{"id":13328,"date":"2018-04-09T10:26:48","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T14:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13328"},"modified":"2018-04-10T08:44:32","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T12:44:32","slug":"baby-naming-issue-pre-christian-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/04\/09\/baby-naming-issue-pre-christian-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Pre-Christian Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

I have a weird question. My boyfriend and I have very different naming styles. I like classic, but perhaps underused names like:<\/p>\n

Beatrice
\nAlice
\nFrances<\/p>\n

George
\nArthur
\nCharles<\/p>\n

(Basically, I like classic names that are currently coming back into fashion.)<\/p>\n

My boyfriend, on the other hand, insists on \u201cpre-Christian\u201d names because he doesn\u2019t feel comfortable with names that remind him of Western expansion. Here are some examples that he finds acceptable:<\/p>\n

Freya
\nSigurd
\nArtemis<\/p>\n

Sigmund
\nTorvald
\nAksel<\/p>\n

I hope you can get a sense of our competing styles. Particularly for boys names, I am having difficulty finding any compromise names. Do you have suggestions?<\/p>\n

We live in the US! Thank you!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yes, I certainly do get a sense of your competing styles. And here is the problem: YOU are choosing baby names for babies born in your own country and time period; HE is choosing philosophies. It’s hard to see where compromise can get a foot in when it’s not “Hm, no, that one’s not really my style” but instead “Hm, no, that one reminds me of Western Expansion.” I can’t help with his naming style, or with whatever the issues are that underlie his style. Furthermore, I notice that the Acceptable names on his list are…not widely international.<\/p>\n

My hope is that we are talking here about someone who is Quite Young, possibly a college student taking some classes that are really blowing his mind right now, and that there is still hope for this to be the kind of thing we all laugh about later. A friend of mine is married to a guy who during their dating years was set on animal names (Fox, Bear, Wolf, etc.) for all sons (he did not persist in this wish), and I have a good story about Paul wanting to name a daughter Fenchurch. Or maybe your boyfriend is a serious and thoughtful and well-intentioned global thinker who is trying really hard to do the right thing in every area of his life. Or maybe he just has this one funny little quirk that makes him look bad taken out of context like this. But this letter makes me want to ask you a bunch of follow-up questions about other philosophies of his and what else he considers acceptable\/unacceptable, and then ask you earnestly if this is what you want for your life. I’m sorry: this isn’t the answer you were asking for. But your letter made my hands go cold and my mouth go dry. From time to time there have been other letters that have given me a similar reaction, but when the writer is already married and pregnant, it’s too late for there to be any point in me saying so.<\/p>\n

Well. *brushes off hands* Let’s see if there are some among us who DO know about pre-Christian, non-Western-Expansion-related names and would be happy to finally have a chance to discuss them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! I have a weird question. My boyfriend and I have very different naming styles. I like classic, but perhaps underused names like: Beatrice Alice Frances George Arthur Charles (Basically, I like classic names that are currently coming back into fashion.) My boyfriend, on the other hand, insists on \u201cpre-Christian\u201d names because he doesn\u2019t […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3sY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13328","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=13328"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13340,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13328\/revisions\/13340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}