Do the meanings of names matter to you?

[RoamingToaster]

On the one hand I’ve been friends with people since childhood and don’t know the meaning of their names and I’m thinking most people don’t look up or know the meanings of most names of the people around them. So in general it doesn’t matter that much. However names like Claudia seem nice to me but then I look up the meaning and it does put me off. I don’t like to think of myself as superstitious but calling a child a name that means crippled/lame does feel a little uneasy with me.
What do you think?

Oh, thanks, I wasn't aware of that - interesting!

No, she was from the Midlands. There must be more than one!

I did know of a man in North Wales called Steward, though, rather than Stewart, as his parents had intended. He said they told him that the registrar made a mistake!!

Batmobile, though 😂😂😂

Ok. How are they not ALL made up wankery?

Presumably you acknowledge that the meanings of names will depend on the geographical and cultural region where the name was created or do you assume that only meanings originating from the UK/Europe are correct?

A name with an associated meaning of X in North Africa might have an oppositional meaning in Europe, Asia and the America's.

Unless you actually believe that the Bible is the voice of God (!!), everyone’s name was made up by another random human at some point and given some spurious meaning to it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Believing that a group of letters that form a name can be bestowed with special powers is the height of nonsense and doesn’t make the believer superior to everyone else, but just a little bit sad really. 😢

Unless you actually believe that the Bible is the voice of God (!!), everyone’s name was made up by another random human at some point and given some spurious meaning to it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Surely it's more about whether you believe that the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic languages actually exist?!

Why on earth would you make up some random jumble of letters and try to convince everybody that it means a specific existing noun or adjective, rather than just using that existing word from your language and giving it to your baby as a name?

I don't think most people believe that a name bestows magical superpowers on the child; but they do like to choose a name that is relevant to them or something that they admire, preferring to avoid those with unpleasant or unfortunate connotations. Why do you think there are so many children out there called Rose, Summer and Ocean, but none at all called Urinalcake?!

The meanings of names doesn't bother me.

I only saw what the meanings were when I was in the process of deciding names for my DCs.

It was nice to see that the names I settled on all had 'good' meanings, but once I'd decided, I wouldn't have let the meaning put me off.

If you like Claudia, and you don't consider yourself to be superstitious, why would you let that put you off?

The only time in my life that anyone knew the meaning of my own name, was when someone gifted me once with a bookmark that had name and origin/meaning on it!

No one cares about it if you don't OP.

We have a DC with a similar name to Mary. The ‘bitter’ meaning didn’t stop us, and it can also denote being strong. Or means other things in different languages.

What was more important to me personally was how popular the name currently is. I have a very common name where there were 4 of us in my class at school and always hated it.

I also had a Claudia in my class at school and at no point did her name meaning come up.

I suppose, with very common names like Mary, James or Rebecca, people are so used to them as names that they never stop to think or ask what they mean. Strength in numbers and historic habituation and all that.

With much less common names, I think people are more likely to wonder - especially if it's a name from a different language and/or country. Often, when people from other countries introduce themselves with a name that they know you probably won't be familiar with, they will voluntarily contextualise it with "My name is X - it's Y-ish and it means Z". Even people with Welsh or Irish names will sometimes do it when meeting a monoglot English-speaker.

No, a positive meaning is an added bonus, but I think everything else is far more important- how it sounds with the surname, potential nicknames, how popular or not is is, potential initials, how well does it travel etc.

Personally I love Claudia and it think it ticks a lot of boxes. Plus meaning can change over time anyway as we learn more about history and etymology- for example just as people famously dispute Mary meaning bitter, some people dispute Claudia originally meaning lame (and think it was more likely first derived from Latin word Clausus instead which afaik roughly translates as “enclosed/protected” - but of course the very famous Emperor Claudius happened to be lame so the name became associated with his disability).

No, I’d only rule it out if the name was used in a negative way/had really strong negative associations eg you’d never really meet anyone called Jezebel (I assume).

And I’d never give a name a child might not match eg Grace, or Patience.

But the relatively unknown meanings of normal names wouldn’t cross my mind.

What a weird idea that a name bestows some magical power on a child 🤣
it’s nothing to do with that, more about people wanting the name their child has to not only sound lovely but also mean something lovely

It matters to me, but it's not only thing that matters.

Yes, it matters to me, but only if it’s an obvious meaning.

Claudia is an example as claudus is the Latin word for crippled/disabled. It’s literally the same word and the meaning is really off putting.

No, the Latin meaning has not changed. The adjective claudus/clauda/claudum continue to mean lame, disabled, crippled

No, I didn’t mean the Latin meaning of the word Claudus has changed. But I’d read that some Latin Scholars are now in disagreement about where the gens Claudii name actually originated from because the Claudii were the ultimate elite and in Roman times any hint of disability would have implied the individual/family had the disfavour of the Gods. So it would have made far more sense to have the Claudii name originally linked with the more patrician meaning enclosed rather than lame. After the Emperor Claudius however…

The meanings bother me a lot as I've always been a name nerd so I wouldn't use
Claudia
Cameron
Cassius
Amelia for example
but that's just me being weird

It's very important to me, but then I'm a bit of an etymology nerd. I wouldn't have called my kids names with meanings that I didn't like. In fact their names each have specific and related meanings (which also have significance in our family history).

Obviously they also had to be nice names in themselves, have good associations, and go well with our surname... it's lucky that there are a lot of names out there to choose from, so that we could find ones that ticked all the boxes!

When I look at the actual meanings of some popular names, it sometimes amazes me that they can be so popular (Rachel, Jacob, etc). But then, if you don't think about the meaning, they can be lovely-sounding names. Claudia is a beautiful name, and it's a shame my personal obsession would stop me from using it for a daughter!

From what I've read, the gens Claudii were said to be of Sabine origin rather than Roman so their name may originate in the Sabine language. Perhaps the similarity to Latin "claudus" is just by coincidence rather than that being the origin of the name.

Someone might have told them the car was named after a woman called mercedes not vice versa!

Quite! And that Portia and Porsche are spelled differently.

Opinions are sharply divided on generational lines here. We and the grandparents think they were mindbogglingly stupid; the young adult kids all think it's hilarious or awesome.

I recently met a Minette who is tall and broad. With a combination of "min" and "-ette" I suppose that I just expected someone slightly built.

I've got a Dominic, I've never considered the name to be particularly "macho" and it means "of the Lord" or "lordly", nothing to do with fighting. At least thats the meaning i know.

Most people don't seem to give it much thought. I remember a debate- why would anyone risk the names Grace or Bonnie? Plenty do.

My understanding of names like Grace, Patience, Prudence are all virtue names and not to be taken literally. I find it funny when people talk about not using Grace or an impatient Patience.

I check the meanings of names as well. It is important to me.