Ophelia?

[LottaBean]

Not sure what we are having yet but I have a feeling its another girl. Our first daughter is called Honor Florence LastName
At the moment potential middle names for baby2 are Lavender or Grace
Opinions on Ophelia?
Ophelia Lavender - bit too much of a mouthful
Ophelia Grace - I do love this but I feel like Grace gets used a lot for a middle name
Does it sound right with Honor? I really love her name and want to find a name I love just as much for this baby!

I do like Ophelia but like Cecelia better

Ophelia Felicity? Felicity goes well with your DD1 Honor.

Ophelia tits here

Oh, just seen it was on the list. It has my vote anyway.

I was about to say Cecily, Cecilia or Celia.
Ophelia is 'try hard' IMO and over popular.

@KaptainKaveman oh yes, pure, mad, dead girl then

Seeing Ophelia as just a mad dead girl is a more old-fashioned view imo. Most students studying the play now are taught to view it from other perspectives too - there have been quite a few versions of Hamlet in books, plays and film in the last 30 years giving more of a "voice" to Ophelia and Gertrude.

For example, Ophelia's "madness" in the text (remember we are primarily told about it from the viewpoint of male characters) could also be seen as an intentional reaction to the patriarchal constaints put on her - in order to give her freedom to act outside the assumed norms for women at the time. Yes she dies in the end, but so do pretty much all the central characters in Shakespeare's tragedies - at least Ophelia has autonomy over her own death.

For me the only negative to the lovely Ophelia as a name would be the jokes if the surname sounds like an object (Balls/Head etc).

[quote Jumpalicious]**@KaptainKaveman* oh yes, pure*, mad, dead girl then[/quote]
What a microscopic perspective you appear to have @Jumpalicious.

Let’s agree to disagree Kaptain. I wouldn’t dream of using the name because of the tragic character of Ophelia (that she didn’t have a voice so ended up going mad/chose madness, doesn’t make it better to me). Plus, the one person I know who has used the name simply did so because it “sounded posh” to her.

Plus see the potential jokes, above.

OP, how about cordelia, if you want a Shakespearean name?

Now, Cordelia is lovely!

@Maria53

As much as I like the name, the association just makes me think of the character's awful fate in Hamlet. And the famous painting depicting it.

I agree, I cannot fathom its popularity!

See Cordelia is just as tragic to me as she is murdered in King Lear (as a staged suicide, so in some ways has even less autonomy than Ophelia in her death, but that's Shakespeare for you !). Both names are beautiful however - have lovely elegant sounds imo and the fictional deaths wouldn't stop me using them.

If you are interested in names less obviously associated with the Tragedies - Helena, Rosalind, Julia, Celia, Beatrice, Viola etc could be options (all from the comedies). Or if you want more obviously Shakespearean - Miranda, Jessica and possibly Nerissa were also likely invented by him.

Cordelia is indeed lovely. However, at the end of the play she is hanged so again the associations are grim (to @Jumpy there )

I wanted to call my dd Cordelia but dh didn't like it, miserable bastard.

True. For me it’s the madness plus the death of Ophelia. But maybe just move away from the clear-link with Shakespeare!
What about a virtue name in another language to go with Honor?

Kaptain - gah! It’s a great name (despite the hanging).

Everybody dies but women in history and literature tend to come to sticky ends due to misogyny.

I don’t have any truck with superstition around characters’ fates.

Ophelia tits is pretty much all my friend with that name got through high school.

Honor and Felicity sound great together if you don’t mind two virtue names.