Thursday, December 18, 2008

How did you get your name?


Instead of ranting about corporate fuckheads and the impending loss of jobs for nearly everyone at Mr. Riot Kitty's work, I thought I'd come up with something with slightly less bile.

I have been snowed in most of the week, doing what work from home that I can, and reading news stories in between. Once a reporter, always a news junkie...

Anyway, I came across a list of the top 100 baby names for 2008. Mine wasn't in it at all; Mr. Riot Kitty's was #51. Actually, his middle name was #51 - his first/legal name is his late dad's name, but he's always been called by his middle name so they wouldn't get confused, and it just stuck.

Just curious - how did you all get your names?

I was named after a Beatles song. (And no, it wasn't "The Yellow Submarine," smart ass.)

My dad says before it came out, hardly anyone in the U.S. had heard of that (French) name. Now everyone just mispronounces it...

When I was little, I kept telling my parents that I had changed my name. Then, when I grew up, I changed my middle and last names - just because I felt like it.

When Mr. Riot Kitty and I got married, a few people asked why I didn't change my last name to his.

I replied, "I like my last name. I paid $500 for it!"

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

My first name, Michael: My parents just really liked the name.

Middle is Frederick. Named after my uncle (not by blood though), a man they greatly respect, and I still do.

The Good Mike D

Scarlet said...

My real name came from a lady in Cuba who was screaming for her daughter to get in the house. My mom was hanging clothes on the line at the time, heard the name, Ileana, and fell in love with.

PS - Does your real name rhyme with "my belle?"

Green tea said...

Snow moving in here tonight through the weekend..
I have so much to do I shouldn't be here.
My Mom named me after a friend of hers, even though my dad(who was at guard camp) left two
names, she didn't like them so she ignored them.
I have always been surprised that he didn't revolt :D

Riot Kitty said...

Interesting stories!

MD: That's always been one of my favorite guys' names.

S: Wow, what a story! Ileana is a beautiful name - and as for mine, yes, it rhymes with "my belle." Do you know how many total strangers have started singing that song when I introduced myself? It's like bad karaoke!

G: I still don't know your real name!

Anonymous said...

My mom had to use the same initials as my father for my name... which is really smart being that I'm female. Anyway, she didn't have much to work with. I dislike it and hope to change my last name at some point... just to piss off dear old dad. :-)

vivavavoom said...

you and I have the same first name. and I was named boringly enough after my father...the feminine version of his name. and get this...I have NO middle name. it is like they gave up. I am the only person I have ever known with no middle name. made hypehnating after getting married easy...didn't have to lose any name. I always hated my name because I found it boring and when that Beatles song came on the radio...everyone would sing it to me...but of course not really know the lyrics.

Granny Annie said...

I was named after the daughter of the doctor who delivered me. How dull is that?

More women are not changing their last names when they marry. If I had it to do over again, I would have kept my maiden name both times.

Anonymous said...

My dad had 22 brothers and sisters. My grandfather had to go through two wives to accomplish this feat, but he heroically persevered so there were actually that many kids with only one set of twins in the group.

Yes, before you ask, they're Catholic. As you can imagine, they were scraping the bottom of the barrel for names toward the end. My dad's name was Ervin Sylvester and I had an Uncle Finley and an Uncle Dylan. I was named after my Aunt Bernadette.

I've never changed my maiden name so I've always been something of a walking ethnic joke. Irish? Yup. Catholic? You betcha.

My middle name is Kay. My parents wanted "Kathleen" but apparently the hospital had a limit on how many letters they'd put on the birth certificate, so with 10 letters in my first name, the options were not exactly limitless. The hospital unilaterally decided to shorten the middle name to the initial "K".

JLee said...

I was named after the actress Jennifer Jones. Or so I'm told ;)

JLee said...

ps
The song you're named after is my favorite Beatles tune :)

Darth Weasel said...

both names after Bible writers, and my middle name (which I go by) is also Dad's middle name. I go by that because Mom & Dad compromised...my first name is not, as his is, Hubert, but to still honor him I go by the middle name which is the same as his.

Ironically, though I would not want to go by Hubert, Hugh, Hoss, etc., my exceptionally awesome relationship with Dad means I wish I had been Hubert A. Jr., but I guess it was a good compromise.

Anonymous said...

My mom named me Emily becasue she liked the name and she thought (wrongly) that there couldn't be any nickname. Nevermind that my friends call me Em and Emmers. I got my middle name Ann after my mom.

A note to Vivavavoom. I had a friend in middle school who's middle name was "A". Lynn A. I guess it would be better to have no middle name than to explain to people that your middle name was just the letter A and didn't stand for anything. Right??

Shionge said...

How interesting....my Chinese name is Shiong Yee and according to my Father I was named after a famous Chinese Poet's wife.....hmmm...probably in the Han or Ming Dynasty :D

Shionge said...

Hey RK..just saw your comment at my blog, is that true? That is so cool :D

Riot Kitty said...

S: Yes! It's really true!

Anonymous said...

I was named after a Robert Burns poem, "Bonnie Lesley," only my mom misspelled it Leslie.

How can people mispronounce Michelle? Do they say Michael? Mitchell?

My mom's name is Judy, and she's sick of people putting on a fake Cary Grant accent and saying, "Judy, Judy, Judy."

Riot Kitty said...

L: It should rhyme with "Seashell", but everyone says it like "michelyn" - it should be "eesh" instead of "ish."

Great story about your name though!

Anonymous said...

My name was picked b/c my parents liked it - no other reason I know (and since I'm part of the first wave of baby girls named some spelling variation of Brittany, I'll assume I wasn't named for anyone). My last name is my real one, though it's German and probably something that got screwed up at an immigration port along the way. I didn't change my last name b/c it's so cool, I'm already known by it, and it never occurred to me that I should, anyway. My partner has an excellent name as well, and our names wouldn't go well together. I did consider changing my middle name, which I don't particularly like, to something a bit more Danish (or very Danish, to adopt part of the culture, and b/c I never liked it anyway), but I didn't want to deal with one more set of paperwork. They really should warn unsuspecting women of the hassle of changing their names. You have to get a new passport, driver's license - the works! Sounds smart to do it all at once to me!

Anonymous said...

Oh, and I also knew a guy growing up who just had initials for a name. They didn't stand for anything, and it wasn't like his name was DJ or something common. His name was H.L. I'm not sure how that was a legal name. His nickname was "H." Can't make this shit up.