Thank you all so much for your input, we’re probably going to go back and forward with this one a lot!
We do really love the names, it’s just as @kachenka says [name_m]Caspian[/name_m] sits in this really unique space, whilst at the same time not being too far out there- though ppl still had their opinions when we were still deciding cough my mother ;D she does love it now…
It’s interesting a lot of the names mentioned are on my list that I’ve spent many years building! I just wish we could get the right feel from them(and DH wouldn’t veto!)
Things like Emrys(with [name_m]Merlin[/name_m] as middle name), [name_m]Ambrose[/name_m], Mordred, Archer(but then little [name_m]Archie[/name_m] Sussex came along), Edmund(bit too obvious with Caspian), [name_m]Sherlock[/name_m], [name_u]Orion[/name_u], [name_u]Oberon[/name_u], [name_m]Aramis[/name_m], [name_m]Aurelius[/name_m], Fitz-anything(DH definite no on these), [name_m]Finneas[/name_m], [name_u]Marlow[/name_u] & Magnus(last two are my cats names) plus many more!
[name_u]Atlas[/name_u] is Caspian’s second middle name.
Because of CS [name_m]Lewis[/name_m] I’d love it if any of the Tolkien names on my list felt a little more suitable and complimentary to Caspian… eg Stryder/Aragorn we like but just feel too heavy for a little boy or even a man… and a lot of the elvish/hobbit nahmes are too obvious or so out there they’d be forever spelling and explaining.
[name_u]Peregrine[/name_u] is sweet but i trip over it when I say it and DH said no…
It’s so crazy you mentioned [name_u]Sterling[/name_u] as it was actually one that wasn’t on our final list and then we switched too it, had completely “decided” (with [name_u]Artemis[/name_u] as the second middle) but then questioned since it’s not got the the sort of literary/mythical feel to it that [name_m]Caspian[/name_m] has, we’ll probably still bounce back and forward on it tbh… we’ve got a few months to go!
I do like [name_m]Arthur[/name_m], but just it’s a little bit more common usage…
[name_m]Merlin[/name_m] has always been a bit of a guilty pleasure of ours, the magical quality, the sound of it is gentle and nice (though I’m not a big fan of it shortened to Merl).
It’s just the very famous wizard factor, I’ve heard it’s used a bit more in [name_m]Wales[/name_m], we’re in [name_f]England[/name_f] and some people I know have said they knew Merlin’s at school and it wasn’t a massive deal…
On the right child it would be fantastic, but if he just wants to melt into the background it doesn’t leave much room to hide.
We certainly get stronger opinions about this one from people we tell cough my mother ;D
[name_u]Artemis[/name_u] always felt a bit more of a masculine girls name for me(I’d use it when gaming) & with the A.Fowl books it felt a bit more neutral, but when I did some looking through comments in naming websites the view was overwhelmingly female only due perhaps to more general knowledge of the origin?
I do wonder if it’s rare enough out in the world that most people wouldn’t really have come across that many of either gender to have an idea if they didn’t know the origin.
We’d probably call him Artie/y.
I don’t so much mind about it being originally a goddess, she’s quite a cool one, it was my DH’s only pick for a boy and he’s not so into changing the spelling, it’s just if DC would ultimately mind as he got older, the eternal question!
I guess the responses here do show it’s got a bit of a neutral-ish vibe… and it’s really nice to know the thoughts of some more people, I’m a little hesitate to bring them too much out in the open before we’ve really got a sense ourselves.
As you might be able to tell I’ve given it a lot of thought and still don’t have anything concrete!