Personal Status Update!

[Sister Jennifer]

Named after place of conceivement?

Hello, my name is Tent.

[The Mad Collector]

I sell several pocket money priced things in the shop with names on and the number of small kids who look longingly at them whilst their parents say "Well you won't find your name there" or "Oh they will spell it the normal way" is amazing. Or grandparents will start collecting the little named notepads off the stand and you see them work through one set of names and then the next then put them all back because there isn't a Ptarmigan, July, Misty or Roger spelt with a silent W. I made the last one up, the others are true even the little girl called July, apparently she was due in June and her parents had settled on that as her name but she was a few days late and they didn't have the brains to call her Julie (This was what the grandmother said to me anyway)

If the child is present the worst follow up line by the parent is "Well your name is special". The standard response to this appears to be "I don't want to be special I want to have something with my name on like the others"

[michelanCello]

Ooooow, I know that feeling! I never had my name on those mugs, teddies, little dinosaurs, scarfs, whatever, which didn't stop me from looking every time, just in case, even though I knew it wouldn't be there... still, one can hope
Also, here in Hungary you've got so-called "name days", which is like a birthday, only you're celebrating your name... every day has a name (though most have two, usually a girl and a boy), and some names are twice (sometimes even three times (!!) per year, not fair! If you want to make your kid happy, call him Pál though usually, you pick just one then... which is all the more confusing, because I for instance am really bad at remembering people's name-days, so when I happen to hear on the radio that it's for example Ágnes day, and I call her to wish her happy name-day, she goes like, well, thank you, but I celebrate it in March ). Anyway, Michaela is of course not on the list, so I don't actually have a name-day... even though there are a LOT of bizarre names on that list, like Zsaklin (Jaquelin, spelled Hungarian )* So in my family, we celebrate Lilla (my second name) just to have something to celebrate, but no one else ever remembers that I'm called Lilla too, so it usually gets forgotten...




*Found you a list! http://www.hungarianreference.com/Hungarian-name-day-nevnap-magyar-n%C3%A9vnapok-nevnapok.aspx It's awful, there's even an Apollonia! Pity about the car...

[The Mad Collector]

Oh yes Hungarian name days, one morning when I worked there I surprised Attila who was my senior trainer for the staff (I trained a group of trainers how to use the system and they trained everybody else) by wishing him a happy name day as nobody he had ever met who wasn't Hungarian had even heard of the idea never mind when each day was.

The internet is a wonderful thing

Most unfair of your parents to give you a name not on the list

[michelanCello]

Nah, it's OK being half-dutch makes up for it

[Broccolee]

I tried for names that weren't on the list of most favourite names here,that were simple to pronounce in German and English and without any mad spelling.I also tried to find names that have a nice meaning (as opposed to "horn of antimony' and 'little cow).
So my children's names,for instance,mean "friendly,kind leader', 'he who hears the name of god',little princess brave and strong' and 'allencompassing,healing joy' .

[Ghost]

awwww that's cute
my name means reflected light or clear illuminated

[Batty]

My name means 'youthful'. I suppose it gives me an excuse not to act my age!!!

[Broccolee]

Did you need one?

[chris.ph]

men dont we never act our age unless we are 17 at the time, but women need an excuse to act friviously

[Del]

I am sure I ahve posted this before..... but here goes..

When H was younger she had to have ALOT of tests done for her I.I. evaluations.

One of the tests she did was to evaluate her "maturity age" Part of it was to have one of the staff testing her to apparently FART LOUDLY and see what she did. She laughed! She split her sides laughing.... as is supposed to happen to a three year old. Thing was... the observing doctor and the other man i nthe room also had fits of giggling.

The lady doctor who was sitting with me was explaining the tests. She said that a child will laugh at a fart joke until a certain age then its not SO funny because they realise its manners not to and they worry if they should even acknowledge it.... there was a scale for how much they found it funny, etc.

Then she looked at the giggling men and said "Strange thing is... girls seem to grow out of it or use social manners to cover their laughter.... BOYS on the other hand (looking at the guys) never seem to grow out of laughing at it so we use this test mainly for girls"

[Batty]

[Broccolee]

Well I must admit that she's right,or else my 14 and16 year old boys both have a maturity age of about three....

....hang on though,that does seem about right....

[Del]

This thread got me thinking the other day so I hit a few shops to see WHAT names are on those "personalised" things.

Yes to Michaela and Emma.... and no they didnt have anything... because they were all sold out!!!

Look in this day and age anything can be made up with digital thingie stuff.

I never had anything when young because my name is unusual... M sees some stuff occasionally and H's is always boys stuff.. not girls. (though some counties get that her name CAN be a girls) Its not going to scar a child if they dont have a personalised pencil.

Though IF they do have an unusual name there can be those little moments........

I got a pack of these real fruit juices for Truly... my oldest daughter She thought it was so cool.



I think that name day in Hungary is so unfair ! How must people feel if they dont have a common name? Does it pressure people to call their children common names.. especially if they felt left out as kids... raises alot of interesting psychological questions.

[cheery_j.]

The name day thing is just very old fashioned. It made sense in the Middle ages when most people just got the name of the Saint on whose commemoration day they were baptised. You didn't celebrate the day of your birth, but the day of your baptism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_day