Girls name, after someone who is admired or did something special/memorable IYSWIM

[mollysawally]

Planning 2nd child. First DD has a family name.

If we have another girl I would like her to be named after someone who did something special or someone who who is admired for her achievements.

Any ideas?

I wanted a girl's name associated with womens' sufferage. The obvious choices are emmeline, christabel and sylvia. Of those I was most drawn to christabel. However, if you feel the same do some research on her. Unlike her mother and sister she did support universal suffrage - just votes for rich women. Also she was more right wing than her family and advocated things such as the disbanding of trades union. Later in life she became a very evangelical christian.

For me the associations of the name christabel are less positive than emmeline and sylvia. Although the name is more attractive.

I agree artichokes, it was a name I was considering but maybe not now I've found out a bit more.

MsDemeanor - Is there a book you can recommened about Violette.

I also like the idea of Rosa as its two different women.

Hatshepsut

This the cipher that was given to her by her British control, and it makes me cry!

The life that I have is all that I have
And the life that I have is yours
The love that I have of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have, a rest I shall have
And death will be but a pause
For the years I shall have in the long green grass
Are yours and yours and yours.

She was only 23 when she was shot

Rosa is also great. I had a similar idea but didn't follow it through. It makes a wonderful story to tell a daughter, that you named her after someone strong and brave who fought for right.
The old film Carve Her Name with Pride starring Virginia McKenna tells her story really well.

Rosa Luxembourg also an unbelievably brave and principled woman who dared criticise Lenin and his terrorist methods, and paid the price with her life.
Rosa Parks, well, of course.

I've just ordered 'Carve her name with pride,' from Amazon.

Hope it doesn't make me cry

Oh, it will, it will

Virginia Mckenna looks nothing like Violette (who was half french and olive skinned) but I think she is v good.

POINTYDOG - Whilst I greatly admire Hatshepsut's achievements and successes as the fifth pharaoh, I don't really think its a name I called call my dd.

THEMILD - Just read the bare basics about SOE on the BBC website, very brave.
Don't underestimate yourself though, who knows what we are capable of if we are put under extreme circumstances.

Can you find someone in your family history who did something interesting. DD is named after a pretty distant relative who was one of the first graduating classes of Mount Holyoke -- when it was virtually unheard of for women to go to University. When I was looking at names, I thought this was really cool and it helped me choose the name.

Rosalind

For Rosalind Franklin the woman who did all the work on the structure of the DNA double Helix that was 'approriated' by Crick and Watson.

Sadly she died of ovarian canver before she could be awarded the Nobel Prize.

A fine mind. She changed the world as we see it today

That is really cool Athena.

My DD1 has a family name but its the only name from my family that I could give my DC.

Most of my family history is patchy to say the least!

Marie, for Marie Curie, winner of two Nobel prizes. Also mother of another Nobel laureate. And of course, wife of another, but we are bigging up the women here

Or Maria, which was her actual first name...

Definitely Rosa.

not forgetting kerry (katona)

That's interesting, MartianBishop. Never knew about Rosalind Franklin...

Looks like Rosa (well, Rosa Kerry Jade) is the clear winner here!!

Seriously Irena (Sendler), the female Schindler

Therese (of Lisieux)

Teresa (mother)

UMLELLALA- Sorry, I've only just read your link, with so many suggestions its taking me a while to read up on all of them. Aphra sounds like one of the first ever feminists which makes her ideal. Definitely a strong independent woman who lived her life her own way.

How do you pronounce her name, is it how you read it

Why don't you do a bit of family research and look into both yours and your DH's family history? Surely there will be something you admire in someone.

Sorry if this is an unwelcome comment, but I always thinks it's a bit odd when people name their kids after people they don't even know, like an atress of a politician. I think it's much nicer to have a name that means something about who I am and where I come from. For example, my middle name is my mum's mum's middle name. It's about where I come from. And it's meaningful to me.

Yup, it's 'affra' - well, as far as we know. I came across her doing my drama degree (restoration playwright) and thought 'wow'. Be prepared for loads of 'oh, what an unusual name' though. I used to explain it in a pithy sentence, and now just smile and go, yeah. Lots of people think it is to do with Africa or Aphrodite but you occasionally meet someone who says 'oh, after Aphra Behn?'.

I think it is the ideal femnist name myself (although am biased of course), as Virgina Woolf said:
"All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."