Our parents had six children. My mother deliberately chose names she that liked, but which were not family names. It was her opinion that children should have names that were original to them, and not already associated with someone else they had to live up to. She made a couple of exceptions. My father really wanted his only son to be named Frank after his own father, and he was. Also one of my sisters has the same middle name as my mother's mother. I'm not at all sure how that one slipped in.

For what it's worth, I like my own name very much, though when I was growing up I wanted something fancier or trendier, much as I sometimes wanted to wear dresses with fluffy skirts and ruffles. I had amazingly bad taste as a child.

My mother chose Ann with no "e" on purpose but it has always been a problem so my daughter has the "e" tacked on to hers, which is her middle name anyway.

I joke and say that my parents were so poor that they saved money in the newspaper announcement by omitting one letter. Most people don't "get" it though! Some British ironic humour there...

My father was Donald so I was named Donna after him. My middle name Ellen was his mother's name. My younger sister is Anne (with the "e") after Princess Anne. When I was little I didn't like that she was named after a princess and I wasn't!

Bon, I went to school with a pair of twins named Lori and Loree. Lori had the accent on the first syllable and Loree on the second. Geesh!

Donna

I was named for two aunts, one on either side of the family. I was never close to either aunt. I never liked my double name, as people were always getting it wrong. So when I was working professionally I changed my name to be only the first one. Still, I never liked my double name except when I heard it in Spanish and French. In either of those languages, it is melodious.

Having said this, I always wanted to choose my own name: I am partial to Alice, Alysson, and Fiona. I've no idea why....

My mother named me Virginia after her father's US state. I've always been glad he didn't come from Utah or Arkansas. I think my father just went along with it, but by the time my youngest brother was born, Mother, in a flight of fancy, wanted to call him Tudor. As our surname was Rose this was just too much for Dad who said he was to have a 'proper' English name, so he was called Edward.

Looking back at the names of various ancestors the choice seems so limited. So many Sara's, Harriet's, Eliza's, Henry's, George's.

On the other hand my US male forebears were called very strange (to UK ears) names.

A GG grandfather Leyburn, his brother Corbin, a cousin Claybourne, a Terrel and of course, lots of Lee's . . . several female Mattie's, even an Americus. All making up a rich tapestry I suppose.

Or IDAHO !!

Vee, one of the founders of my little town in central Florida was Americus Minor. Maybe he had an ancestor named Americus Major! LOL

My mother's parents were both from Georgia and both families had ten children, so she had lots of aunts and uncles with interesting southern names such as Pearl, Eualalie, and Bertha. Many of the men had "normal" names but she had uncles named Maurice (pronounced "Morris"), Eustace and Denver.

On my father's side was an aunt named Ludwina.

Donna

The story goes that my parents, in an effort to make my brother like the new sibling, they handed him a baby name book and told him he could choose. He got as far as ANNETTE and then apparently wanted to go outside to play. Oddly enough, my father’s only other serious relationship before meeting my mother was with an older(gasp) woman named Annette. She and my mother actually became fast friends when they met, so my mom okayed the name lol.

My middle name is Constance after my maternal grandmother. When I was a child I hated my names as they were so formal compared to my friends all with cute names like Laura and Jennifer and Stacy. Now I’m good with it.

My first name is Ona. I was named for my maternal grandmother who died when my mother was ten. She was called Ona but her full name was Oceona, said to be an Indian name although there is no Native American blood in the family.

I have never used Ona since my first job when I signed my first overtime slip as Carolyn Married Name. The Personnel Office sent it back saying they didn't have any. They had me listed as Ona Maiden Initial Married Name. Never again.

Donna, over here Maurice and Morris are both pronounced the same way. ie not the French way!

No unusual names in my family. My sister’s middle name honors our grandmothers (both of whom conveniently had the same name), while my name is the result of a search through the baby name book at the hospital on the day I was born.

My mother used to tell me that she had planned to call her first daughter Amy, but when she saw me, she didn't think I was an Amy so she chose Colleen instead. I'm glad because, no offense to the Amys out there, but I don't feel like an Amy either. However, despite that I've never seen anyone named Colleen spell it in any other way, all my life my name has been mangled by others, including my stepfather, who always spelled it "Coleen". I didn't let it bother me :-) My middle name is Ann without the "e", which is unusual here.

Oddly, my younger brother was at one stage married to another "Colleen Ann", which was pretty confusing at times, especially when my mother passed on my SIL's driver's licence renewal to me as at the time my brother and SIL were still having some of their mail sent to Mom's address. At the time I had just given birth to DD and wasn't looking at my mail until it was almost too late to renew the licence. (When I did look at it, I first thought "Why the heck did they send it to Mom's address, I haven't lived there for five years", then "And anyway my licence shouldn't be due for renewal for months yet", and then "And they've even got the DOB wrong", and then the penny dropped :-)

Our DD was named after her paternal grandmother and maternal aunt, who had the same name, though paternal grandmother only uses her name officially as she's had a family nickname since infancy, and her version is misspelled because her father who registered her birth couldn't spell :-) DD has two middle names: a short form of her maternal grandmother's name and her childless paternal aunt's name.

Colleen, I know a "Coleen" here, and even a "Kolleen". :) I went to school with a girl we knew as Suzy, but her real name was Carole Florence. Apparently her mom decided she looked like a Suzy so they started calling her that!

Donna

Although my given name is Yvonne , my parents always called me Bonnie and to this day I never knew why. I have friends who call me Bonnie and others who only know me as Yvonne.

Yvonne, I have a friend whose actual given name is Bonnie, but long ago someone called her Vonnie instead. She liked it and adopted it, so now she's been Vonnie to more people than she ever was Bonnie, although Bonnie is still her legal name.

It's a curious phenomenon linguistically, but some people barely distinguish the "b" and "v" sounds.

My first name is Frieda, but my parents and siblings called me Lenore, my middle name, which my mother bestowed on me because she loved Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." At least it's the German form of Eleanor so it doesn't clash with all my other German names. My late sister-in-law was also named Lenore, because her mother was another fan of "The Raven." We were amused that our mothers had the same romantic notion at about the same time, one in Iowa and the other in South Carolina. To avoid confusion when someone called for Lenore and we would both respond, I chose to become Frieda. Lenore was her first name and was not easily changed, but I had already been Frieda in the first name-middle initial world of school rolls.

Frieda....I have a friend whose daughter's name is Susan and her DIL's name is also Susan. She calls her daughter" Sue "and her DIL "Sue Two " !

Frieda, I've noticed Spanish speakers often pronounce "v" as "b". It seems to be a regional thing.

When I was a kid there was a younger girl named Donna down the street. She ended up being called Donna-me. I think it came from her saying something like, "Not Donna her, Donna me!" (This was many years before Austin Powers.)

Frieda, you've reminded me of when I shared a house with another Colleen. Someone else answered the phone and told me "It's for you." When I took the phone, the man on the other end asked me a question that made no sense. I'm thinking, have I met someone at a party and totally forgotten it (unlikely as I didn't and still don't drink much)? Then he asked another incomprehensible question. The penny dropped. "Oh, you want Colleen X!" The person who answered the phone, when the caller asked for "Colleen", had asked "Colleen Y?" and the caller, figuring there's one to a household and not remembering the surname, said, "Yes".

Another time we went to a night club and these two guys were trying to chat us up. They asked our names. "Colleen." "Colleen." They gave us this look like, If you're going to make up names, couldn't you at least make up different ones?

My MIL has been known as "Babs" since infancy (although it's nothing like her legal name) as she was the "babsy" of the family. To complicate things a little, DH's sister is "Barbara". When my mother met my MIL for the first time, she obviously thought "Babs" was too informal for a first meeting and kept calling her "Barbara". In the kitchen making tea, I said, "Please just call her "Babs". Her name is NOT Barbara. I'll explain later." A little embarrassing.

My parents used the popular names of the day for my first and middle names. Now I often encounter women with my first name and I know that they were born in approximately the same year that I was. Related to the "cost" of having an "e" added to Ann, a friend who had no middle name would often joke that when she was born, her parents were so poor that they could not afford one!

Yoyobon - I am interested to see that you are of Ukrainian ancestry. I am too, although I am far removed from the culture now except for some traditional recipes. Do you speak the language?

My mom didn't have an official middle name, but she used "Ann". I'm not sure why. :)

I have a friend with a daughter named Betsy (not Elizabeth). My friend has had several arguments with DD's teachers who think her given name is Elizabeth. And my sis-IL is Beth, not Elizabeth.

D

My parents also chose names for us that were trendy at the time. All the Sheris I've ever known were born and named within the same small time frame during the 1960s. And the spelling variations are a frustration to this day (Sherry, Shari, Sherrie, Cheri, Sharrye -- the list is endless). My middle name is also Ann with no e, though I wanted to add one desperately, especially after reading Anne of Green Gables.

As I've worked on our family genealogies over the years some memorable names have popped up, mostly female. Whenever a family member is expecting a new baby the list is requested again, though, oddly (ha!), no one has yet used any of them. A few favorites: Argentine, Bathsheba, Desire, Freelove, and the jaunty Tryphosa & Tryphena (twins). The pilgrim-ish names are puzzlers, too: Silence, Thankful, Rest, Remember, Relief (all girls) and one poor boy named Hate-Evil.

Sheri, your pilgrim-ish names made me think of Aunt Peace and Aunt Plenty in Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins. That is my second favorite of her books, right after Little Women, of course. I also like Rose in Bloom and Old Fashioned Girl a lot.

Yoyobon - how lucky you are to have ancestry with delicious traditional food on both sides of your family. My mother was born in Canada and my father came over as a baby just before WW I. I really enjoyed seeing your festive table and hearing about the traditional recipes that you prepare. How I remember my mother's cooking, all done from scratch and all really delicious. Her pierogies were wonderful and she made noodles the old fashioned way - no pasta machine for her. My older sister has developed the touch to make pierogy dough without a recipe, but I have to rely on Martha Stewart's method!

Martha's recipe for the dough is an excellent one . The recipe that I use is: 3 c. flour , 1/2 t salt, 2 T sour cream and then I break an egg into a 1 cup measuring cup then add enough water to equal one cup. Mix together and knead vigourously until smooth ( about 5 min.) Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 minutes. Then roll out and cut as many rounds as you can ( since the second roll out makes for a less yieilding dough, although it is workable).

In Italian families (my mother Italian/French) was traditional to name first born son after fathers father, second after mothers father, first born daughter fathers mother and second mothers mother. My parents did this for my brothers and older sister but I was named after my mothers sister. My sister actually got my paternal grandmothers first name and maternal gm's first name as her middle name...she is Cecilia Rose.

One of my daughters has two young sons, both with the same middle name, Thomas. Their grandfathers on both sides are named Thomas, as are two great-grandfathers (one still living), so she figured she was on to a good thing. Now that is a family name!

My brother was named after our father and his father before him- Thomas [really unusual middle name]. Brother hated his middle name but go figure, named his son the same.

DH's youngest brother and his wife had a boy, the only other grandchild in DH's family besides our DD. They named him after his maternal grandfather, no middle name. I asked why no middle name and they said they couldn't think of one. I couldn't help feeling that his paternal grandfather's name would have been a good start.

I didn't have to think of names for my sons as they were expected to be named for their grandfathers. If I had had a girl I might have considered a name for her outside of ones already in the family. My mother who hated her name told me that if I named a daughter after her she would call that granddaughter something -- anything -- else. My mother-in-law also hated her name. It is a truly awful name, so I wouldn't have been tempted to honor her anyway.

My son and his wife named their daughter, my only grandchild, Abigail Rose Marie. None of those names has been used in my son's side of the family, so I thought they must be family names in my daughter-in-law's side. I wondered why they gave their DD three names instead of the usual two (in the U.S.), although I have English friends whose children and grandchildren have three given names. Turns out that Abigail is a quite trendy name, or it was in 2010, and apparently so was Rose. No, neither name comes from DIL's family, but the Marie was tacked on because dear DIL thinks there's a Marie in there somewhere! I didn't try to understand the logic. My son says he accepted anything his wife wanted since he didn't find any of the names objectionable. I think he was right to do so. Of course we all think our Abigail is the best Abigail Rose Marie in the world.

Rose, I know a husband and wife whose middle names both happen to be Lynn, so they gave both their daughters the middle name of Lynn, too. :)

I love the whole thing of names and naming: meanings, trends, and the aspirations that they express. A name is the first gift parents give to their child after it is born.

Another of our daughters is pregnant now with her first. Even though they think they have a name selected (and I'm fine with the name they chose), I gave her a baby name book to peruse just for the fun of it. Then I told her I wanted it back when she is done so that I can have the pleasure of reading it myself.

Frieda, I edited this to respond to something you said. My first husband and I did something very like what you did. Our son has his father's father's name as a first name, and his mother's father's name as a middle name. Both grandfathers were very pleased. Next he wanted to name our first daughter after his mother, but I put my foot down to 'Maxine'. I told him that his mother didn't even like her own name, so why curse a daughter with it!

Rosefolly, 'Maxine' is a nice, normal name compared to my mother-in-law's which is one of those German names that can only be pronounced correctly by making a gargling sound, something most Americans seldom can accomplish.

Having what some people think is an ungainly combination of names myself, I was attracted to the popular girls' names of my generation. I remember my ballerina doll to whom I gave the glamorous name of Sherry, and my bride doll was Linda.

The most popular feminine names when I was in school were Linda, Debbie (not short for Deborah), Cathy/Kathy (actual given names, not short for Catherine/Katherine), Sharon, and Vicki (not Victoria). I'm amused when all the babies and tots nowadays are called longer, more formal names than their grandmothers/great-grandmothers have..

Kathryn is a trendy name for my age group (nearly 60). Given a choice I would spell it a la Hepburn - Katharine.

I worked in a job in which I needed to write names when I heard them and call them out when I saw them, so vowed to give my children easy names - hence David and Alex.

My middle name is Anne.

my parents named me Massimo and my older brother Mauro, I think because in those years, 60s, they both were fads-name, in Italy. My daughter when she was in high school , some times spoke about a class mate of her and always she called him Lupo (Wolf). Out of curiosity I asked her , what's Wolf first name? She replied it's Wolf his first name.

The neighbor`s kid is named Cornelius. No one forgets his name!

I was named after my paternal grandmother. I was supposed to be Jo the second - same first and middle names and patronymic - but my parents forgot her middle name. She was still pissed about it 40 years later, but I am glad for several reasons, not least the fact that the middle name can easily be twisted into something ugly and would have been by my bullies in when I was at school.

Referring to crazes in children's names, I happen to know a couple of Braydens, Caden, Cayden, Haydon, Peyton, Vadon... All born in the last eight years or so. And then some of the names of my students are quite tough to say. Variety makes the world go round, but it can be hard to take role sometimes!