I’m a little obsessed about making sure there are no negative associations / strange associations with a name.
Besides the obvious google & of course checking Nameberry for meaning does anyone have any tips?
I did an imdb.com search of my daughters name. If you click to see all results you can even get a list of all of the movie characters with that name! It’s an easy way to make sure that your kids potential name isn’t the main character on some sitcom you never watched or the villain of some film.
Does anyone have any tips for what they do before they pick a name?
[name]Every[/name] name is tainted in some way in someone’s mind. While you may think [name]Juliet[/name] is the perfect name, all I can associate with it is a suicidal teenager. I love the name [name]Rory[/name] for a boy, but as someone pointed out to me earlier, that’s the name of a character on a popular sitcom. I didn’t know this, and that’s fine, but it doesn’t make me love the name any less.
Some names do require a little thought, such as [name]Diablo[/name], Lucifer, Gremlin, etc. Obviously those associations are pretty straight forward and you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t make a negative association with them. But on the whole, every name is going to have some negative association for someone. Pick a name you like and don’t worry so much about what others think of it. If your kid truly hates his name when he grows up, then he can gift himself a new name on his 18th birthday.
[name]True[/name] enough, but tips would be appreciated.
The imdb thing is great for those of us who don’t have a finger on the pulse of pop culture…I agree with [name]Juliet[/name] = suicidal teenager but I don’t know the names & types of characters from [name]Harry[/name] [name]Potter[/name], Twilight, Hunger Games (except what I’ve learned here!) and I wouldn’t want to pick a name from one of these for so many reasons.
^ I think this is true, though. I can’t think of any better way to find out what associations a name has than to Google it, or ask a friend. Or post on Nameberry!
I think it really depends on the what’s important to you. If you don’t want your kid to be Name Lastinitial, check out the popularity lists (especially for your state). Avoiding the top maybe 50-100 gives you a good chance of him/her being the only one (not a guarantee of course).
Googling a name (especially with your last name or the middle name) is usually a good idea. Most of the time I’m not too worried about what comes up unless it’s someone somewhat well known that I hadn’t thought of or known of.
Posting it on a site like this helps some too. A lot of the responses may be “NMS” so don’t worry about those. But maybe someone here has a really good reason to not use the name that you hadn’t thought of.
For me, I like to look a little at meanings/origins. I go to Behind the Name for this usually. I strongly prefer using names for their intended sex (with FEW exceptions), and also names that are not recently “invented”. So doing a quick search on there is nice. Oh, and it’s important to me to know what spelling I prefer. 99% of the time I prefer the most traditional spelling.
Oh, and I tend to go off of associations I have with the name. For example I like some names but they are names of either my or my fiance’s exes or people I just don’t like, so it would be strange to use the names.
It drives me absolutely crazy when I see posts like, “[name]How[/name] popular is the name _______?” I always feel like saying, “You’re on the computer- JFGI!”
To the OP: if you Google a name and find out it’s a Biblical name, find the passage and read it and the surrounding passages. If you find out the name is the character in a book, find out more about the book. That’s really all I can think of beyond what other people have told you.
The only advice I have is that if you pick a name from another culture, you need to know the significance of those names IN the country they originate from!
I love this site but if youre going to choose a French name please look into it on French sites as well as this one. [name]Just[/name] google “prenom ____” and go from there because I have noticed a lot of misinformation for French names. [name]Brielle[/name], [name]Minette[/name], [name]Musette[/name], Miette and [name]Bichette[/name] are all “names” listed on here that are either not French names, not names at all or have a very very different meaning or inapropriare connotation in [name]France[/name]. I’m not talking “old fashioned” or [name]Les[/name] Mis related (which are opinions), Im talking names that will make the French do a double take and wonder what was wrong with the parents who chose the name.
Personally I struggle with Italian and Spanish names since I am clueless with those so Im not trying to be a know it all or anything.
I like the website howmanyofme.com. It uses statistics to estimate how many people have a the same given/surname combo. It’s not foolproof, but it can give you an idea of whether the kid will face any I.D. issues. A co-worker of mine has a name combo that is so common he has to constantly check his credit report and hasn’t seen his tax refund in two years because it’s being held up while the IRS works out I.D. theft problems.
Something fun I did was to type “(Name) Song” into YouTube and see what songs come up and then I listen to a few to see if there are any that I like which helps me like the name more. And I ignore the bad lyrics associated with it hehe.
My nieces go to school with a little boy named [name]Chandler[/name] LeBlanc. When he and his mother showed up at their Birthday party last year I told her how much I love his name, because I love Friends, and it’s my all time favorite show. I was going on and on and she looked at me like I was crazy and didn’t know what I was talking about and informed me that her maiden name was [name]Chandler[/name](I’m guessing she just didn’t know [name]Matt[/name] LeBlanc played [name]Joey[/name]). To me it was an obvious Friends association. To her not so much. Names are such individualized things and everyone has their own associations. Imdb, google, and youtube are all great ways to learn about pop culture associations, but at the end of the day, you can’t control everyone’s associations to a name.
