The Baby Name Wizard

DH and I faced this issue with our kids, because I kept my maiden name and wanted to incorporate it into the kids' names. My surname, however, is of the long and Italian variety, making it an unreasonable first name. So we made it the middle name for both children and, because it has also worked its way into their nicknames also, it has a strong daily presence in their lives. I think DH and I are both happy with how this turned out.

I'm all for surnames with real family history as first names. For example, I have a good friend whose maiden name is Madigan and thought that Madigan nn Maddy would be a fabulous first name for her daughter (she disagreed and went with Anna) even though I am not a big fan of the whole Madison thing.

To me family history changes names from "fake" and/or pretentious sounding to just plain great and "real" for lack of a better term. Others in this category are listed below. I think the whole ends with "s" thing can be particularly pretentious sounding when made up and perfect when based on family history.

Jones (like Sex in the City)
Brooks
Emerson
Brady/Grady (again, SITC, but this time done right)
Mason
Miller

My mother's family is very southern, although we live in the midwest, and this is a very common trend as I look back through my ancestry. Maiden names were often used as middle names, although there are several times they were first names (or the names the child went by).

My favorite example out of my family tree is an Uncle Cat, who's given first name was Castle, his mother's maiden name.

In the late 17th century, the most common name in my family was Pardon Tillinghast, Pardon being the maiden name of my greatx12-grandmother.

I'd love to name my son a traditional family name, but I can't really bring myself to use "Pardon" (and "Tillinghast" is out of the question!).

Just one historical example as a data point:

Industrialist Henry Clay Frick and his wife, Adelaide Howard Childs Frick did this with their children. Here they are in order of birth:

Childs Frick (boy)
Martha Howard Frick
Helen Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick, Jr.

They managed to get all of the family's middle and surnames into their children's names. Unfortunately, two of their children never survived to adulthood, but their eldest son has many like-named descendants in his line.

My mother's maiden name is an Irish O' name - so it wouldn't work well - but my husband's mother's maiden name was Clay, and as we lost her last year to cancer we are considering it as a first name for a boy (should we have one) in her honor :)

My sister is hoping to convince her husband to use our maiden name (which actually IS Smith) for a boy - should they have one :)

Yes, in the Sex and the City example, Miranda gave her son her own last name, and used his father's last name as the son's first name. Clever.

I wanted to use my mother's maiden name for one of my children, but it repeats a syllable with my husband's last name so it wouldn't work.

Should I have a daughter, I will be changing my own last name. My theory is that the best matrilineal name would be the first name of my furthest back matrilineal ancestor - in my case, Sarah. So my new last name would be Sarahs-B______ (the B___ is my current married name) and my daughter would get the same hyphenated name with the idea that when she grew up and married, she would keep the Sarahs part and change the hyphenated part to her spouse's patrilineal name. My sons and husband could hyphenate or not as they chose (my existing sons, that is, who are not currently hyphenated.)

Yes, it would be simpler to name her Sarah B_____ but (a) there already is a cousin by that name and (b) there are too many Sarahs in the world for the name to be to my taste (I prefer UNCOMMON names for given names.)

Is this a purely WASP naming tradition, or do other groups do it as well?

I ask because so far all the examples given have been fairly clearly English (or at least British) surnames--the type of surnames that are usually adopted into first names anyway. My mother's maiden name is a fairly uncommon first name (something close to Smith), but it IS used as one sometimes, and my brother has it as a mn.

But I can't imagine anyone giving my MIL's very Russian maiden name as a first name.

Why not, though?

What's wrong with Sarkozy Jones, Giacometti Miller, O'Leary Singh, Kurosawa Wilson and Kureishi Garcia?

I don't know anyone who bestowed a maiden name as a fn, but I know people who have integrated two surnames.

My cousin's kids have two mns, the second of which is her maiden name. I have friends whose first son has his dad's surname as his second mn and shares his mom's surname. Their second son has mom's surname as his second mn and shares his dad's surname. And I know a couple who made an amalgam of their surnames for their son (they kept their original surnames).

My maiden name's first syllable is a homophone of my husband's surname so I both opted to change my surname and to leave it out of any kids' names. It sounds too weird to combine them, even in a mn capacity.

@RB - I've only seen it done "right" in the WASP-y sense, as part of a time-honored, real family tradition. The only thing wrong with a "Sarkozy Jones" per your example is that it just does not sound as pleasing to the ear as the names that yet another Jenny mentioned (@1:15pm).

The best names honor ancestors/loved ones AND sound great AND avoid ridicule towards the child.

What I thought was interesting about the list Laura gave was how similar names like "Millard" and "Fillmore" are in terms of sound (same with "Strom" and "Thurmond" although to a lesser degree).
Knowing that these are the two last names of the parents -- I wonder if that whole dennis/dentist rule applies...were they drawn to eachother because of some (subconscious) perceived similarity?

Doesn't work for people like me who have a common boy's name as a surname - at least it doesn't work if you have a daughter first.
I have friends who combined the surnames Goldman and Goldberg using one as the ln and one as the mn.

Well here in NC the maiden name a given name tradition is alive and well. For girls, you will frequently hear it as a double name. The pattern is, you give a fairly simple fn like Mary or Anne and pair it with mom's maiden name and then call the girl both - I personally have known girls/women called: 4nn Henly, J4ne Barrett, M4ry Garner, Mary Hampton, etc. etc.

I also know a little Sophie Thomas so a ln name that is typically a male fn can be used this way.

Plus, I know people/children named Darden, Davis, Sims, Latham - those are all girls). In fact, I think I know more girls named this way than boys. The only boys that immediately come to mind for me are: Wyatt, Sterling, Bishop (the last two are siblings), and there was a Smith in my son's preschool class a couple of years ago.

"Sarkozy Jones" with a nn of Star might work. Yes, us non-WASPs are at a bit of a disadvantage in the fn surname category.

Jewish surnames....Wasn't there a comment a while back about Cohen being part of the "n" trend in some parts? Rosen could work too, especially for a girly I think with the nn Rosie. Levine about to take off? Levi is on the up swing....

Or Goldberg/Goldman with the nn Goldie, nope, that's pushing it!

My grandfather's family was definitely a part of this tradition he and his twin born around the turn of the century were Millar and Murray as fn's. I don't remember how far back the two were as surnames in the family, but it wasn't very far.

Love it! This is my plan if I were to have a girl (not that I'm pregnant) - but my maiden name is Kennedy, which would make for a very cute girl name. Kennedy is a good WASP-y name, so I can see the point here. I also happen to know a female Deane, named after her mother's maiden name - that one is a little more unusual, but it fits perfectly with her personality!

One alternative to the hyphenated last name problem is to do an intersection of last names. For example, Stanely Grunbaum and Lisa Tannenbaum are much more likely to be happy with Jacob Baum rather than Jacob Tannenbaum-Grunbaum. It doesn't always work and in some cases of course would give an empty last name, but it is something I've known happen at least once. And it helps mitigate the problem of two hypenated last name people having to either prune the last name or have an absurdly long last name for their own child.

Kennedy is, famously, an Irish Catholic name, not a WASP name--so you've hit upon another ethnic thread that does this with great social acceptance. Irish surnames are so widely used for first names at this moment that it's rare (and refreshing) to discover there's actually a family connection involved.

My kids don't have my surname, but they have full names from my grandmother's family as their fn/mn--the full names of people I grew up knowing stories about, whose house was my house, whose photos and bibles and letters I'm caring for now so my daughter can have those stories too.

My son's mn is sometimes seen as a fn--it would even fit into the dreaded -en trend, heavens--but my daughter's is a rarer Scottish surname that wouldn't likely ever become a fn candidate. Still, if she ever wants a very striking and androgynous pen-name, it's there for her.

My maiden name is Scott, so it wasn't a big jump to name my son Cameron Scott. He has my husband's last name. My paternal aunt named her son Scott as well. My mother's maiden name is Whitton which I would like to use in the future
but I'm afraid of dim-wit, etc. What do you think?

I think Whitton would work. Whit is a great nn. He might at some point get called a dim-wit, but I don't think it would be a huge problem. I think that kids outgrow using those kinds of incults. I once taught a high school aged boy named Cooper who told me that throughout elem. school he was called Cooper Pooper, but as a teenager he liked his name and no one called him that anymore.

I also used to be friends with a girl whose mn was Scotte (pronounced Scott) who went exclusively by the name Scottie.

I like Sarkozy Jones, actually!

I've considered doing this for a boy. My maiden name is Kimball, and my grandfather went by that as his first name (though it was his surname, of course). I always thought it sounded cool. There's a writer named Kimball Hastings that pulls it off, too. Does anyone know if this is a WASP name? (I'm not sure of my lineage on that side of the family)...

I just came across something interesting-- listed below are the names and ages for the pictures posted for the 2008 annual photo contest on a parenting website (I put in b/g where I thought it was useful and judged as best I could based on the clothes and props in the picture):

Andrew, 10 months
Elizabeth, 10 years
Lincoln, 15 months (b)
Madison, 3 years (g)
Anna, 16 months
Addison, 9 months (g)
Olivia and Jackson, 5 & 7 years
Carter, 3 years
Sofia, 23 months
Justin, 1 year
Devyn, 1 (g)
Jocelyn, 3 1/2
Grayson, 7 months
Amelia, 3 years
Dhriti, 1 (g)
Reese, 3 1/2 (g)
Delaney, 18 months (g)
Laura, 3 years
Isabella, 4 years
Chloe, 5 months
Natasha, 6 months
Claire, 8 months

This list makes me quite sure that the NEs on this blog know what's what! It seems like so many of the styles we discuss are represented. Most interesting in relation to our discussions I think are Delaney, Grayson and Devyn...

Guest: I love the name Whit for a boy! Maybe Whitney nn Whit instead?

The maidennames-as-firstnames tradition is also alive and well in Scotland, though I feel it's associated more with an older generation. I have known middle-aged men with names like Wilson, Muir and Niven, among others. Now that I think about it, it also seems like quite a middle class tradition.

Of course some surnames have crossed over completely (my own brothers are Ross and Grant, for example)and are now just as acceptable as first names. As such, I'm not fussy about family connections - there are too many names that are somewhere in the middle of the crossover process. And to be honest, the surname trend gives us even more variety so I rather like it!

On a side note, my boyfriend and his friends all call one another by their surnames - partly because he and his three best pals at school were all called Alan (!), but loads of his other friends do too.

@janet - i love the name Whit for a boy. Just Whit, though. Not as a nickname for Whitman, Whitney, etc. I know of 2 30-something men in Atlanta by the name Whit.

RB- I see *nothing* wrong with those names. It doesn't bother me at all to use surnames-as-firsts with no familial connection. Just the same as it doesn't bother me to use fn/mn with no connection. I think many surnames make the most interesting firsts.

This is a great topic, as it was something very very important to me upon naming my kids a couple years ago. We gave them two last names, not hyphenated, but two seperate ones.
For example, using fictional last names, my son is Douglas Jones Smith.

It allows my son to go through every day life with just my last name, i.e., his homework will say Douglas Smith, and only use both on legal documents, which also saves us from any legal confusing involving my husband's last name.

It did, however, leave the idea of a middle name in the dust, as we felt four separate names would just be overkill.

It turned out to be a great decision, and I'm happy with it.

With the discussion about surnames being used in the first position (both family and non-family related), I'd like to mention a surname that I love as a first name for a boy (that is not a family name for me): Sullivan. Although quite a few people that I've mentioned the idea to like it, some think that it sound weird. Going off of what Rosemay said some of the other names on my list have surname origins as well but have been used as given names so much that using them up front doesn't raise eyebrows, but with Sullivan it has only recently shown up in the popularity charts as a first name and it's still pretty uncommon as such compared to its popularity as a surname (and therefore still has that "surnamey" feel when used as a first name).

@Kelly - there is a Sullivan Groff character played by Matthew Modine on the tv show "Weeds" - he's a dysfunctional real estate mogul.

Funny, I'd like the name a lot more if it had some family meaning for you, to give it some soul.

I know way too many people with names that fit this tradition (probably from being a member of the Junior League). I know girls named Dudley, Blakeney, Henley, Merril, and Hadley, all named for family connections. The brother of a friend is named MacAfee (known as Mac) for family reasons.

Kelly is my mother's maiden name, and also one of my sister's middle names--not that anyone would know it's a family name. I've always wanted to give it as a name, but only to a son, as I think that would make the family reference clearer.

If my husband and I took the final three letters (which are the same) of each of our last names to make a new one, it would be Ick. Not so cute.

I'm glad my mom didn't try this particular tradition - imagine going through life with the first name Spitzer!

My dad always said it was more common to give the mother's maiden name as a middle name, which seems like a fine idea, even if your last name is something awkward like Fishburn(or not WASPy enough, like Moskowitz). Who's going to find out unless you tell them?

Dont' forget Wuthering Heights! Isabella Linton married Heathcliffe and calls their son Linton Heathcliffe. Of course, if my last name was Linton, it would have been a lot easier!

I did use my maiden name as my son's first name. His name is my Danish maiden name, Thomsen. I had been planning on doing this for years but hesitated when I was pregnant, and it seemed every new baby I met was named Jackson. I didn't want it to seem that I was just following the Last Names First trend. Most of the time I introduce him as Thom to avoid anyone assuming this, or I follow, "His name is Thomsen," with, "It's my maiden name."

What has been difficult is picking names for our next child. I am a fan of timeless, traditional names, but it seems a little odd to have a child with a very uncommon name and have another with a top-20 name like Elizabeth or Sarah.

Coll: I love the idea of using Kelly for a boy; I am a guy with that name myself (and I like it).

Anne--what are your Danish grandmother's names? If any of them are distinctive and likeable, you'd be giving a daughter an equivalent gift to Thomsen (which is lovely, btw).

BTW, a lot of French surnames will work fine for this trend, because so many of them are saint's names. The most common surnames in France are Martin, Bernard, Dubois, Thomas, Robert, Richard, Petit, Durand, LeRoy, Moreau, Simon, Laurent, Lefebvre, Michel...

For other countries' most common surnames:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_family_names

Check out the most common surnames in the Philippines, for example--if Maria de la Cruz wants to name her son Cruz Reyes, no problem, since it's already a name that works in either position.

Although I think honoring family and following tradition are lovely things to do. I was absolutely positive my ds was NOT going to receive anyone's first name other than his own Original name. My dh is from an italian background and there are as I mentioned previously many Raymond Anthony's but there are also Anthony Peter's; Peter Raymond and every other combination of distinct Italian names you can think of. To me it was just nms. On my side of the family we have many John's and also I've said in a previous post-John is just too plain for me. The last name first thing just would have been weird. A very Italian name or a very German name-not very good choices. So although my maiden name will probably die out, I will share my genealogy with my children and they will know their ancestry that way.

Both grandmothers were named Mary. Almost all of the family names are very traditional/timeless. This makes it especially hard since obviously Thomsen is a family name, and I'd hate to give one child a name so dear to me and my family and then give the other a name my husband and I just randomly picked.

It makes the decision easier when you hate your last name and are really glad that your children will get to have their Daddy's last name instead. His name would also make a much better first name than mine would.

I don't know if anyone uses the name "King" as a first name in English, (might sound pretentious and/or give the kid an apparent air of superiority,) but I do know that the Hebrew equivalent, Melech, is a rare-but-used given name.

(Heh, if I named a kid Melech King, that would be almost as bad as the Chinese trampolinist Dong Dong.)

my two favourite family names as first names are:
Anderson Cooper and Fitzwilliam Darcy
in fact Anderson's parents, Gloria Vanderbilt and Wyatt Cooper, used only last names for both their sons, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper and Anderson Hays Cooper.

but i wish my surname sounded good as a first name or a middle name, i'd never do that to my future child/children though. because i think it's an awesome idea.

My mom did something like the last name first route with my sister and me. She took her maiden name (Swedish)and lopped off the last two letters which made it a once very popular girls name and gave it to my little sister. She gave the first three letters of her maiden name to me as a middle name which is a different spelling on a fairly common girl's middle name. If you you combine my sister's first name, my middle name and my mom's last name the result is something like Katelin Kate Katelinger, but different, of course. : )

re: King. There was an early movie director (1920s-30s, I think) named King Vidor.

Anne: This may be a dumb question, but is Thomsen pronounced THOM-sen or TOM-sen?

And to go back to my first post, I don't see anything wrong with Sarkozy Jones either (I actually think it has a nice ring to it!). It seems like a good way for a family merging different ethnic backgrounds to give equal weight to each.

I guess I just haven't seen it happening, and wonder why.

Off topic, but in reference to a previous question I asked... I was talking to Roenne and Oliver's Mum today and they are still working on names for number 3. She was very grateful for your suggestions. The top two girls' names currently are Pippa or Matilda (Tilly)- I think Coll (??) suggested Pippa?

We were discussing the fact that both of her kids' names refer to trees (Rowan and Olive) and she wonders what you all think of Magnolia (Maggie) in relation to the others. I suggested Camellia, but her sister is Camille so it might be a bit close. Willow has already been vetoed by her DH. I think they are hoping for a girl! With kids that close in age, I must admit I think it would be a bit easier... (3, 2 and 0).

There were a couple of other Moms listening in and very interested, with strong opinions so I got their kids' names for you.

The first Mom is named Vera, which was the first surprise as she's a very cute and dynamic 30 something, which I hadn't associated with the name. It was a family name. Her boys are August Vade (Gus) and Andre Mose. The Andre doesn't have the accent, but is pronounced the French way.

The other Mom was way into being Unique. Her kids are Steffan Orion, Kollin Anstace and Amara Nereis. She knew all the meanings. Thought you would like to know!

Karyn, my grandfather's name was King (from his mother's side of the family). It fit him really well. I also know boys named Royal, in the same vein.

We named our son with a family name as first name, which was Wilson. (We're originally from the South but now live in the NW.) We thought we'd call him Will or Willie, but we've stuck with Wilson so far.

In my family, we also have Chandler, from my mother's side, used as first and middle names all over the place. So, I have an uncle who goes by Chan. But it's also my sister's and two of my nieces' middle names.

One of my sister's good friends has a daughter, Larkin (first name), from the last name on her mother's side of the family.

@Anne - don't know your style, but you seem wary of all trends. For Thomsen's siblings, how about Dane for a boy (honors your Danish roots); Saskia for a girl.

Re: King,

there was a late 80s/early 90s college basketball player (UNC Chapel Hill, I believe) named King Rice.

He's currently the assistant b-ball coach at Vanderbilt.

RB: It's Thomsen pronounced like the common surname Thompson without the soft "p."

Confession: we named my son (b. 1994) "Campbell," just because my DH and I liked the sound. Pretty soon after he was born, I decided it sounded pretentious, and now I lie and tell people "it's a family name." What I regret the most is not giving him my mother's maiden name, "McCready," as his fn., and calling him Mac. I have no idea what I was thinking; maybe it was hormones?

And, oh, yeah, our congressman's eight-year-old son's name is King. (It's a family name, but I always thought it was a little weird, given his father's profession...)