My name is Tu. Tu Morrow.
Choosing a name for your baby can be a daunting task. There are so many to choose from! So many options!!!
There was a total solar eclipse event in the USA last Monday, August 21st. So, naturally, one of the girls born on that date was named Eclipse. Her parents meant to name her Violet (pretty standard/ common name), but since she was born early, and on the special day of the solar eclipse, they changed their minds. “I believe that her birth should signify something, and what better way to signify her being born during the eclipse than name her Eclipse” – said the father. He continued by saying that the eclipse theme will be continuously present in the girl’s life. Is that not going a little bit overboard? Seems like the girl’s interests are already all figured out. Will she work at NASA someday? What is short for Eclipse? The mother says they will call her Clipsey. In what world is that cute, or practical??? I can see the girl’s peers calling her “Eek”, or “Clip”, neither one has a good ring to it. Poor girl… But at least, no one will ask her how to spell it. LOL. The mother’s name is Freedom. It makes me wonder what drove her parents to name her that way. Were they slaves? Did they want their daughter to know that she can do whatever she wants and they will not stop her? Because, once a kid is born, parents do not really have much freedom for quite some time. I remain confused.
I feel like there are about 7 types of people, based on the way they go about picking the names for their children.
1) Fathers who pass their own names onto their firstborn sons, adding “Jr” at the end.
[Such a selfish move, showing how highly you think of yourself, or such a cop-out, since it is an easy way to end the naming craze.]
2) Couples who name the child after their family members (often their grandmother’s/ grandfather’s).
[I approve of this. You honor your loved ones.]
3) People who give their kid a popular name (based on popularity rankings).
[Yea, your pick might be hip and trendy today, but in a few years, when your kid goes to school, every other kid will be named Emma, or Liam (most popular baby names of 2017 so far).]
4) Those who name their babies after their favorite characters from movies or books.
[Calling your girl Bella (after the main character from the Twilight saga) does not alarm me, but naming your boy Flash (after the comic superhero) engages my alarm sensors.]
5) Parents who strive to pick the most unique name for their child.
[Bodhi Soleil – the name of Ian Somerhalder (actor) and Nikki Reed’s (actress) daughter. As much as this can be awesome (creativity scores!!!), they might cause a lot of spelling issues. And the kid will grow tired of explaining the meaning behind the name pretty quickly.]
6)Folks who name their child after something (anything really) favorite/special (place, food, flower, etc.).
[Apple – Daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow (actress) and Chris Martin (singer)… REALLY? Or Michael Jackson’s (pop icon) son – Blanket… Seriously? Really?]
7) Those who open a dictionary/ baby names book on a random page and pick a random word/ name.
[Shannyn Sossamon (actress) said: “We wanted a word not a name (HUUUUUH???), so my boyfriend read through the dictionary three or four times. We were going to call him Science, but thought it might get shortened to Sci, as in Simon.” So they came up with Audio Science. Because naming your kid after a thing is a great idea. Not.]
My potential baby names have evolved throughout the years. Fear not, I am not going crazy picking a name for my own kid. This is to discuss other people’s picks. Hehehe… Trust me, I do not do it for selfish reasons. It is my belief that names can really harm young children. Have you ever said/ heard anyone say: “He’s such a *insert name*”, or: “Her name does not really fit her”? I know I have said it, and I have heard it. Our names ARE our identities, whether we like it or not. Some of us really like our names (lucky me), some are rather indifferent to it, but others cannot wait to be able to legally change their names. Actor Forest Whitaker wants his children’s names to be their destiny, so he named his son Ocean (to be expansive), and his daughter – True (to be honest). What if Ocean will never learn how to swim, and True will become a professional scammer? Unfortunately, there is no way for you to foresee your kid’s personality, no way for you to gauge who she/ he will be when they grow up. You just have to listen to your gut instinct and hope for the best.
It just boggles my mind. Personally, I enjoy “traditional” names, but also admire “creative” names. However, when the creativity is rather non-creative (ex.: Apple), I get irritated. That is because I envision what the kid will have to go through and how that might be challenging for them. It seems that celebrities are the ones perpetuating those crazy baby names, to show their uniqueness, in hopes that the child will follow in their footsteps and have a stage name already figured out. Then, other people, who look up to the rich and famous, want to be just as cool, so they come up with craziness of their own.
You might be thinking that you are so smart and unique giving your child a name after your favorite character from a book you are reading. You have not heard that name around. And then, all of a sudden, everyone seems to be naming their kid your kid’s name. THEY ARE READING/ WATCHING WHATEVER YOU ARE! *mind blown*
You know, when you’re standing in a doctor’s office, or at a chain store behind someone who is providing their name to check-in, or sign up for rewards, and all of a sudden you hear a name that you have never heard of? And then they are asked to spell it, and you wonder how is it possible for all these ridiculous letters to come together and make a name? Or when their name sounds really simple, but it is spelled with the weirdest combination of letters? See: Austin spelled Austyn, Jackson spelled Jaxson, Emily can be spelled as Emely, Emilee, Emilie, Emmalee. While those weird spellings are definitely unique, it might get tiring for the kids to constantly correct the spelling of their names. And they still sound “common”. The spelling becomes a nuisance.
Monograms and initials did not even enter my mind when thinking about baby names. (Maybe because my initials never spelled out anything.) Apparently, that is also something should keep in mind. Naming your boy Zach Isaak, when his last name will be Travolta, is not a good omen for the nickname future of your kid (Z I T).
I found a fun quiz online, which assesses your baby-name-picking style. The results said that my naming style was “VINTAGE”, which I totally agree with. “You like a name that’s traditional, but not overused; unique, but not unheard of.” – That describes it perfectly. Unfortunately, that particular quiz is no longer available as of September 2021. However, there are many similar quizzes out there if you are curious to find your baby-name-picking style.
Do you like your name?
(Tu Morrow is another actor’s name. And while it is fun to say: “Tu Morrow. Tomorrow.”, I cannot get past the kids calling him “Three” or “Yesterday”.)
(Oh, and naming your kid North, when her last name will be West is plain silly.)
Stay golden,
***
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One day at a time... 
Heya i’m for the first time here. I came across this board and I find It truly useful & it helped me out a lot. I hope to give something back and help others like you helped me.
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Thanks for stopping by. What did you like most?
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Hi, I follow a couple of name bloggers (like the subject) randomly clicked on yours to find a topic I like! I don’t like my name (boring), my grandmother named me. My husband calls me Ruby, hence Historian Ruby 🙂
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I am glad you did 😉
It’s been on my mind to ask you why you show up as Ruth (Ruby). Now I know. Yes, Ruby is much more sparkly name, I have to agree.
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This is what I am talking about. It seems that the parents name the baby, and that’s where it begins and ends. It’s on the baby, then the child and then the adult to deal with the name the rest of their lives.
This may seem rather elementary or redundant, but in my mind, give the kid a chance. Sure, there is always something to make fun of, but what if your parents tried to eliminate just one. As far as the spelling, this proves to be exhausting. As far as standing out, leave that to the individual to stand out based on their actions, not their name.
Regular names may seem boring to people, but as nicknames and middle names have shown us, many choose to not go by their first name.
We decided to give our children two first names for their first and middle. That way, if they want to, they could go by their first or middle exclusively.
I know how hard a unique name can be from first hand experience. Then again, I feel as if I would be shaming my parents if I decided to legally change it. It’s a double edged sword giving a child a unique name. At times, it seems they are creating challenges rather than helping.
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A great way to sum it all up.
I really liked the “leave that to the individual to stand out” a lot. What if the kid is shy and does not want all the attention?
Changing your name is a bit like a tattoo. In the past, I thought of changing my name, but not because I didn’t like mine, but because I wanted something “special”. I did not even think about how that would make my parents feel. In the end, I decided against it.
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Yeah, I’ve lived with it this long. It is a big deal and it’s not at the same time.
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This blog is worth everyone’s attention. How can I find out more?
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Why thank you.
You can click the follow button, you can subscribe to get emails reminding you about my new posts, you can follow me on Twitter, etc.
I hope to see you around!
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I think ‘Eclipse’ is a great name – for a girl. Call me sexist, and I don’t know why I feel this way, but I don’t think it would suit a boy. The name has a great ring to it 😉
Oh, I disagree; I am not my name, it doesn’t define me. Oh, sure, when communicating in ways that have a legal implication, I’m obliged to use my given name, but it’s not ‘my identity’ in many other areas of life.
For instance, here on the innerwebz, we can (and should, to protect ourselves from fraudsters) choose to use aliases. The moniker ‘pendantry’ is not my legal name, but I use it here, and am recognised by it (and it always makes me chuckle when people misread it as ‘pedantry’). I have several other aliases too.
An interesting twist (one I’ve toyed with over on the MPU) is the question of how you choose to pronounce your name. Language is an odd thing; who’s to say I can’t insist that my given name be pronounced ‘Slartibartfast’, for instance? I did a search to try to find out more, but all I could find was a trivial example of someone who wanted to pronounce her name in an Anglicized way rather than an Arabic way. I’ve just asked a question on StackExchange, hoping to find out whether there are any restrictions on that.
Thank you for stirring my brain! 🙂
PS Dead link alert on the word ‘quiz’ in your post here (towards the end). The site is still there, but that quiz page has disappeared (I wonder why they’d remove it?)
This comment was brought to you courtesy of ?RandomRaiders! 🙂
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On the contrary, I think Eclipse would make a decent male rapper name. Or a female stripper. OK for a stage name but not a “real” one.
Hmmmm… do you dislike your given name? I like mine. I don’t worship it, or have every item in my position branded with it. However, I do feel like my name. It feels weird just thinking I could be *insert a random name that is not my real name*. That’s what I meant by our identities. Some people change their names for a multitude of reasons. If they didn’t think it was important, why wouldn’t they just shrug it off?
My eyes definitely read ‘pedantry’ most of the time when I see a comment from you. Clearly (or maybe not), my legal name is not ‘Goldie.’ I’m not disputing aliases, etc.
I don’t think there are any issues with pronouncing your name any way you like. I laugh sometimes when people ask others to pronounce their names (mostly foreign ones) and then comment on how beautiful it sounds. It’s as if it was a rule for every language to sound better than English. But that’s besides the point.
Thank you. I could not find the very same quiz, so I edited the post. I also corrected some typos and added a signature. Thank you!
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No, I don’t dislike my given name. I suspect that most people are happy with their given names simply because they’re so familiar with them, having been addressed by them since birth. It only becomes an issue if the name causes distress for some reason, as in the case of a friend, who detested the name he’d been given — but that was because he had, unfortunately, a bad relationship with his father.
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I think you’re right in regards to familiarity. When I was younger, I thought of changing my name. It was not because I disliked my given name, but because it meant I could choose my own name instead of be at the mercy of my parents. However, as I got older, I realized that there was no point. Even though I liked other names, I couldn’t think of how it would replace my given name. It would feel ‘strange.’
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