type character. A witch I think. I don't know if it came from real legend or was pure fiction though. I don't think I like it.
Paloma - quite like it
Sansa - never heard this before. It's ok.
Minerva - not keen
Khaleesi - never heard this before and not very sure how to say it (Carl-ee-see?) Kind of pretty.

It's quite hard for me to pin down your 'type' as some of these names are pretty different from each other. Ummm, how about:

Adrian, Brandon, Crispin, Cole, Carter, Damien, Euan, Ethan, Fergus, Felix, Gregory, Garth, Hunter, Harvey, Hadrian, Ivan, Jude, Jared, Kurt, Larry, Milo, Milan, Merrick, Nico, Orlando, Owen, Pippin, Phoenix, Quentin, Roland, Roger, Saul, Seth, Solomon, Titus, Teo, Thor, Wilfred, Zane.

Aria, Anoushka, Arianna, Ariadne, Autumn, Bronte, Cerys, Cassidy, Carmen, Calista, Cornelia, Dakota, Delilah, Emery, Emiliana, Ebony, Effie, Fareedah, Genesis, Giselle, Georgina, Hadleigh, Hattie, Isadora, Imelda, Juliana, Jocelyn, Karenza, Kiki, Kia, Lux, Lorelai, Mariana, Melinda, Nikita, Octavia, Pandora, Posy, Reagan, Rosalie, Seren, Sienna, Sierra, Savannah, Sorcha, Shona, Tegan, Trixie, Vivienne, Zia, Zillah, Zelda

Look, I don't want to sound like a bitch, but your children will be people not personal projects. Please, for the love of God, do not give them silly, embarassing names from some book or TV show. Percy, Wulfric, Rogue... I am sorry, but these names are absolutely frightful.

Thomas, Stanley, Paloma and Sansa are fine.

My suggestions would be
Ursula or Aurora.

Ronald and Paloma.

Um azazel means hell..
(Hebrew )

I agree Brandon (Bran) is nice. Or Arwen and Elanor are lovely. Otherwise I like Thomas and I like Sansa best of the girls names. Hate Khaleesi sorry :(

Circe is pronounced Kir-kee not sur-see as I suspect you are going for.

Khaleesi is ludicrous.

Please only give them names which are names first and foremost, and not made-up names or ones that are so identified with the 'character' that it's obvious where they came from. It's not cool, or even 'nerdy cool', it's just ridiculous. It's the kind of thing a teenager would do - utterly naff and immature, as if you identify so strongly with a set of made up characters that you don't have opinions and personalities of your own! I imagine teen dungeons and dragons players grumpily lurching their way to school while in their head, they're fighting trolls on the Hills of Munplunkio or something else utterly cringeworthy. And as far as your children go, it will simply end up that they have either very dated, very odd or simply not very nice names.

Some of your names are lovely and are pretty names in their own right - go with them, and forget the made up ones:

Minerva and Paloma would be LOVELY for twin girls - totally amazing;

Stanley and Thomas probably the safest for boys - and nice, though neither grab me - Bronn, Remus are ok. Bran (with a long 'a' - Braaaaan) is a good old Welsh name, also Bram?

Like everyone else I really like Paloma.

Prefer Thomas and Stanley of the boys' names. I like Merlin (to me it is the bird rather than the beardy wizard) but thought I'd mention that my nephew (age 13) has the middle name Merlin and he HATES it with a burning passion.

Azazel also means scapegoat. Not a name I'd be wanting to land on a child.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azazel

I have non ID boy twins, it was when I found their dad going through the Silmarillion looking for names that I panicked.

Names that made it on to our shortlist included:
Boys:

• Fenris (see Norse mythology)....DS1 was soo nearly this, it was delivery suite decision that he's called something else.
• Athelstan (a saxon king)
• Victor
• Ivan
• Bhaskar

Girls;

• Lyra
• Katya

I agree with the others to avoid the direct GoT names.
Good luck.

Doves and pigeons are basically the same thing though!
Really? To me, dove suggests peace, pigeon suggest flying street rat

Pigeons and doves form the bird family Columbidae, and the names 'pigeon' and 'dove' are used pretty much interchangeably for species in that family, though the smaller, longer-tailed species tend to be called 'doves' and the bigger ones 'pigeons'. The wild bird that domestic and street pigeons descend from is called the rock dove. The birds we call 'white doves' (this kind of thing) are just white-plumaged domestic pigeons.

utterly naff and immature, as if you identify so strongly with a set of made up characters that you don't have opinions and personalities of your own! I imagine teen dungeons and dragons players grumpily lurching their way to school while in their head, they're fighting trolls on the Hills of Munplunkio or something else utterly cringeworthy

Bit uncalled-for. I broadly agree that I wouldn't personally go for some of the more obviously fantastical names, but there's no need to be sneery about a person's taste in entertainment.

Anyway, the most traditional and "acceptable" names in the English language are often from the Bible, and what is that if not a fantasy novel full of "made-up characters"? It's just been around for longer and permeated our culture so that nobody blanches at a Thomas or Joshua or Zachary. Wendy was a made-up name, as was Pamela.

I think there are "good names ", that work well with our language, and these can be old faithfuls (Elizabeth, Sarah, John etc.) or they can be newer creations. I'd be happy to be called Sansa, Arya or Lyra, for example (in fact I would prefer them to my own very traditional, very MN-approved name!), but would be embarrassed to have to introduce myself as Khaleesi.

From your list I would veto Rogue, Khaleesi, Azazel, Circe and Wulfric right off the bat. I dislike Ronald and Stanley.

As a GoT fan, one of the nice things about it is that many of the character names are already very usable (Jon, Ned, Robert, Bran, Catelyn etc.)
There is also Dacey, Jorah, Lann (ancestor of the Lannisters), Brienne, Selwyn, Asha, Lyanna - all perfectly wearable names to go through life with.

While I think Sansa's a nice name (and so are Bran(don) and Arya)......

I wouldn't name ANY child after a character in Game of Thrones! The story hasn't finished yet (and will it ever finish, we are all wondering), and considering the rate at which George R.R. Martin bumps his major characters off, your children could forever be associated with someone who got melted by a dragon/ eviscerated by a frozen zombie/ raped and tortured by outlaws/ smothered by the evil queen's henchmen- and on and on and on at quite some length.....

I would be careful with using a GoT names, as the series is unfinished you can't be to sure how the characters will turn out in the end.

Agree with ppl above, pick a name that already exists so it won't sound so dated. Having said that I quite like Bron (as a nickname though)

Paloma and Bram!

Other geek names
Thisbe (from Pyrsamus and Thisbe which is similar to Romeo and Juliet)
Suneva (sun goddess)
Meritxell (prn Merishell)
Andromeda (Annie for short)
Nimue (prn Nimoooeee)
Morgana
Gwendillion (I made up that one! Its a hybrid between shamillion and gwendolyn )
Tamar
Orson
Taliesin

Hmm well I like some of your names but some I would say are unusable.. especially Khaleesi!

I like Thomas, Castiel, Bronn and Stanley for boys and Paloma and Minerva for girls.

My nerdy opinions, based not just on the names and their origins, but on how well they will wear, and if they can be shortened to something nice:

Remus - yes
Thomas - yes
Castiel - yes (he'll be called "Cas" at school, which is nice)
Bronn - hmmm, dunno, probably not
Wulfric - yes! Love this.
Ronald - yes, with hesitations
Merlin - what about Emrys as an alternative? (Merlin's other name)
Stanley - probably not
Rogue - probably not
Percy - no, as also name for willy. ("Pointing Percy at the porcelain.")
Azazel - no, nobody will ever spell it right, he will never get a plane ticket he doesn't have to change, etc.

Girls~
Circe - hmm, dunno
Paloma - yes
Sansa - yes
Minerva - hells yes, love this
Khaleesi - no, as title, and will date

Do remember you have the option of middle names, so can go wild there, too!

I regret being too pregnancy-befuddled to remember to give mine the middle name of "Strange".

Khaleesi is getting very popular - she might not be the only one in her class! Daenerys is pretty as an alternative? How about Arya? That's a lovely name and doesn't sound too out there.

If you're a Buffy fan;
Willow, Tara, Alexander, Rupert (Giles), Cordelia, Faith, Riley, Dawn?

Supernatural;
Dean, Sam?

Love Arwen as mentioned upthread and that's also a 'wearable' name

Re post above - Surely the name of a treacherous, murderous, man-eating wolf (Fenris/Fenrir), an ancient symbol of destruction, is not an ideal child's name, either...?

I'm one of the few who doesn't have a problem with made-up names from fiction etc., as some of them have become really mainstream in the past, e.g. Fiona, Lorna, Selma. Someone back then had to be the first brave soul to name their child after that character!

But having said that, these older ones at least sounded like real names, whereas Khaleesi and Rogue really don't. As I've never read or watched any of the sources for the names you mention, my opinions are based solely on face value.

Boys ~
Remus - a bit quirky, but OK
Thomas - I find this name terribly dull
Castiel - I like this, even though it makes me think of soap!
Bronn - OK, but it seems more girly to me.
Wulfric - too mediaeval for my taste, but OK
Ronald - also very dull
Merlin - I like this
Stanley - too "old man" for me
Rogue - it's not a name, it's a word
Percy - not keen, tbh
Azazel - I wouldn't be sure how to pronounce this but it seems awfully close to vajazzle....

Girls~
Circe - Kirky, as in Coronation St??
Paloma - yes
Sansa - yes
Minerva - yes
Khaleesi - sounds rather "Jordanesque", I'm afraid, like the kind of thing Katie Price would go for.

I do hope you have two girls - you have three lovely names there to choose from.

Brutally honest here. None

No No No to Ronald simply because of Ronald McDonald!

Merlin is good, Stanley as well

Surely - as a nerd, you know the worst of all world's is to go for geeky and get it wrong (if you have geeky friends they will be wtf at you using khalessi wrong!), or a character who you previously really liked but became a knob over time.

I'd go for something that references lots of the characters, actors, writers, directors of the series you like: Dean, Cassandra - names like that. You can always pick a more unusual option as a middle name.

Added bonus less likelihood your child will change their name asap.