runlikejoy

Displaced Stay At Home Californian in rural N. Carolina

The Many Faces of Joy

The Many Faces of Joy

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Name

My favorite time of year has rolled around and that is the time that kids are back in school.  I love it for so many reasons but the first reason I love it is because I get to spend a lot of time in kindergarten with 4, 5 and 6 year olds and listen to them, talk to them, watch them, help them and it is wonderful.  It also helps that I have a child in kindergarten so it makes my trips to kindergarten personal and being a part of my child's learning process is so important to me.

I am tickled to find that popular culture has such a big part of the names people choose for their kids.  In one of my kids classes there is a child named Hermoine which is the name of the central most important female in Harry Potter.  While I love the character in the books and the movies I have to say that I'm surprised by this choice in names.  And also there is another kid in school named Aragorn which probably means his parents watched Lord of the Rings and fell in love with that character.  

My husband claims the name Gabriel because his mother loved a Joan Baez song by that name.  And I know a guy whose parents named him after Cary Grant.  I am pretty sure I was named Joy because it rhymed with Roy but I've heard there was also a college friend out there who was very bubbly and happy named Joy.  I've yet to meet her.  Of course when I made mention of this to a friend they pointed out that Fiona was also a movie name and I had to scratch my head and think . . . . . . oh damn that is right, Shrek!  I promise a million times we didn't name her after a green Ogre from the movie Shrek.

I guess that means everyone having babies right now will be looking at this list:

Merida
Once-ler
Katniss
Peeta
Effie
Everdeen
Gale
Gru
Vector

Where did your name come from?  And how did you pick out names for your kids or your pets?  And what did you wish your parents named you?  I always wanted to be called Nicole until I was 18 or so.  I'm glad I stuck with Joy because it has served me well.  And it still rhymes with Roy.

3 comments:

Lauren said...

That's funny, my middle name is Nicole and I never really liked it on me. Maybe because the sounds run together: Lauren Nicole. It does make me sound sort of French, though.

Ilse said...

Nice post! There are dozens of girls my age named Ilse in
Belgium, so it wasn't very special but over here I get a lot of comments of how pretty it sounds. Makes me feel unique :-)

Angela said...

When I called 911 to report Adele missing, the sheriff's dispatcher said "Adele? Like the singer?" So it even has gotten to that level, even when I'm hysterically searching for my missing daughter, the singer comes up. I had never heard of her when we picked the name, and I thought it was unique while still being a traditional name. Now it's just a pop culture fad name. Boo!