Is it better to name a child after a treasured family member is the name is workable and “okay”
or is it better to go with a name you really love.
For instance, I [name]LOVE[/name] the first names in my signature, so those won’t change, but ‘[name]Dwyn[/name]’ and “[name]Kevin[/name]” are both family names that I think work, but I don’t [name]LOVE[/name] the way I would love Cytheria [name]Violet[/name] or [name]Sequoia[/name] [name]Jonathan[/name].
Now my first instinct is to say just go with what I love, but then I imagine my son smiling as he plays with his grandpa that he shares a middle name with, and the affection and bond that it might create, and I question what the right way to go is.
Anyone else have a similar conundrum? What did you do?
Interesting question. I’ve wondered the same thing myself, but decided it’s more important to choose a name you love. Grandpa will love his grandson just as much no matter what his name is.
Is there not a middle ground?
My DD’s mn is both a name that I love and a tribute to her paternal grandfather Gwynfor .
I think there is usually a way of paying tribute through either meaning or sound in a mn . For me personally, mn’s ( and fns really) should be both, ones you love and have meaning for whatever reason , if they are a tribute then they will resonate anyway. (if that makes any sense :-?)
e.g for your example…
Dwyn means ‘wave’ so could bub be Cytheria /Waverly/ Genevieve/Anya/Guinevere , for example which all mean wave, or white wave
I tend to use family names in the middle to honour people, even if they don’t sound perfect together. I think the familial connection is much more important to me. My husband wanted to use his name as our son’s middle, and even though it doesn’t flow well ([name]Ronan[/name] [name]Ian[/name]) it means far more to have his name included. Also, my third baby has my mom’s name as her middle. I didn’t care about how it sounded and the honouring my mom was so important to me. My daughter’s name is [name]Mira[/name] [name]Susan[/name].
So, names I love go in the first spot, and names that have personal, familial meaning go in the middle. I have my father’s middle name as my middle name. I got teased about it at times (it’s not a pretty name) but I didn’t mind because in my little child-brain I was bursting with pride with sharing this name with my father.
Personally I think the family names are more impotant in the middle than just useing a name you love (not first though, for the first name go with one you love) but I love the idea of using a name that means the same thing as the name of the one you are honoring if you love that name more than the person’s actual name. For example my favorite name is [name]Elizabeth[/name] and my sister’s name is [name]Isabella[/name] which is a form of [name]Elizabeth[/name] so I would use [name]Elizabeth[/name] to honor her. You can do the same thing with similar sounding names that don’t mean the same, my mom’s middle name is [name]Dell[/name] and I’ve considered useing [name]Adelle[/name] as a middle name to honor her even though it doesn’t mean the same thing. hope my ramblings made since!
I agree with using names that are connected in some way - whether it be meaning, sound, parent/diminutive, whatever - with the family name if you don’t like it. But honestly, I feel like this is what second middle names are for, if you’re not otherwise opposed to them. [name]Gerald[/name]/ine is a name that’s been passed down for several generations through one side of my family, and I don’t actually like the name all that much but didn’t want to break the streak - so [name]Liv[/name] is actually [name]Olivia[/name] [name]Mary[/name] [name]Geraldine[/name]. My other idea was to use [name]Gertrude[/name] - which I do like - to honour the Geralds and Geraldines. But DH didn’t like [name]Gertrude[/name], so we went with the second mn.
I think honor names are more important to the parents and the person the name honors. The kid might like it, or they may not – same with any other name. I was named after both my grandmothers, and I like both my names well enough, but I never felt any special connection to my grandmothers just because we shared a name. (And if I didn’t like the names, I probably would have hated it, even if they were my grandmothers’ names.) Unless it’s important to you to use family names, I’d recommend just going with what you love, especially if you don’t really love the family names themselves.
(Plus, to be honest, I just like [name]Violet[/name] and [name]Jonathan[/name] a whole lot better than [name]Dwyn[/name] and [name]Kevin[/name].)
I would only use a family name if I loved the name. I’ve been having this dilemma with [name]Brown[/name], my grandmother’s maiden name. While I would love to honor that side of my family, I just can’t convince myself of [name]Brown[/name] as a name - even in the middle spot. There are names I love more that, realistically, I know I would use before [name]Brown[/name]. I crossed [name]Brown[/name] off my list.
The best name is a name that you love and that has meaning to you. If [name]Dwyn[/name] and [name]Kevin[/name] aren’t those names, then I would keep looking.
It depends. For me, there are so many people I would want to honor, that I would feel bad only selecting one name. The only names I’m planning on passing down is my middle name and a name from baby’s father. Everyone else will just get a name I love.
To me, it’s more important to name a child something everyone can be happy about rather than having people be upset, “Well of course she named the baby after her great aunt. I wish she had named her after my cousin ____”
Personally, I would use a classic family name. I love that I share initials with my dad and all his siblings. I love that I share a middle with my grandmother and momma.