Comments on: Naming Conventions

By: Jo-less

Jo-less — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:10:36 +0000

At work, all the conference and meeting rooms are named after cities…Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow etc. Very confusing to be told the meeting is in ‘Glasgow’ when it’s really in Basingstoke. I imagine more than one visitor has ended up in the wrong city.

By: LordMarius

LordMarius — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:17:03 +0000

A couple of hundred years back in Norway, and the rest of Scandinavia, the common way to name a son was to give him his father’s first name followed by a version of “son” (-son, -sen, -sson) as the surname. Daughters got their surname from their mothers name followed by the word for “daughter” (-datter, -dotter).

A couple of hundred years ago, this resulted in fathers and sons in my lineage alternating between a couple of names, Thor and Willum. This resulted in a guy called Willum Thorsen, his son being Thor Willumsen, his son Willum Thorsen and so on. After a while the naming traditions in Norway changed and the families stuck by a family name.

My fiance and I will honor this tradition by naming our firstborn son Willum.

By: ANM

ANM — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:28:22 +0000

I’m an Texas A&M Aggie and am pregnant with our first. Our last name begins with an S. Our child’s first name will begin with an A and the middle name will begin with a G regardless of the gender of the baby. That’s right, the initials will be AGS. :-)

By: Andrew J. Winks

Andrew J. Winks — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:54:18 +0000

The servers at Concentric.com are named after British warships, a fact that I have not seen recorded anywhere.

And what grand and evocative names they are too:

Strenuous, Fortitude, Zealous, Sentinel, Invincible, Adamant, Illustrious, Repulse, Impregnable …

By: shelly

shelly — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:46:37 +0000

i know a family of Ls. larry and lana are the parents. then it’s laurie, ladonna, linda and larayne.

another family i know had two boys, austin and dallas. the third child was a girl. abilene.

i taught a family with 7 kids, all j names. the parents were Js, too.

just trying waaaay too hard.

By: Brittany

Brittany — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 02:36:04 +0000

A few years ago, I met a kid named Royal. His sister was Sky and his brother was Creek. His parents were fans of the color blue, apparently.

I always used to have fun trying to come up with normal names from colors, though firetruck was always what I decided I would name my kid if I wanted it to have a hard life.

By: Manda

Manda — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 02:29:54 +0000

When I volunteered in New Orleans as part of the relief work effort after Hurricane Katrina, our work vans were named after characters in The Wizard of Oz: “Flying Monkeys” “Dorothy” “Toto” and “Auntie Em,” which we later voted to switch to “Tin Man” because we decided its previous name was too girly to be a hardcore work van employed in mold remediation.

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 02:18:44 +0000

I went to a summer camp where each group of campers was assigned the name of Native American Tribe. I was a Cayuga.

There is a neighborhood in the town where I grew up where all the steet names start with “el”: Eldorado, Elberta, Elba, Elton, etc. It’s a twisty turny neighboorhood, so if you don’t know it really well you can get lost in there for ever.

Here’s one I didn’t see in the comments: highway rest stops. Some, like the NYS Thruway, are named after the towns (or possibly counties) that they’re in. Others, like the New Jersey Turnpike, are named after (obscure) celebrities/historical figures.

By: jzimm

jzimm — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 02:06:34 +0000

I knew a man named Jeremiah, who wanted to have a child for every letter of his name. He had Jeremiah Jr., Erin, Ray, Eva, and an M on the way. . .

I wonder if he ever made it.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:51:25 +0000

At my work we name the printers after old TV shows. I print to Blair and Gonzo, we also have Ginger, Horshack, Hunnicut, Punky etc. (we have a TON of printers) We recently opened an office in Nashville, TN. The servers were appropriately named Bo and Luke.