#346 – Namesake
Posted on April 2, 2012 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comic
Asking around it seems as though being named after a deceased relative or a fictional character is fairly common. I guess it’s risky to name your child after your favorite uncle when he still has 20 or 30 years left to destroy his name in the national media. I was named after some famous dude from a few thousand years ago. You probably haven’t heard of him. Where did your name come from?
Tags: baby, dog, name, parenting
I was going to be named after my father, but when I turned out to be a girl I was named after my aunt, who was my mom’s best friend.
I was named after my uncle, who is still alive but thankfully hasn’t ruined his name in the national media. My cousin was named after my dad who is also still alive. Christmas and thanksgiving can get confusing.
I was named after one of the Beatles.
The one that played the pentho?
My name is Bruce, I was named after my Mum’s first pet dog.
So this really made me laugh out loud (not that I don’t always laugh at your stuff.
I knew this one would have to fit at least one person reading it today. Imagine if your name was Peter!
I was named after my uncle, which was fine. He’s a nice guy. Although it was odd being called Little Tom once I topped 330 pounds.
My brother was named after Mickey Mantle.
My parents wanted to pick a unique, yet not too unusual name for me. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. Now there’s eight billion Kevins in north america alone. That’s why I rejected using my real name and went with the totally uncommon moniker “Simon” on the internet.
My name was a compromise between my parents. My dad wanted to name me some awful old Irish name that no one could pronounce, and my mom wanted to name me something normal like Laura. They compromised with Kathleen, which is normal enough, doesn’t sound awful, and is Irish.
there is a hotel/restaurant on Nantucket called the Jared Coffin House; it was named (clearly) after Jared Coffin, a ‘wealthy ship merchant’ from the island in the early 1800’s. I was named after the hotel that was named after Jared Coffin.
On a side note when I was a child my father would introduce me to folks as, “this is my son Jared – he’s the man from Nantucket”. I was embarrassed at the time but in hindsight sorta wish I’d played that up a bit 🙂
I was named after my grandfather Alonzo. Really. His nickname was “Ray” and my legal name is Ray, not Raymond. Thank goodness he had a nickname.
I was named after some famous dude from a few thousand years ago. You’ve probably heard of him from the bible. Middle name, Brant, was after my grandfather.
I am a Third. But my parents always said that I was named for my grandfather, not my dad. Little brother was named for two relatives from both sides of the family who had the same first name, and were well respected. Older sister was named after two of Mom’s aunts, and Oldest sis, was named after the owner of a boarding house near the college where my parents met. Ma just liked her name.
Hah, I have you beat, I am a Fourth. And my son is a Fifth, my wife hated it, but you got to keep those traditions going.
Bill Watt from Loading Ready Run is actually “Charles William [a few more names that I forget] Watt VII”: http://wiki.loadingreadyrun.com/index.php/Bill_Watt
I have never heard of a Seventh before outside of kings and popes.
My oldest brother picked my first name. I don’t think he named me after someone in particular. But my second name is Amelia, after Amelia Earhart.
Who is this famous dude we probably haven’t heard of?
My full name is Christopher, if that helps. 🙂
Ah yes, of course, named after St. Christopher, the third century Saint who, according to legend, was 7.5 feet tall and carried Jesus across a river.
How do I know this? Well I am a Christopher also.
My parents were able to see into the future and discover that someday the majority of people active on the internet would have the same first name — so that’s the one they gave me.
Which is why I only use my last name on the internet.
I didn’t think “American” was that common a first name.
If I had been a boy, father wanted me to be George IV, mom said NO way. Luckily I settled the arguement by being a girl. Since Mom hated all the female family names Mada, Vashti, Stella, Muriel, and she didn’t have any sisters and she was not going for any female form of George, I didn’t get named after anyone. She just picked a name at random. Darn, I always liked Stella, the aunt and her name.
I was named after your eponym’s stepfather.
One of my nephews has my name as a middle name, and my brother’s as his first. At family reunions, when he got yelled at, there were three of us with guilty faces.
My dad was reading the Book of Daniel about when I was born, and though it sounded “cool”. Because of this, I have an incredibly boring first name and my last name is one of the most common in America. As with Simon up there, I like going by fake names, they sound more interesting.
My name is the word for Sunday in Korean.
Because I was born on a Sunday…
I was named after this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan
I’m betting many people think you were named after this guy, though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverine_(comics)
It’s a long, horrid story involving a porn movie gone bad.
A couple of obscure great uncles I never met. But being the fourth son, they were running out of relatives. At least my parents didn’t start grabbing names from the other gender side of the family. And I wouldn’t have minded the dogs name, except the dog came after me. Else you could have called me Laddie.
My parents thought it would be cute to name me after their two favorite aunts. Turned out that my name would be the fifth most common girl’s name in the USA in 1981, and the combination Sarah Elizabeth was one of the most common first and middle names. There were six other Sarah’s in my kindergarten class alone, besides me. Later on in life, I became best friends with and dated a guy named Chris. Both Sarah’s and Chris’s are WAAAYYY too common. LOL
And I once dated a girl named Sarah! Aaaa!
Surprisingly I actually was named after a dog… my mother says I don’t live up to it though 🙁
I was named after a Steven king book turned movie
Carrie.
my sister on the other hand was named after the virgin mother [Lutheran] Ma”Donna”
They named the dog Indiana.
I have a lot of fond memories of that dog.
I was named after my parents saw “Dr No”…
Does it count when I wasn’t named after the person who destroyed my name in the national media, and merely happened to have the same name as him before he became famous? Serious, if you search for “Michael Moore” I seriously doubt you’ll find anything about me.
For who I WAS named after, it was my great-grandfather on my mom’s mother’s side, with my middle name being after my grandfather on my mom’s side.
You’ve probably never heard of it.
Oh, it was the setting for the worlds most famous greek poem ever?
Informative.
I love this name.
I was named after my father’s employer ,when my father came to the US, who gave my dad good life advice and even co-signed his first car in this country.
About 5 day’s after Phoenix (one of my Duaghters) was born we met another Phoenix (semi close relative had a friend who’s kid was Phoenix) I’ve yet to see anyone duplicate my son’s name though Daemon. He came home from day care the other day with two bumps on his head. I sat there for fifteen minutes arguing with the missus about if he was growing horns. The bumps where just big enough and well positioned. She didn’t think it was funny, I thought it was awesome.
My uncle named my cousin after a dog, but convinced my aunt he’d picked the name just because it sounded nice (until my dad ratted him out).
When my mother was giving birth, she saw a crane, or derrick, outside the hospital window. Hence my name.
My middle name was chosen by my father. it was apparently the name of the first girl he’d ever dated or something like that. My first name is often confused for being a boy’s name…which it is, but my mother thought changing the spelling would make it more ‘feminine’. It just meant that my name was (Is) misspelled a LOT. My dad told me my first and middle name combo had a meaning, but i forgot it and don’t care enough to look it up.
I found out about a year ago that my middle name is the name of the city I was conceived in. That was a shocker.
That one is kind of cool. 🙂
Technically my name would be considered biblical, but I was named this because of family tradition. Going back about 6 or 7 generations, every male in the line was named either Michael or Matthew.
My real name is Adam and yes, my parents named me that because it is biblical. So, yeah, I was named after a fictional character.
My highly pregnant mother was looking through the official book of names of that country, back then, and was about halfway through when my dad pointed at one name and said, “I like this one.” and my mother agreed.