Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here

I know three Olivers (teen, tween, and feline).

Gretchen is interesting - I know one my age. But I think it started as a nickname for Margarethe, as did Greta and Gretel.

griselda - c/d?

(very classic round these parts. instant cool afaic)

classic, great witch name

my family is full of margarethes but they all go for rita instead of gretchen or greta which I didn't even realise were derivations

wow peggy is also from margaret - how deep does this rabbit hole go?

I still don’t really understand how you get Peggy from Margaret

I thought Molly might be from Margaret but apparently it's from Mary... which I didn't know, so I'm in the right place.

Peggy is iirc one of the names that comes from a vogue for rhyming shortened versions of names, so you get Richard -> Rick -> Dick and Margaret -> Meg -> Peg

... and Bill?

... and Boab! Sorry, Bob.

Yeah that’s the other one I was trying to think of xp

There’s a kid named Oliver next door!

I have a friend who is 40-ish and her mom briefly wanted to name her Dorchas, until saner minds talked her out of it

Dorcha means ‘dark’ in Irish, but I’m guessing “Dorchas” is pronounced “dorkiss” which dorcha is not, and which would be butchered by other people anyway.

note that in the 80s calling someone a “dork” and other formulations like “dorkus” were common

it’d be like naming your kid nerd

I’m misspelling, it was probably Dorcas

I knew someone who had to be talked out of naming their daughter lolita- it's not the name's fault that people are disgusting but why on earth would you do that to your child

turns out margaret is like the brassica oleracea of names. maybe mary/maria has more variants but so many of them are similar it feels like cheating

yeah, Lolita isn’t great

I’m on the fence about names that are derivatives but then become their own names. Sometimes goes well, sometimes terrible. Lolita is just the diminutive of Dolores!

this is my new obsession I'm drawing string between all the names and their variants and diminutives (did you know *this* name comes from this other name that sounds nothing like it but is unrelated to this other name that sounds similar?)

Naming children is hard and we should cut people some slack except that cunt Musk

― Honnest Brish Face (Noodle Vague)

"cunt Musk" makes him sound far more alluring than he is in reality

i used to know a "gretchen". i can't remember if she changed her name to something else or if we just fell out of touch.

names i'm most familiar with are transfemme names... lotta roses, lotta madeleines. "oliver" is a reasonably popular transmasc name. if you're not gonna name yourself "machete" at least. of all the things people complain about re: trans people's names, that's the thing i understand the least. that we have weird names. like i can pick anything in the world as a name, why would i pick a dull, boring-ass name like kate?

... i mean no such thing as bad names, i guess. same goes for "chasen/jayden"... if the people who have those names don't like them, they can always change them. you don't actually have to start hormones to change your name.

one of the women in "book of the new sun" is named "dorcas". honestly it scans given how fucking massively misogynist that book is. (funnily enough i didn't pick up on how deeply misogynist it was until i reread it after transition. go figure.)

funny thing i just realized recently about names... my mom wanted to give me an irish name but my dad was dead-set against it... he fought hard until their last child, at which point he relented. my youngest sibling doesn't go by that name now, of course. then when i changed my name is... it's just "kate", which can be derived from any number of names. some of them are irish!

I’m on the fence about names that are derivatives but then become their own names.

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh)

i'm ok with it, personally

Lolita is just the diminutive of Dolores

Actually, Lolita is a satire on the American Dream

she was like "it's a pretty name and social context didn't exist". she was also a nabakov fan which makes it weirder

Dorcas is a good biblical name and i don't think kids say dorkus any more so I think it should be safe

most of my favourite names are diminutives. also they tend to be easier to masculinise or feminise or androgynise. they feel more fun somehow. I might feel different if I'd been born with one

kate - are you ever katie? or is that a totally different person's name? I've known a few kates and have heard some wildly divergent opinions on this matter

xxp someone doesn’t have any relatives with the legal first name Ricky

I found a website recently where thousands of people have rated names based off of how they associate them with false binaries and personality traits. However, the best part of the website is the comments section for each name. “Zach” is a very hated name!!

https://www.behindthename.com/

https://i.imgur.com/h57bgYn.png

shadowdranix49 yr wrong because it doesn't even sound great

When we named our children we went thru long discussions about potential nicknames and abuse associated with each possible choice

My name is really boring and common and I am fine with that. It’s basically the equivalent of a neutral piece of furniture that no one really complains about or praises.

It’s like the stove in my apartment that has been there for many decades and continues to be functional.

Guys called Tom are always so funny and just good vibes in general.
― Anonymous User 3/17/2023

Absolutely.

It’s annoying names end up with this sort of baggage, I had my heart set on Karen-Chad for my first

A friend of mine, whose surname is Harris, always insisted he'd name his sons Tyrannis or Brontos if he had any. He didn't have any though. Well, not yet.

Margaret and its derivatives are pretty interesting to me. My wife is an Elizabeth, for which there may be almost as many variants (Liz, Liza, Eliza, Beth, Betsy, Betty, etc.). See also Anne to Nancy.

In the preindustrial olden days there just weren't enough names to go round (the few factories couldn't keep up with the demand) so pretty much everyone in England was named John or Mary.

Or that's my personal crackpot theory.

Every man in England in the Tudor era was called Thomas, unless you were a king, then you were called Henry.

And if you were a dick, you could be called John Thomas.

Or, of course, Richard.

Margaret and its derivatives are pretty interesting to me. My wife is an Elizabeth, for which there may be almost as many variants (Liz, Liza, Eliza, Beth, Betsy, Betty, etc.). See also Anne to Nancy.

In the preindustrial olden days there just weren't enough names to go round (the few factories couldn't keep up with the demand) so pretty much everyone in England was named John or Mary.

Or that's my personal crackpot theory.

even as a Thomas/Tom I did not anticipate the apparent strong current association with the tank engine. he’s nice and earnest enough, but kind of a snobby class oppressor vs the freight and passenger cars rly

My most visible namesakes in film were played by Danny Devito and Jorma Taccone

i'm an american Oliver and I barely encountered another one for most of my life, it seemed way more common as a pet name.

Omg I almost want to tell the story about my friend’s mom helping translate for Balkan asylum seekers in the 90s

but bro—— u can't steal from a communist

good grief, people, are you still talking about driving

THAT’S WHERE YOU BELONG
IN MY ARMS, MOTHERFUCKER

I don't think I've ever wished death on as many people as I do now.

how many people are we talkin here

i din't mean it man

i feel like 0 is understandable, 1-4 is common, 5-20 is relatable, 21-100 is kind of a lot though but 101-999 if you really think about who fucking sucks and 1000-9999 well you and 10K- well it's not really like that though but 100K i didn't realize that and 1M i'm actually asleep stop texting me now though

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/565c1ab5e4b05079e4bfa169/1598944177906-1O35CG21OOBXZAK2QJDM/Metallica+Kill+%27Em+All+Vinyl+Album+Cover.jpg

kill some of 'em al

l

You can kill me, Al