The Bookish Girl

A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet, or would it?! ~ 2008-12-23

Posted in General by Bookish Wendy at 11:37 am.
30

You all crack my shit up.  I am so glad you’re out there.  Although, Cara freaked my shit with her comment.  Almost as badly as my realization that Sophia was peeing inside of me when she was in utero.  Pregnancy is too freaky.

Rob and I have been trying hard to come up with names for this next one.  We’re no where near agreement and both of us are beginning to doubt we ever will find one that works for us both.  We each have a short list – with no points of intersection.

I was pretty dead set on having an Italian name.  My family is Italian and my married last name is not – it is German.  I really wanted to have the kid’s Italian heritage show through with their first names.  However, there are not very many Italian names that work with the American World, so I am wavering.  I am not a name snob but I REALLY don’t want to subject the kid to cat-calls of, “Hey Vito! How are ya?!” for the rest of his life.  (Incidentally, this is how my dad calls to Sophia when he first sees her.  It’s his little joke – “Hey, Sophia, How are ya?!”  He’s done it since she was a wee.  It’s VERY cute.)  I have a few family names that I really like but Rob’s not on board with (and I have doubts about all but the first): Anthony (NOT Tony), Vincent, Angelo.  There are few others that I just like – Nico, Marco.

The list for non-Italian names is longer and I think I like many of them a bit more.  The real problem is that I am a victim of pop culture and history.  If I have the slightest association with a name I am almost instantly turned off.  It’s bad dude.  Except in the case of Atticus.  I would love to name our kid Atticus because I love Atticus Finch.  But alas, playground mocking would run rampant with a name like that.

Any suggestions for us?  (And please, no “I knew a ________ in grade school and he was a real turd” stories).

Here is a bit of eye candy for you….Sophia knits!  She always wants to “help” with my knitting.

Here’s another one of my current favorites – This was taken on Thanksgiving.  Doesn’t it look like a school photo?!  She’s so cute.

ps – head over to my flickr account for Cathi’s naming prowess.  She was dead on with our first choice if it was a girl (an unusual name too) so I was hoping she would be a wealth of resources for us.  You be the judge.

Related posts:

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  3. Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.

30 Comments »

  1. grumperina says:

    A co-worker’s adorable boy is named Dominic. Is that too Italian?

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 1:04 pm

  2. Cara says:

    Sorry to pass on my freaky-ness. ;-)

    And I totally feel you on the names. My plan is to go Greek with all of them – the kids have a VERY greek last name – so why not go whole hog. Talk about hard. You think Atticus is bad on the playground – how about Ptolemy?

    I got nothing for you name-wise.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 1:59 pm

  3. Kathode Ray Tube says:

    Our 5 year old neighbor is named Atticus and so far, no teasing. A lot of the kids in public school around here have unusual names, so it’s just one more in the mix! And I know an adult Atticus — a very smart guy.

    That said, my older son (9) knows a few kids with great Italian names, like Angelo, Dante and Renzo. I love Renzo. And Fabrizio is a great name too.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 2:10 pm

  4. Claire says:

    My Italian friend’s sons are Dante and Luca. Non Italian, I would go for Colin, but said Collin not Cole-in.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 2:10 pm

  5. Marlena says:

    There used to be a big Italian family who visited their mother in the home where I work, and they had a Dominic and a Dante. I love both of those names! Also, and maybe this is because I just watched Saturday Night Fever, but I’m loving the name Anthony right now. I love when his mom yells at him and calls him Ant-ny! I also really like Salvadore, but mostly because it can be shortened to Sal, which reminds me of Sally Tomato. What names does Rob like? Anything that can be Italian-ized?

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 2:33 pm

  6. Eva says:

    Oh name giving must be soooo difficult :) Personally I like Luca, Lorenzo (or Renzo) and Tomaso. Roberto would also be a nice name :)

    Cheers Eva

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 2:40 pm

  7. Bertha says:

    Oh man. We didn’t find out June’s gender before she was born but we knew if we had a girl, that her name would be June, though there were other girl names we liked too. But we had absolutely ZERO agreement on boy names. Seriously, and I shit you not, if we had a boy my husband wanted to name him Tyrone. I…don’t even know where to begin. So we were lucky we had a girl because the day I had the baby we seriously had no boys name agreed upon and who knows what the baby would have been called. If we have a second child, we’re definitely finding out the sex this time and I’m kinda hoping for another girl if for no other reason than to avoid the boy name frustration we went through last time. A couple Italian boys names I really like are Emilio and Paolo.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 2:45 pm

  8. Liz K says:

    I like Milo, but I think it has gotten a bit trendy.

    As far as Cara’s comment, that’s almost the same thing I said when my best friend, who is lesbian, told me she was having a baby. I think it was more like, “I bet you never thought you’d have…”

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 3:15 pm

  9. Kathy says:

    How about Nicholas, but you’ll call him Nico. One of my son’s best friends is named Dominic — he’s the most adorable little guy!

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 3:56 pm

  10. Kate says:

    Greetings from Boston! Some great Italian names from my VERY Italian neighborhood that we love:
    Giuseppe, Dominic, Davio (our neighbor- he’s called Dave), Gino, Marco.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 4:02 pm

  11. maxine says:

    Please don’t forget about Atticus Spartacus from The Birdcage (hmm, maybe he was Agador not Atticus…).

    Maybe watch the Godfather for some inspiration. Vito, Sally, Luca, Clemenza, Santino, Carlo, Fredo, Carmine, Emilio…

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 4:39 pm

  12. Susan says:

    We didn’t settle on Lili’s “whole big name “until, (’cause Lili is just a short verson of the whole big thing hehe) until about a couple of month’s before she was due. We had fun with our naming process though and I have list after list of names we came up with once we knew we were having a girl. Unfortunately, I no longer have the list of boy’s names but the one I liked the most, (and it is not even Italian) was Daniel Rupert. Call me old-fashioned….

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 6:47 pm

  13. Cathi says:

    I was going to say what about the male version of the female name, but I have a feeling that would result in most teachers calling him Gene or Gee-an on the first day of school. Boo. I like Luca. And Dominic too. I am not as much help with the boy names, as if I had grown a penis (you know, bigger than the one I already have), you’d be chatting with Antonio Giuseppe Magariello. So wrong. SO. Wrong. I will think about it. What about Popey? Can’t get much more Eyetaliano than that.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 7:04 pm

  14. Cathi says:

    Mik just got home- his suggestion is to add o to any name because that is instantly Italian. Charlieo. Robo. Wendio.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 7:16 pm

  15. Carole says:

    I’ve always been partial to Dominic when it comes to Italian names.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 8:01 pm

  16. PainterWoman says:

    So many “traditional” names have Anglo, Italian AND German versions. You could always pick one and then pronouse it the other way: John/Johann becomes Gianni, Richard becomes Ricardo. And don’t forget “Felix”. Did you know you can look up names that were most personal by decade? I don’t remember the website but you can google that and find lots. Good Luck. (Course you can always name him after the Saint’s Day he’s born on, too.) Fortunately my first husband got “Luciano” instead of Lucifer…..

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 8:25 pm

  17. Lori says:

    Well. I have a grandson (four of them, actually) whos name is Anthony, not Tony. His younger brothers call him Nee-nee (at least until they could pronounce Anthony), and we call him Antho. The rest of the grandsons are Tristan, Dominic and Robert. There are lots of baby name web sites – they will even tell you how frequently the chosen name is one gender or another…

    Good luck with the name game!

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 8:42 pm

  18. kate says:

    I like Enzo. Is that Italian? Dang… what’s that other boy’s name I liked… I like Rafael/Raphael (nickname – Raffi?), but the Frog was NOT on board with that one and we had a girl anyway.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 10:10 pm

  19. sarah b. says:

    I don’t have any good name suggestions, but I can tell you how I took care of our name disagreement. The husband came up with the first name and was dead set on it, so I gave in (it was one that I could go along with, and now I really like). I told him that then I would get to pick the middle name. He didn’t like my idea for the middle name…I really wanted a family name so my picks were his middle name or my grandfather’s name…so I waited until we were on the way to the hospital. I told him I was about to have to squeeze this kid out, so I could name his middle name whatever I wanted. It wasn’t the most mature approach, but he didn’t argue. ;)

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 10:11 pm

  20. Angie says:

    How about Joseph or Joey? I just think of it as Italian name because I have a nice Italian co-worker with that name. Very male.

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 10:18 pm

  21. inky says:

    Gianfranco. (John)

    Francisco. (Frank)

    Dominic. (Dom)

    Alessio. (Alex)

    Sergio. (Sergio)

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 11:03 pm

  22. Stephanie says:

    I vote for Gabriel. (Gabe. See? It’s charming.)

    Comment - December 23, 2008 : 11:33 pm

  23. Stephanie says:

    We had such a hard time naming Owen – I think boy’s names are hard – and I’m actually hoping we’re having a girl just because I’m scared to name another boy.

    I love Marco – it’s a perfect Italian, classic, solid name. I also like Vincent, but I’m partial since I have a cousin with the name (yes – my cousin Vinnie!).

    Comment - December 24, 2008 : 8:37 am

  24. Karen says:

    When we adopted our son we went round and round with names. We could not agree. We finally agreed on Nathaniel (which means gift from God so how could I argue). I would have loved to name him Damien. I also love the name Giovanni. My husband’s niece is Giovanna.

    Comment - December 24, 2008 : 3:37 pm

  25. wenders says:

    Oh, and there’s a family down the street who’s kids are… Vinnie, Renzo, Bella and Rocco. LOVE that.

    Comment - December 24, 2008 : 5:19 pm

  26. mai says:

    sausage casing FTW!

    Sophia is THE cutest!!!

    Comment - December 25, 2008 : 5:29 pm

  27. KT says:

    I know an Atticus and he is a very cool kid. We have an Angus and a Duncan. Dominic is a lovely, solid name. In Angus’ class there at one point also a boy named Kobe. Angus & Kobe- the beef kids. Their teacher is a vegetarian.

    Comment - December 25, 2008 : 7:38 pm

  28. sioux says:

    we’ve got an atticus in our upper manhattan ‘hood and i think it rocks. he doesn’t get made fun of. but he’s only 6. i’ve tended to name my kids after literary characters (even if only loosely). italian names are so beautiful; especially salvatore and luca. what about italian literature for inspiration?

    Comment - December 26, 2008 : 3:38 pm

  29. anne says:

    My family’s italian and while we don’t have italian first names much, we do have middle names. My brother’s middle name is Rocco. I’ve also always liked Giuseppe (nickname Gus) and Augusto (same). There are lots of italian names that you can Americanize in one way or another. I love Dominic.

    Comment - December 29, 2008 : 2:38 pm

  30. jane says:

    My daughter recently named her son Atticus. She loved it and kept hearing that people really regretted that they hadn’t had the courage to use it. So she decided to go gor it. There is so much variety in names in most schools now that probably anything goes. And there are lots of great Italian names, I think. Luca and Dominic are great. Did anyone mention Carlo? Or Gian-Carlo? Lorenzo?

    Comment - January 3, 2009 : 9:05 pm

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