11 replies to this topic

[MellyMade]

How does everyone feel about bestowing honor names upon children? Do you think it's a nice way to recognize important people in your life, or do you think children should receive their "own" names?

[Jay.]

I love it. For instance, my favorite names. Joy Aurora Marie, Joy is my favorite girls name of all time, Aurora is in memory of Aurora Colorado, and Marie is a family name. So if I do get to use this name, my daughter will have have her own name! Same with my favorite boys name: Liam Courage Zayne. Liam is my favorite boys name, yet a member of my favorite band is named Liam, Courage is a name I adore and Zayne is after Bruce Wayne who is batmans alter ego, and Zayn is also a member of my favorite band and I adore the name. Another example from my list is Benedict Holden Judah. I fell head over heals in love with Benedict when I was lookin for names that started with BE. Holden I have always likes and I wanted a name that started with HOLD, so he would have BE HOLD in his name. This honors my aunt in a long round about way. I also love the meaning of Benedict Holden Judah: Blessed, Gracious and Praised.

[BabyNameRater]

I like it too. Everyone in my family is named after at least one person. I was named after my grandfather and uncle, my brother is P.W.T the VIII (8th)!!! (I only used his initials there but he shares his name with 7 direct ancestors including our father) my half-sister is named after my uncle, my half-brother shares his first name with his father, my next half sister is named for her great grandmother and my youngest half sister is named after my grandfather and my Nana.

My daughters MN, Rose, is a very prominent name in my family and it honors many people who I am close to. My son will be Benjamin Todd and Benjamin is the name of my great grandfather who was a very important man in our family and Todd is my fiances brother.

So all of us have our own name, but at the same time it honors people we love and care about. My brother is extremely proud to carry on his name and has already decided that his first son will be P. W. T the IX (9th). In our family it is an important tradition to honor those who came before us and loved us.

[Permanent Rose]

I'm not the hugest fan, to be honest. I think its much for fun to come up with a combo based purely on what your taste is rather than locking yourself in with a family name. However, I understand that many people have the tradition of passing on family names, rather it be the whole name, first name, or middle name - I more supportive of it when it involves a deceased family member, but even then, there's something so great about using a combo that wasn't influenced by family names.

I have Declan Robert (Robert is my dad's name) on my list, and I hope to use Kathleen (my best friend's name) as a middle for something, and while those do recognize people important to me, they're on my list because I like them, not because I had to put them there - they just happen to honor people I'm close to in the process. Other names of my list that may end up honoring people or characters or something along those lines, its because I have found I like the name so much that I'll put it on my list. It may happen to honor someone, but I want to like the name to be one I like foremost, or else I wouldn't want to force it in there unless I had great reason

[Jay.]

^^ I definitely see where your coming from! I love using names that honor, but I will only use them I I truly love them!!

[Remy Hadley]

I think either way is find, honoring, their own name, or a mix of both!

Personally, I'd love to honor a couple of people in the middle name slot of my childrens names. I already have Jade picked for my first girls middle name, after Mikes grandmother. He loves the idea as he's really close to her, and I am pretty fond of her as well so I am liking it. We'll just pair Jade with whatever first name we decide on.

Yet its not a problem if parents would rather come up with a separate name they love for their child to have "their own" name.

I like it when people use forms of a name as well. IE maybe Great Grandpa Willard, Grandpa Willard, and daddy Willard all want to honor family tradition, but you just can't grasp using Willard... so you use William. Still a "Will" name, so its partially honoring. But you get a separate name you love. And you don't anger the Willards.

Theres so much you can do with names, and it excited me honestly! This is one of them <3 Trying to fit an honoring name into a combo

[Fez]

I love the idea of honouring someone you care about.

My grandmother used to say that being remembered by her children, her grandchildren and great grandchildren was the biggest honour someone could hope for because it would mean you did things right. Being remembered fondly by your family and loved ones was more important than making history or being famous. I like her point of view.

I plan on using my grandmother's name as a middle name if I ever have a child, because she was a very important person in my life.

Having said that, I agree with Rose. I think honouring someone or carrying on a family tradition when naming your children should only be done if you care for it and you like the name you've picked. Doing it because it's what you are supposed to do would not make any sense at all.

And as Remy said, honouring someone doesn't necessarily mean you must use the exact name. There are many ways in which you can honour someone.

[Meghan<3]

I like it, but if I were to honor a family member, I would do so in the middle name spot only. I would want my kid to have their own first name that I love regardless of whether it honored anyone.

[MellyMade]

Thanks for the responses everyone! I asked this because I can foresee this becoming an issue in the future. If my guy and I have children, I'm guessing we won't have more than two. There are so many people I want to honor (my best friend, grandpa, & favorite aunt), and I assume he'd like to use family names as well. Most of them have names or variations of their names that I like/love, so that helps, but how do you decide who to leave in and who to leave out? What about names I like that don't honor anybody?

I know it's silly to fret about it before we're even ttc, but as someone obsessed with names, I think about it a lot.

[Permanent Rose]

So I was falling asleep as I posted last night, so please excuse some of the loopy bits, lol. I know it got a little shaky there at the end.

Anyway, Fez, I really like what you said about your grandmother and her view. Naming is one of the great ways to honor those we love, and it really can mean something so special, so I'm certainly not opposed to it, even though many of my names don't take that route.

Also, I think when you have a very influential person in your life like that, their name just holds a certain appeal to you that it wouldn't have without the connection to that person. My combo, Helen Juliet, is for my art teacher who passed away, whose name was Helen. To me, Helen is a beautiful and strong name because of her and the impact she had on my life - I say I'd use Helen because I really do like it and I love the nn Len, but perhaps I wouldn't have felt drawn toward Helen so much if I had not had my art teacher. So I think naming can really be a true mix of honoring and choosing names that we like, because sometimes they really end up overlapping because of the emotional aspect involved

[The Future Mrs B]

I went through a phase where each of my combos had to honor someone. Part of it came from my boyfriend's family (each kid has at least 1 honoring name). We had Brian Robert (his uncle & my dad), Kristen Summer (my cousin), Isaiah James (my uncle) and Chad Eric II (his dad).
The only name left out of that is Kristen Summer because it's someone who meant something to both of us. Other than that name we pick names we like, honoring someone is just an added bonus.

[Puppylover12397]

I'm Jewish so part of my culture is we name after family members but, the way we do it is we use the first inital of their name. So I have the initials S, P, L, I & C from my already deceased family members, my uncle, paternal grandfather, maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother and my step-grandfather. They come from the names Samuel, Philip, Lillian, Ilene & Charles. It is customery to not use the exact same name as the person you are naming for.

In example,I would like to name my first child for uncle Sam and my grandmother Ilene which is why the first names on each of my list has the initals S.I. Stefen Isaac and Scarlett Ivy.