Feminist Boys names...? Er...

[Adair]

ok, so dc3 is going to be a boy... And we are a bit stuck for names. So thought might as well see if you have any ideas!

Dd is Aphra (fine, feminist name)

Ds is Sky/Skyler (er... maybe feminist in that we don't care if people think he is a girl... !)

So any ideas for cool men in history that could inspire a good name?

Ta

A unisex name, perhaps nature-based to fit with Sky?

Rowan? Ash? Asa?

dh wanted to call one of our dcs Lewes after George Frederick Lewes who was George Eliot's very supportive and enabling lover and partner for many years. Then we discovered that the world and his wife her husband were calling their sons Lewis/Lewes, so we didn't.

intersting - you ditched a personally-resonating name because you didn't wish to be seen as being 'common'? Really?

And, yes, Rowan is excellent, if not 'stand out' enough for some tastes.

Napoleon

That'll be Nigel Napoleon, then?

Pan - yes indeed - several reasons:

1. it is a pain having name which is common but usually spelt differently because you constantly get it mis-spelt
2. it is a pain having a name of which there are several others in the class (in my experience)
3. if part of the reason for choosing a particular name is so people will ask about it and you can tell them about someone you admire, then if it turns out loads of people use the name anyway, the odds are no-one will ever ask you.

Sorry, went off topic before.

How about William (as in Cobbett or Wilberforce -or perhaps Wilberforce itself); or the consorts of great Queens, Phillip, Albert, Ferdinand, Ptolemy?

William.

Or Shakespeare if you want to stand out. He had some powerful female characters.

actually I shouldn't have said 'yes indeed' because it wasn't about being seen as being common, it was about the practicalities of having a very popular name. DC1 turned out to be a girl anyway but there are 2 Lewises in her class of 16. 3 would have just been silly!

Keir (Hardie)?

TechLovingDad wrote "Napoleon"

Care to share what Napoleon's feminist credentials were?

you could give him the surname of a famous feminist as a first name - Wollstonecraft, Dworkin....

Keir is a good one from hocuspontas.

No, Napoleon as a first name.

Hmm.....we need to talk.

I suggest Garrett.

It was the maiden name of Millicent Garrett Fawcett (votes for women, Fawcett Society) and her sister Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (pioneering medical doctor).

Um, I was brought up in a feminist commune in the 70s, one of the women had a baby boy, he was named Orlando. I think that's a very feminist statement!

Oooh I like Garrett.

Should have added, after the Virginia Woolf novel where the main character is born a boy in Elizabethan England and lives throughout the centuries gradually turning into a woman by the 20th century. Tilda Swinton played the part in the film of the book.

Pan, you said Keir is a good name. There is no need for us to talk.

On a serious note, surely some of these names could mark your child out as a bit of a target? Some names, Garrett, for example cover both your desire for a suitable name but also don't mark the poor lad out for bullying at school. Children can be cruel.

Or perhaps the schools I went to, just aren't the kind your children go to

or even Fawcett!

If you like Keit, what about Aneurin?

Also Havelock or Ellis

John or Stuart (Mill)

Jeremy (Bentham)

George (Lansbury)

However, appreciate not immediately obvious associations.

Ooh, some GREAT suggestions here, thank you! Not too worried about bullying (as you can see from our choice of Sky for ds ). As a teacher in Inner London challenging secondaries, I (or dh) have never seen kids bullied for names. Only by provincial teachers . And kids will go to same kind of schools we teach in.

Will do some research and run some past husband for approval.

Hmmm... that doesn't sound like a sentence you should write on the feminist boards, does it? but you know what I mean...