Philosophy Now Forum

Do you like your birth name? Why or why not? What do you think a name should be based on? (I would have picked a different name).

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2017 6:52 pm Do you like your birth name? Why or why not? What do you think a name should be based on? (I would have picked a different name).

PhilX

I suppose 'Philosophy' is rather a lot to live up to. Do you get 'Phil' for short?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2017 8:22 pm

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2017 6:52 pm Do you like your birth name? Why or why not? What do you think a name should be based on? (I would have picked a different name).

PhilX

I suppose 'Philosophy' is rather a lot to live up to. Do you get 'Phil' for short?

Exactly, my handle.

PhilX

Right now the police in the region are seeking a man named LUCIFER believing that he murdered a woman and stole her car.
http://www.twincities.com/2017/07/31/st ... olice-say/
Why would birth parents name a child LUCIFER? The history of the name on Wikipedia is fascinating. I wonder why the parents chose the name? Did the name influence his behavior during his life.
I'll keep you advised.

tbieter wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2017 11:24 pm Right now the police in the region are seeking a man named LUCIFER believing that he murdered a woman and stole her car.
http://www.twincities.com/2017/07/31/st ... olice-say/
Why would birth parents name a child LUCIFER? The history of the name on Wikipedia is fascinating. I wonder why the parents chose the name? Did the name influence his behavior during his life.
I'll keep you advised.

LUCIFER was arrested by the police late Monday evening.

tbieter wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2017 11:24 pm Why would birth parents name a child LUCIFER?

Perhaps the Vietnamese parents, birthing during or close to wartime, couldn’t pronounce Beelzebub.

Here in Europe you cannot just change your last name if you have a problem with it.
I once came across a lady with the last name Frankenstein. I did not dare to ask her about it.

As far as first names are concerned the authorities do not allow silly or funny first names. So there are no Lucifers for sure.

I was once surprised that the name Lovejoy really existed in the U.K.
Are there more of this kind ?
Lovefood, Lovewalk ...

In a Manhattan directory, a typo changed a Chinese family's last name (correct spelling was Shiite).

PhilX

A person's destiny is in their name. I wrote a paper on this with examples.

duszek wrote: ↑Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:08 pm Here in Europe you cannot just change your last name if you have a problem with it.
I once came across a lady with the last name Frankenstein. I did not dare to ask her about it.

Here y'go https://www.houseofnames.com/frankenstein-family-crest It's a perfectly respectable family name. It's not their fault some English writer made use of it and her book became infamous. Oddly enough, most surnames in fiction, even very popular fiction, don't become a burden to people who actually have those names, unless they're memorable, like Chuzzlewit, but Frankenstein did.

As far as first names are concerned the authorities do not allow silly or funny first names.

Unfortunately for many immigrants, their given names at birth were quite ordinary and only became funny or silly - or even sometimes obscene - in another language, in a country they were never intended to live in. People from Asia are sometimes forced by circumstance to change traditional, proud family names and bring dishonour to their ancestors, because of transplantation.

I was once surprised that the name Lovejoy really existed in the U.K.
Are there more of this kind ?

Plenty. Lovelace and Loveless spring to mind. Also Golightly, Death, Pennyroyal, Careless, Gently, Drinkwater, Rowbotham, Honeywell.... When first bestowed or assumed, every surname had a literal meaning that referred to place, occupation, physical description or character, in one of the languages of its national origin. Many present European countries have changed their borders over time - used to have different regional ethnic populations in older times - as well as the inevitable migrations and conquests that mixed in foreign names. I believe it was Europeans of Jewish descent who were last to take official family names (instead of Abraham, Son-of-Benjamin kind of thing) and since they had to pay for a name, the richer families took fancier names, or ones that sounded like the local nobility. Hence the Rothschilds, Gold-whatevers and 'ski endings.

My birth name was okay; a popular enough third-generation family tag. In English, my surname was difficult to spell, so my parents simplified it and we - even my stiff-necked father, in time - grew accustomed to a new pronunciation. My first name is normal, if not common; my brother's was usually Anglicized to something he didn't like at all, or people would try to use his middle name, which he liked even less, so he's stood firm and anyone who associated with him just had to learn it.
Now, of course, Canadians are taught to respect the names people come with, wherever they come from.

DRose wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2017 12:16 am I wrote a paper on this with examples.

Don't you mean you wrote on the paper? Probably with an example of a pen.

Philosophy Explorer wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2017 6:52 pm (I would have picked a different name).

Philosophy Explorer is a bit of a mouthful, I suppose.

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:27 pm Philosophy Explorer is a bit of a mouthful, I suppose.

I think PhilX works just fine.

A chap at my secondary school was named Wayne Kerr! What were his parents thinking! He changed his first name to Andrew, which was ok because he really was a good bloke and not one of those.

attofishpi wrote: ↑Mon Oct 16, 2017 6:31 pm A chap at my secondary school was named Wayne Kerr! What were his parents thinking! He changed his first name to Andrew, which was ok because he really was a good bloke and not one of those.

Surely they must have realised? Or is that Aussie low-brow humour? My father had a girl in his class at school called Chlorine. Her parents probably just thought it sounded nice