names

[metaphortunate]

Naming babies is hard though. Rocket spent several memorable hours as No-Ass McGee. (He has no ass. He is a tiny little frog baby, just like his big brother was. Now, of course, the Junebug is an enormous plump meaty toddler. When we change his underwear or diaper we silently marvel at dat ass. Was it really that small once? How many sausages have we fed this boy?) Rocket is also sometimes known as the Magneto Burrito because he spends a lot of time swaddled and squinting pouchily up at me over my boob, looking really unnervingly like a tiny Sir Ian McKellen.

Comments

[metaphortunate]

I would have LOVED to find a good gender-neutral name that didn't sound weird and WASPy as all hell with my last name, but we just weren't able to. Same problem with most nature names, which I otherwise love.

Ethyl would be a hilarious name to give anybody.

No. No Jayden. Brayden, Aidan, Cayden, etc., etc....

[veejane]

I vaguely suspected Joss Whedon's real name was Jocelyn till I found out otherwise. Alas, I think the era of male Jocelyn, Evelyn, and Marion is now completely past.

I'm a little surprised at how gendered nature names are, but I guess the ones I think of as suitably ambiguous are also the ones that aren't commonly used as names: Ash, Birch. I know of two male Rowans (both British), but am pretty sure I know of female ones too. You could get into birds (Robin! Heron!) or the Latin names for flowers (Aster! Crocus!) but things get outlandish from there.

(If you named your child Aquilegia Passerine, I will love you forever.)

[tam_nonlinear]

My mother, the veterinary pathologist, once opined that Lucillia serecata was a lovely sounding names and it was such a pity it was the taxonomic name of a species of blow fly.

[veejane]

I am partial to the hoopoe, Upupa Epops, but I don't think any human child could survive the third grade with a name like that.

Still. Upupa Epops. It just makes me happy to say it.

[amaebi]

Now, please consider Upupa Epops Jr.

[metaphortunate]

I will have to do without eternal love. We named our child something he won't spend his life spelling.

(Well, the first name. Can't do much about the last name.)