Names

[moongirlk]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Kathryn" <kcawte at k...> wrote:
> But secondly I was wondering if you guys had any thoughts on the 
subject, knew people who had given their kids odd names, have names 
you love/hate, suggestions for names and what sort of impression the 
name would give you. 


Names names names!  What great fun!  Let me warn you you've let the 
genie out of the lamp and I intend to ramble on for ages.

I love names - they're fascinating, and having Moon for a last name 
just reinforces the fascination for me.

So here we go - I love my last name, but I don't think my first name 
suits me much, and my middle name is a mistake.  My mom thought she 
was naming me after my dad's mother, because she'd seen her doodling 
her name one day and she'd written it Alyce.  Turns out she's just 
regular old Alice, and I'm stuck with an odd y in the middle of my 
name.  Mom wanted to name me April until my dad reminded her that 
they'd missed the whole hippie thing by being whitebread 
midwesterners, and thus naming a child April Moon was out of 
character.  I'm still bitter - I would have loved it.

When you're called Kimberly, everyone (t really is nearly *everyone*) 
shortens it to Kim.  I meet complete strangers in a business setting, 
introduce myself as Kimberly, and in the very next breath the person 
says "Hi, Kim, how are you?"  And yet I persist in calling myself 
Kimberly, not out of obstiance (ok, maybe just a little bit of 
obstinance), but because when a person sees the name "Kim Moon", they 
expect me to be Korean, and there's all sorts of confusion when I 
turn out not to be.  I have, in fact, been accused of being an 
imposter when my boss signed me up for a conference as Kim Moon.  Why 
someone would pretend to be a Korean girl to get into a conference on 
helpdesk turnover I just don't know.

And as for nicknames, I've been called:

Moony (most often), something in common with my beloved Remus!
Moonbeam
Moondoggie
Moonunit
Moonpie - for some reason guys like to call me this as a 'pet name'

Friends of mine also have been labeled Moonies by association, which 
I doubt they appreciated, but which made me feel special (like I'm 
the ringleader!).

The only unpleasant bits come from those grasping at ways to be 
sleazy ("hey - who was the man on the moon this weekend?"), and from 
people who are drunk, high, or in large groups acting stupid.  I have 
seen way more than my fair share of bums, let me tell you.  

But on to names that aren't mine!

There are lots of interesting names in my family, most not even on 
the Moon side, although a couple of years ago I learned that my 
grandfather's grandmother was named Lily Moon, which is a great 
relief because now if I ever have a daughter I finally have a name in 
mind (never could come up with a female name that I liked enough to 
give it to my own kid, should I have one).

Back to my Mom's side of the family, my mother is Beatrice Louise 
(O'Bryan) Moon - called Be-be by her mom and brothers and Bea by 
everyone else.  Her dad and oldest brother are Delmar Eugene O'Bryan, 
Her mom is Rhoda Catherine (McDaniel) O'Bryan.  Even better, Rhoda 
had twin girl cousins who were named Olie and Onie. (that's Oh-lee, 
not Olly), and her father's name was Icy Delmar McDaniel (note that 
my grandmother's father and husband are *both* Delmars - very 
strange).  

My mother is petrified that someday I'll have a son, because I've 
told her if I do I'll be naming him William Icy after my dad (sadly 
no relation to William Least-Heat Moon, as far as I can tell) and her 
grandfather, and that I fully intend to call him Chilly Willy, like 
the cartoon penguin.  

The only problem with this plan is that if I have a daughter too, and 
name her Lily, I'll have Willy and Lily, and I hate it when that 
happens.  So he'll have to be Will except when I'm picking on him.

Other interesting names I've encountered:

Klheber (or Khleber, not sure which) Van Zant.  His brother and 
sister were plain old Lori and Willie, don't know how he got to be 
the Klheber, but it suited him, and he had fun with it and was never 
the least bit traumatized by the odd name as far as I can tell.

Another boy from highschool was, honestly, called Super Hapke.  I 
think it's possible that he had a different name on his birth 
certificate, but all his school stuff was as Super.  He too seemed 
well-adjusted, and was very funny.  Don't know if he had Superman 
jammies, but now the word super is looking so wrong to me that I had 
to go type it in Word and spell-check it.

And there was Han Petrie - she was an exchange student from Belgium, 
but was of Asian descent.  Would be a clever name for a teaching 
assistant in a potions lab, no?

I also knew a guy who went by Boomer, because his real name was 
Roland Robert Ricketts III (I think it was Robert, I know it was 
another R.), and a guy who was really named Rocky.  

Then there was a group of kids from the city who had cool names, my 
favorite of which was Mona Lisa Moore.  She was a cool person too - 
she sat next to me in all things alphabetical and was always so 
together and had a great sense of style.  There was also Mesha and 
Shonda (f), and Antuan (m)(who's last name was Dixon, and I always 
thought Antuan Dixon would be a great soap opera name).

We also had the midwestern US equivalent to Laveder Brown, a girl 
who's name was Khaki Kelly.

But more interesting girls names cropped up in college.  First was  
the "girls named after their father" category, and includes Kenna, 
Johna, Bobbie, Markie and Juana.

Then there was Ginnylou Stucey, AmySue Todd (who wanted to be called 
Rain) and Lauralee something or other.

In the category of girls who dated guys I knew and were sometimes a 
pain, there was:
M'liss Billingsley- really, and you pronounce it just like it's 
spelled.
Nara something - who was very nice until they broke up, and who, I 
think, was named after the ancient capital of Japan, but who was not 
at all Japanese as far as I could tell.

At work, there used to be a French guy named Fabrice Perrier, which 
sounds like a name somebody would make up to sound French, but is 
actually real, and a girl named Farrah Lepper.  I curently work with 
a group we call the UN because we have people from Senegal, France, 
Mexico, China and Erethria, so the names are interesting if you like 
international names.

>From China:  Alex Liu (m)
>From France:  Guillaume Pelud (m)
>From Mexico: Eduardo Puchot (m)
>From Erethria:  Semhar Petros (f)
>From Senegal: Mame Demba Fall (m) - Mame is pronounced "mom"
        Mamadou "Pape" Diallo (m) - Pape is pronounced "pop" - really!
        Madogal Tall (m) 

And while we're on international names, I'll toss in my highschool 
boyfriend who was from Ecuador - 
Diego Rudolpho Andreas Perez y Puig-Mir - I don't know why the 'y' is 
for, but I used to love to make him say the whole thing, although 
Diego Perez was all he really used.

When I was studying in Brussels there was a guy named Vladimir who 
was not all that good looking, but was overwhelmingly sexy 
nonetheless, but Vladimir might be a little over-the-top as a 
Slytherin name.  Still, thinking back, mmmm...

Of my Mauritian friends, the names are mostly very Anglicized in this 
generation, but still some are cool.  David and Cynthia Romeo, for 
example, are a brother and sister that stayed with me for a week.  
Also Danny Rock, who's middle name is James - DJ Rock - Great radio 
name, huh?  The previous generation is full of people called Marie-
Helene, Marie-Noel, Marie-France, etc.  

That's all I can think of at the moment, and I bet you're all glad.

Kimberly
who was encouraged by everyone in her second grade class to marry 
classmate Jason Kim so she could be named Kim Kim.