I’m pregnant with my first child, a boy, due in May. My husband and I have been looking through many names, but we still haven’t found any that we really like, except for one: Ulysses.
Since I’m from Argentina and Spanish is my mother tongue, Ulises sounded perfect to my ears and it also met all our requisites: classic but unique (it is not on the top 1,000 list), it has a literary reference, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, has a cute nickname, “Uli”.
Things changed when we moved to the US a month ago (my husband is American) and we started sharing the name with some friends and relatives. From their reactions, we concluded Ulysses is a totally different name in English: spelling and pronunciation are not intuitive. Also, someone pointed out that “kids are cruel” implying that he might be bullied. Of course, this made me want to consider other options.
That’s how we came up with the more popular name Alexander, which we both like… but not love. We don’t quite like the nickname Alex either, but I guess we could live with it. Honestly, I believe we could get used to this name, but we still can’t let go of our first love, Ulysses.
What should we do? Go with Alexander and keep Uysses a middle name? Go with Ulysses in spite of people’s opinions? Any other suggestions based on our name preference?
If you love it, go for it. I knew a [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m] in middle school and while his name was a bit out there no one really cared or ever said a thing about it. My friend dated him and would called him Youlie for short. Not exactly ideal but I guess he didn’t mind it.
I agree with pp. Loving [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m] is the reason to choose this name. All different people will have different responses but those with true appreciation of what a strong literary name it is will appreciate it. I also love [name_m]Alexander[/name_m] [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m] -probably because [name_m]Alexander[/name_m] is about my favorite boys name. Nicknames [name_m]Zander[/name_m], [name_m]Xander[/name_m] or [name_u]Sasha[/name_u] are some I like for [name_m]Alexander[/name_m]. [name_m]Just[/name_m] throwing this in in case it helps if you do get persuaded out of [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m] -I really hope you don’t.
Best of [name_m]Luck[/name_m].
My son’s name is [name_m]Alexander[/name_m] [name_m]Leopold[/name_m], but [name_m]Alexander[/name_m] [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m] was a top contender at once point!
It sounds like [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m] is the name you and your husband really love, though, so I would stick with that unless you find another name you love. I don’t think there’s any reason you need to settle for [name_m]Alexander[/name_m] if you don’t love it. And even if you do decide that [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m] is too unusual, you don’t need to completely flip your preferences and go with a super popular name either. After all, there are a lot of names between off the list [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m] and Top Twenty [name_m]Alexander[/name_m]!
(Actually, do you like [name_m]Leopold[/name_m]? It’s off the list like [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m], but nickname [name_m]Leo[/name_m] is pretty popular like [name_m]Alexander[/name_m] and fairly similar in sound to [name_u]Uli[/name_u].)
I think you should stick with Ulysess [name_m]Alexander[/name_m]. Ulysess is a name you really love (I find it incredibly handsome as well). I agree that unless you find another name you love more, you should stick with your beloved Ulysess.