{"id":12088,"date":"2016-05-05T10:33:55","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T14:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12088"},"modified":"2016-07-23T19:22:13","modified_gmt":"2016-07-23T23:22:13","slug":"baby-naming-issue-does-it-honor-someone-to-choose-that-persons-favorite-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2016\/05\/05\/baby-naming-issue-does-it-honor-someone-to-choose-that-persons-favorite-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Does it Honor Someone to Choose that Person’s Favorite Name?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello! I know you are probably inundated with requests, but… I have been twirling this issue around in my own mind until I’m about going crazy, and I wondered if a another perspective or two would be helpful. Your recent post about how to honor an Adolf<\/a> and what naming practices are actually honorific made me think of writing to you.<\/p>\n

I’m due with a baby girl in July. I have always liked the name Charlotte, but when it zoomed up the charts I totally crossed it off my personal list. Logically I know that popularity isn’t what it used to be, and that no name (even the #1 name) is going to be like Jennifer in its heyday. But still, I admit to feeling a bit superior to people who use names in the top ten, as though they were lacking in imagination or something.<\/p>\n

Until. I was talking to my grandmother the other day about names and casually mentioned Charlotte (actually more as a red herring than anything, since I didn’t feel like sharing names I was seriously considering). She responded that it had been the favorite name of my great-grandfather as it had been his own mother’s name. I guess he loved it enough that he even used to offer each of his children\/grandchildren $50 to name their daughters Charlotte! (There were no takers; there are no Charlottes even in my very large extended family.) Now, this great-grandpa was very important to me and lived with our family from when I was 14 until 17. I loved him dearly and have wanted to honor him in my one of my children’s name in some way (although his name of Loy Frank left me puzzled of the best way to do that, since “Loy” and “Frank” were not my favorite options).<\/p>\n

So, now I’m feeling much more torn. I feel like giving my baby the name Charlotte might honor a man whom I loved very much by giving her his favorite name, plus it’s a family name since it belonged to his mother. It’s a name I like anyway (probably because it’s the great-great-grandmother’s name, rather than anything less distant!). And I kind of love the story that he offered to give his posterity $50 to use it. However, I’m not sure how much of an honor name that it would actually be – it’s his favorite name, not his own name after all.<\/p>\n

So I suppose my question is this – do you feel like using a favorite name is enough of an honor that it would override popularity concerns? Does the fact that he essentially campaigned for the name to be used by his posterity make it more honorific? I feel like if the situation had been that it was my beloved great-grandmother named Charlotte herself, rather than my beloved great-grandfather whose favorite name was Charlotte, there would be no question that popularity would be over-riden. However, is the “honor” of a favorite name great enough to override the consideration of popularity? I am especially curious since Charlotte, while a classic, has certainly been “spikey” (for lack of a better term) recently and could easily head to #1. I am unsure if that name will tie her to a time period in a way that another classic, but less “spikey,” name would do. I know I could move it to the middle spot and that would solve the popularity problem, but that feels to me like it removes the honor in this situation since his wish was clearly to have one of his own posterity use that name as the first name, not the middle.<\/p>\n

I would love to hear any ideas you may have. My husband doesn’t get interested in thinking about names until a few weeks before birth, so he’s not really any help and I’m kind of going crazy trying to consider it all on my own. For what it’s worth, her older brothers are Colton David and Graham Jacob; their firsts are names we loved, their middles are after my husband Dave and my maiden name of Jacobs (I ditched the “s” to avoid having him sound like a law firm with three surname-names). I’d love any thoughts you have! Thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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My usual test is to ask “Does this name make you think of the honoree?” My guess, just reading your letter, is that from now on, every time you hear the name Charlotte, you are going to think of that story about your great-grandfather, whether or not you use the name yourself. So my short answer is yes, in this case I think it works as an honor name, and since you liked it ANYWAY, I think this could give you that last little shove.<\/p>\n

I think the story of your great-grandfather offering money to his descendants makes a great naming story. Many of us are not close to our great-grandparents, but you were, and this seems like a fun way to remember him, especially since you are not keen on his actual names. Plus, it was his mother’s name. I think I would tell the story roughly as it happened: “We loved the name Charlotte but felt it might be too popular to use. Then I found out this family story, and that was enough to push us into using it.”<\/p>\n

But you may find as you think about it over the next few months that it’s NOT enough to give you that last little shove. You’re right about the name’s recent popularity (it was #10 in 2014; within the next few days we should be finding out from the Social Security Administration<\/a> how the name was ranked in 2015) [follow-up: #9 in 2015], and that may continue to bother you even with this added reason to overlook it. Or you may find you like the other names on your list more, and that they meet more of your preferences.<\/p>\n

As you know, I am not especially keen on messing too much with honor names for my own use. But I don’t mind playing around a bit with other people’s options. For example, Francesca Loy would be a pretty cute name: uncommon, great nicknames including Frank and Frankie. Colton, Graham, and Francesca.<\/p>\n

I think Loy in general makes a workable middle name. Possibly not one we might choose out of a baby name book on its own merits, but a definite honor name, and one that appeals to me as a middle name with many girl names. Margaret Loy. Carrigan Loy. Fiona Loy. Audra Loy. Piper Loy. Delaney Loy. Ruby Loy. Miranda Loy. Harriet Loy. Eleanor Loy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name update:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello! I emailed you a few months ago about whether using someone’s favorite name would be considered an honor name. Our baby girl was born a few days ago and a day after she was born we finally settled on her name. After all that time I spent worried about picking a name that was too popular, it’s kind of funny to me that both the names we gave her are in the top 50: Charlotte Ella. I loved Charlotte and it is meaningful enough to me that I wanted to give her that name despite its popularity, and Ella is her daddy’s favorite name that he really wanted to use. Thank you to you and your readers for reassuring me that hopefully she will find her name meaningful, as I do, rather than trendy. In the end, we both got to use our favorites and we love her name. We plan on calling her Charlotte sometimes and Lottie sometimes, and we feel it suits her perfectly. Thanks again!<\/p>\n

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Hello! I know you are probably inundated with requests, but… I have been twirling this issue around in my own mind until I’m about going crazy, and I wondered if a another perspective or two would be helpful. Your recent post about how to honor an Adolf and what naming practices are actually honorific made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-38Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12088"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12247,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12088\/revisions\/12247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}