Hey, friends. I need your help. I’d love to name baby girl after my much beloved grandmother, [name_f]Donna[/name_f]. I don’t love the name on its own. Can you help me find add ons that work before it? I’d like it to be all one word.
ie…
Miadonna
Belladonna (can’t use this, can’t get over the poison reference)
Hm would you use it in the middle? Did your grandmother have a middle name or nickname, favourite flower?
Some ideas:
[name_f]Deana[/name_f]
[name_f]Dionne[/name_f] ([name_f]Dionna[/name_f]??)
[name_f]Dee[/name_f] (recently met someone with [name_f]Dee[/name_f] as a full name!)
If you don’t like [name_f]Donna[/name_f] but want to honor her what about her middle name? Or you could name her after her interests eg. [name_f]Iris[/name_f] because they’re her favorite flower. People think that honor names have to be peoples names or similar but as long as the name makes you think of her then it counts. To answer your question the only one I can think of is [name_f]Donatella[/name_f]
Miadonna is okay but I think it would be mistaken for [name_f]Madonna[/name_f]. My favorite of suggestions so far have been Rosadonna “[name_f]Rosie[/name_f]” and Maridonna. Honestly, I think anything -[name_f]Donna[/name_f] would end up sounding clunky so it’s hard for me to think of ideas.
If you like Miadonna, perhaps Liadonna or Giadonna?
I agree with other posters that if you’re not in love with [name_f]Donna[/name_f], you don’t have to use it in order to honor your grandmother. Or you could always use [name_f]Donna[/name_f] in the middle!
Another idea I had is [name_f]Aurora[/name_f]. [name_f]Donna[/name_f] sounds like “dawn” and [name_f]Aurora[/name_f] means “dawn”. Along those same lines, [name_f]Donna[/name_f] means “lady” in Italian and [name_f]Freya[/name_f] is a Norse name with the same meaning.
I secretly looove [name_f]Madonna[/name_f] but I see why it’s a little unusable lol. It does have the added bonus of having the symbolic maternal connected to it, however. I like that a lot.
In this case I’d probably use just [name_f]Donna[/name_f] as a middle. It makes a very charming midcentury middle in my opinion. With a contemporary latinate first especially: [name_f]Charlotte[/name_f] [name_f]Donna[/name_f], [name_f]Eliza[/name_f] [name_f]Donna[/name_f], [name_f]Aurora[/name_f] [name_f]Donna[/name_f], [name_f]Cassia[/name_f] [name_f]Donna[/name_f]. The more I think of it the more I like it honestly. The sound itself is very pretty!
I came across [name_f]Idona[/name_f] / [name_f]Idonna[/name_f] when looking for anglicised forms of the name Norse mythology name Idunn very recently. That could work, perhaps? It’s a very ancient form of the name and almost entirely unused these days, so pronunciation could be quite flexible: ih-donna, eye-donna, ee-donna. She was the goddess of renewal which is quite fitting.
[name_f]Idony[/name_f] or [name_f]Idonea[/name_f] are other forms but they’re less literal.
[name_f]Donatella[/name_f] was my first thought (if you don’t mind changing the spelling a little). Also there’s [name_f]Aldona[/name_f], a Lithuanian and Polish queen’s name.
Maybe just change up some of the letters in [name_f]Donna[/name_f] to get to [name_f]Nona[/name_f] or [name_f]Ann[/name_f]. Also, is [name_f]Donna[/name_f]’s surname or maiden name useable as some are names often used for girls, e.g. [name_u]Kelly[/name_u], [name_f]Josey[/name_f]…