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

Wilberforce
Ptolemy
Wollstonecraft
Dworkin

REALLY!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!

I studied Dworkin at uni, all very good, but as a first name??

Also, please tell me what a feminist name is (and why Sky is one?) because my feminist credentials appear to be running low and I don't have a clue!

always remember, anything you read on the feminist board is going to be deadly serious because feminists have no sense of humour. Well-known fact.

Well, of course. I almost wrote 'this is just a light-hearted thread' then thought, nah, unnecessary, surely...

Just looking for some inspiration, happiestblonde. For the record, I don't think Sky is particularly a feminist name - hence my hesitant justification - but I like it, so there.

Keir is a lovely name, a friend has it as his middle name.

Loads of ideas here: Men's League for Women's Suffrage.

Am sort of sad at this: "It is impossible to rate too highly the sacrifices that they (Henry Nevinson and Laurence Housman) and H. N. Brailsford, F. W. Pethick Lawrence, Harold Laski, Israel Zangwill, Gerald Gould, George Lansbury, and many others made to keep our movement free from the suggestion of a sex war." (Evelyn Sharp) - if more men would speak up about issues nowadays it would save a lot of accusations of man-haters etc.

So a feminist name is just one named after an advocate of women's rights? I can see why that appeals. There are a shocking amount of Williams who seem to have leaned that way (Cobbett, Godwin, etc)

Congrats on new baby x

Please think about the child when he goes to school!!!
Keir is lovely, quite fancied that myself but DH vetoe'd it. He also vetoe'd William as DH's family are Irish, annoying!

"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."

Have I misunderstood, or are you suggesting that you might tag your child with a particular name as a conversation piece?

why ever not Amanda?
What are your reasons for choosing your dcs' names and are they really so superior to that?

I don't know, it just seems a bit weird that the child wouldn't have complete ownership of his/her own name. It's partly the child's name and partly a prompt for the parents to get to talk about their favourite feminist author.

but a name is always about the parents' preferences/aspirations/relationships. It's not like children ever get to choose their own name.

no-one has any objection to someone saying 'DH thinks Lucy is a nice name but I was bullied at school by a Lucy' or 'I have always loved Bob Dylan so I am going to call my son Dylan' or 'I miss my grandma and her name was Rose so I'm going to call dd Rose'.

Yeah I take your point but somehow that motivation in particular still strikes me as very self indulgent. Probably just because I'm accustomed to the idea of naming your child after someone else, whereas this idea is new to me.

Don't want to hijack the thread though, sorry OP.

I agree with Amanda... imagine being named - unmistakably - after your parents' favourite whoever - feminist, actor, painter, politician. And all your life you have to explain "Yes, like so-and-so, my mum was a fan" or "My dad got it from the surname of so-and-so who he admired back in the day", and "No, I'm actually not that bothered about my namesake" or "I actually can't stand my namesake" or "Yes, I am a fan of my namesake, but I don't really want to have a long discussion about it right now or hear your fascinating opinions on him, I just want to order a latte".

(I am talking about names designed to provoke conversation)

It's not the same as Lucy etc. which are not going to be asked about throughout the course of their life. Also I think naming after family is different because the wider world is not going to have any perception of who your great-grandmother was, and chances are if your parents liked her enough to name you after her, you have no reason to dislike her either.

Actually my mum wanted to call me Alexander, Sandy for short. "It's lovely and unisex" she said. Recently I said "Do I look like a bleedin' Sandy?". One of the few good things my dad did was veto that.

SANDY COHEN

The sexiest man ever.

Sheesh, he looks like Neil Diamond.

Leonard.

After Virginia Woolf's husband.

Who nursed her, published her, and believed before anyone else that her books would be as important in a hundred years' time as they were the day they were published.

You could name him after a woman, Woolf after Virginia, Eliot after George, Cartland after Barbara.. (sorry about that last :o)

Colin, after Jackie.

TLD will be forever after be referred to as "Sandy".

Parker after Parker Pillsbury?

No, I fucking won't.

Easy tiger.

get a room