What is most important to you in a name?

For me the most important things are sound and personal associations. The name needs to sound beautiful, and remind me of beautiful things. I also prefer less common/popular names, and I feel the name should be relatively easy to spell and pronounce.

Name meanings usually aren’t that important to me, unless the meaning is very obvious in [name_f]English[/name_f] or another language that I speak. [name_u]James[/name_u] means “supplanter”, but most people aren’t going to know that unless they actively look it up.

For personal reasons, I’m not hugely into honour names. None of my favourite first names are honour names. I would only consider honouring relatives who were/are genuinely involved in my life, and the honour name would most likely be in the middle name spot.

As for books/authors etc, the irony is that a lot of my most loved books and media contain names that I don’t particularly like and wouldn’t choose myself. I adore the Avatar/Legend of [name_f]Korra[/name_f] series for example, but I just wouldn’t choose any of those names for my own children.

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