{"id":7243,"date":"2008-05-15T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2008\/05\/15\/daemon\/"},"modified":"2008-05-15T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-16T00:00:00","slug":"daemon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2008\/05\/15\/daemon\/","title":{"rendered":"Daemon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate writes:<\/p>\n

Help! My fiance’s cousin has named her baby Daemon. With an e. Pronounced like Damon, Dame-On. To me, daemon means demon. Not Damon.<\/p>\n

Has Daemon become an acceptable alternative to Damon? Is it just those of us with a knowledge of Greek who instantly think demon? Or am I right, and this kid’s going to be called Devil…?<\/p>\n

If it’s the former, how would you go about raising it? Would you raise it at all?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I, too, immediately think “demon.” According to Wikipedia<\/a>, the spelling “daemon” means something a little different. WHAT it means is still unclear to me: that particular Wikipedia entry I couldn’t quite understand even after reading it three times. Well, and it doesn’t really matter, does it, if a daemon can be good or bad while a demon is always bad? The name is still making at least you and me (and probably others) think immediately of demons.<\/p>\n

Now, as to how I’d raise the issue with the new parents. I wouldn’t raise it. If someone were pregnant and considering the name Daemon and asked my opinion, I might say something, although I’d be verrrrrry careful saying it: I don’t know if everyone is like this, but I’m touchy and defensive about names I like, so I’d assume the same about the person I was talking to, just in case.<\/p>\n

But if the baby is born and the name is given, I don’t think I’d utter a single peep. It will be difficult not to say anything, but the chances of them changing the baby’s name at this point are slim to none, and the chances of them shooting the messenger are high. Either they know and they did it on purpose (are they mythology buffs? gamers? computer geeks?), or they’re oblivious and not likely to be seeking enlightenment. At this point, it’s Game Over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kate writes: Help! My fiance’s cousin has named her baby Daemon. With an e. Pronounced like Damon, Dame-On. To me, daemon means demon. Not Damon. Has Daemon become an acceptable alternative to Damon? Is it just those of us with a knowledge of Greek who instantly think demon? Or am I right, and this kid’s […]<\/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-7243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3iyiG-daemon","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7243","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=7243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}