I found one of my very first name lists (from around age 12) recently. A few are ahead of the times…others are just plain awful. Has anyone else had a name obsession since childhood? If so, what were some of your first favorites? These were mine…
[name]Daisy[/name] [name]Caroline[/name]
[name]Ava[/name] [name]Grace[/name]
[name]Devon[/name] [name]Rose[/name] (This one kills me! It sounds like an exotic dancer!)
[name]Hallie[/name] [name]Autumn[/name] (blech)
[name]Cassandra[/name] [name]Jane[/name]
[name]Emma[/name] [name]Celeste[/name]
[name]Abel[/name] [name]James[/name]
[name]Dillon[/name] [name]Foster[/name] (yes, this was around the time 90210 came on the scene!)
[name]Gray[/name] [name]Addison[/name]
[name]Jackson[/name] [name]David[/name]
[name]Winston[/name] [name]John[/name] (family name)
[name]Evan[/name] [name]Alexander[/name]
I wish I could find my lists, but yes, I was obsessed even as a kid. Here are some of the ones I remember loving in grade school; a few I still like, but most make me cringe:
Boys:
[name]Amadeus[/name]
[name]Anthony[/name]
[name]Benjamin[/name]
[name]Bernard[/name]
[name]Camden[/name]
[name]Ellis[/name]
[name]Jeremy[/name]
[name]Leonard[/name] (nn [name]Lenny[/name])
[name]Oliver[/name] & [name]Olivier[/name]
[name]Pablo[/name]
[name]Shane[/name]
Xanadu (yes, as in Citizen [name]Kane[/name] or Kubla Kahn)
You just have a much wider variety! I love [name]Amadeus[/name], [name]Ellis[/name], and [name]Oliver[/name]. And I’ve always had a secret crush on the name [name]Shoshana[/name]. It’s just so lush and romantic. [name]Colette[/name], [name]Chloe[/name], and [name]Zara[/name] are lovely too. But my overall fave would have to be Xanadu”you obviously have a creative spirit
No worries, [name]Olive[/name], I’ve had a name obsession since I got my first name book in the 5th grade. (It was called Names, Names, Names: a Book for You, and it had a pink cover with girls’ names, then you flipped it over and upside down and it had a blue cover with boys’ names.) I don’t have any of my lists anymore, but my first forays were rather dull: [name]Mary[/name], [name]Laura[/name], [name]Caroline[/name] and [name]Grace[/name], the four girls from the [name]Little[/name] House on the [name]Prairie[/name] books. I do give myself forerunner points, though, because my first “novel” (written in the 7th grade) had a heroine named [name]Violet[/name]. Take that, [name]Jen[/name] and [name]Ben[/name]!
I was obsessed with names beginning before preschool, when I spent my days caring for my doll, named [name]Baby[/name] [name]Anne[/name], and wondering what I would name her siblings. I loved naming my dollhouse people, too!
I named subsequent dolls:
[name]Katherine[/name]
[name]Molly[/name]
[name]Grace[/name]
[name]Abigail[/name] (before [name]Abigail[/name] was revived, as this was in the 80’s)
[name]Andrew[/name]
[name]Victoria[/name]
[name]Elizabeth[/name]
Other than little [name]Molly[/name], I always loved classic names. I remember my favorites:
[name]Rose[/name]
[name]Caroline[/name]
[name]Grace[/name]
[name]Anne[/name]
[name]Victoria[/name]
[name]Madeline[/name] (way before it became popular)
[name]Elizabeth[/name]
I was obsessed with [name]Andrew[/name] and [name]Zachary[/name] for boys, and loved [name]Alexander[/name], too!
I also remember going through a phase in which I wanted to be named [name]Samantha[/name], due to Who’s the [name]Boss[/name]?.
I think the way I got obsessed with names was through my father’s bedtime stories. He would think up stories during the day and tell them to us at bedtime. We got to make up the characters’ names. I remember one family had the last name Peanut Butter. But I can’t remember any of the names we made up. Some of his stories were utterly terrifying, and I think that may be why I have trouble falling asleep.
The first favorite names I remember really liking a lot were probably from when I was in elementary school:
[name]Julie[/name] (Up a Road Slowly)
[name]Susan[/name]
[name]Annika[/name]
[name]Laura[/name] (Ingalls [name]Wilder[/name])
[name]Samantha[/name]
[name]Tabitha[/name]
[name]Tommy[/name] (Dr. Doolittle’s Voyages)
[name]Jim[/name] ([name]Treasure[/name] Island)
[name]Peter[/name]
[name]Daniel[/name]
[name]Israel[/name]
[name]David[/name]
[name]Tony[/name] - because of “I [name]Dream[/name] of [name]Jeannie[/name]”
[name]Sally[/name] (when I was really little I think this was my fave.)
[name]Jill[/name] (loved this name when I was really little because there was a beautiful little white dog named [name]Jill[/name] who lived across the street. She looked like a little lamb.)
I probably loved a lot of names, but can’t remember them all.
Then I remember in high school, I started liking a lot of names:
[name]Ian[/name]
[name]Evan[/name]
[name]Jackson[/name]
[name]Alexander[/name]
[name]Giles[/name]
[name]Jasper[/name]
[name]Seymour[/name] (because of J. D. [name]Salinger[/name])
[name]Simon[/name]
[name]Ginger[/name]
[name]Jane[/name]
[name]Evelyn[/name]
[name]Frances[/name]
[name]Hannah[/name]
[name]Constance[/name]
[name]Daphne[/name]
I started loving [name]Sabrina[/name] in college because of the old movie.
My favorite names as a kid were the real oddballs I found in the encylopedia. I started reading around my second birthday and have never looked back! I went through all the encylopedias in the house before I was 5.
[name]Porfirio[/name]
[name]Evelyn[/name], on a guy
[name]Donatello[/name]
[name]James[/name], [name]Raphael[/name] & [name]Timothy[/name] from the Bible Pop had
[name]Zelda[/name] - I’m still not sure where this one came from, I named my favorite stuffed elephant [name]Zelda[/name] at maybe 1 and a half!
[name]Lucy[/name]
[name]Dorothea[/name] form a friend of the family
[name]Bess[/name] - I’ve never liked the lispy [name]Beth[/name]!
I liked stuff Like [name]Sophie[/name], [name]Mary[/name] & [name]Miriam[/name] as a kid too.
Probably a ton more, I didn’t make lists as a kid, rather I kept them in my head, because there were so few I actually did like.
Funnily enough, I like [name]Hattie[/name] now but didn’t as a little kid. her and [name]Addie[/name] lived three doors down from us when we were young and they were the old ladies who couldn’t stand kids, always yelling at us all to be quiet or get off their lawn. I think I was in HS before I liked [name]Hattie[/name], I still don’t like [name]Addie[/name], at all!
My favorite names as a kid were the real oddbalss I found in the encylopedia. I started reading around my second birthday and have never looked back! I went through all the encylopedias in the house before I was 5.
[name]Porfirio[/name]
[name]Evelyn[/name], on a guy
[name]Donatello[/name]
[name]James[/name], [name]Raphael[/name] & [name]Timothy[/name] from the Bible Pop had
[name]Zelda[/name] - I’m still not sure where this one came from, I named my favorite stuffed elephant [name]Zelda[/name] at maybe 1 and a half!
[name]Lucy[/name]
[name]Dorothea[/name] form a friend of the family
[name]Bess[/name] - I’ve never liked the lispy [name]Beth[/name]!
I liked stuff Like [name]Sophie[/name], [name]Mary[/name] & [name]Miriam[/name] as a kid too.
Probably a ton more, I didn’t make lists as a kid, rather I kept them in my head, because there were so few I actually did like.
Funnily enough, I like [name]Hattie[/name] now but didn’t as a little kid. her and [name]Addie[/name] lived three doors down from us when we were young and they were the old ladies who couldn’t stand kids, always yelling at us all to be quiet or get off their lawn. I think I was in HS before I liked [name]Hattie[/name], I still don’t like [name]Addie[/name], at all!
My favorite names as a kid were the real oddbalss I found in the encylopedia. I started reading around my second birthday and have never looked back! I went through all the encylopedias in the house before I was 5.
[name]Porfirio[/name]
[name]Evelyn[/name], on a guy
[name]Donatello[/name]
[name]James[/name], [name]Raphael[/name] & [name]Timothy[/name] from the Bible Pop had
[name]Zelda[/name] - I’m still not sure where this one came from, I named my favorite stuffed elephant [name]Zelda[/name] at maybe 1 and a half!
[name]Lucy[/name]
[name]Dorothea[/name] form a friend of the family
[name]Bess[/name] - I’ve never liked the lispy [name]Beth[/name]!
I liked stuff Like [name]Sophie[/name], [name]Mary[/name] & [name]Miriam[/name] as a kid too.
Probably a ton more, I didn’t make lists as a kid, rather I kept them in my head, because there were so few I actually did like.
Funnily enough, I like [name]Hattie[/name] now but didn’t as a little kid. her and [name]Addie[/name] lived three doors down from us when we were young and they were the old ladies who couldn’t stand kids, always yelling at us all to be quiet or get off their lawn. I think I was in HS before I liked [name]Hattie[/name], I still don’t like [name]Addie[/name], at all!
