Names I could have been...

[sistermagpie]

Happy birthday idlerat!!

This popped into my head on the way home the other day...does anybody else know what name they would have been called if they were the opposite sex, and if you do,

Do you think about it?

I asked my roommate--she would have been called Eric. She also knew her alternate girl name, Yvonne. Apparently she and her sisters were all potential Eric/Yvonnes, but all were girls and none looked like an Yvonne (also Mom couldn't decide on the correct pronunciation). Personally, I think one of her sisters could have been an Yvonne, on her and the other one it would be purely quirky.

But it was more interesting looking at her and imagining her alternate boy self, Eric. (Her father was also partial to Thor, and I've got to say she dodged a bullet there. Ethnic heritage aside...whoa. That's a lot to live up to.) The weird thing is, I can kind of see it--the Eric, that is, not the Thor. Now I can look at her and somehow imagine this boy version called Eric.

The one alternate girl name my mother once mentioned for me was Miranda, Mandy (not Randy) for short. I can't really see it--my roommate said (and I agree) she could see more as Amanda than Miranda. I was friends with a Miranda growing up. We called her neither Mandy nor Randy, but Mirn (sometimes Mirnie). So when I think of my name being Miranda, it's more like an odd thing, rather than a name I could have had.

If I was a boy I would have been Mark. I asked my mother this probably when I was a kid and it always stayed in my head. Mark somehow holds out all these tantalizing possibilities, you know? Maybe I still would have been friends with my roommate and we'd have been Eric and Mark. (Although maybe not, as we first met in college and Mark and Eric wouldn't have gone to Smith...)

Mark. It's not a name that really means anything to me beyond this. I had one in my class growing up about which I have no strong feelings. He played the saxophone. On the one hand the idea that this would have been my name had the chromosomes worked out just a little bit differently is a big deal. On the other hand...it's not. It's not my name, it's got no connection to me. But it does!

Anybody else ever ask your parents this question? I know adela711 had a name change soon after she was born. My father still calls my cousin Matthew because "he was supposed to be called that" even though the man's been Jeffrey for over 30 years. At the same time, I know why he does it. Because while he looks like a Jeff he could be a Matthew, you know? It does fit him. So as much as I want to just laugh at my father for doing this, there's this ghostly Matthew in my head too--and I wasn't even around when his name was being planned. I heard it once and thought, yes, that works.

So Brother Magpie would have been Mark. What would he have been like? Any one else ever think about this? Especially slashers? Is it more of a girl thing to ask this question and wonder about it, or do guys tend to know about this too?

Comments

[gillieweed.livejournal.com]

Stephen. But my mom did get to use that name on my brother a few years later.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I would have been Travis. Which was also the name of the boy I had a huge crush on in 4th grade. If I ever end up submitting any original fic to erotica magazines or such, I will probably use the name Travis.

My best friend would have been Pierre. She's not even French or anything... Also for a while her mom was going to name her Lois Jean after herself, but then ended up letting an aunt choose, and my friend ended up as Yashama (which sounds vaguely Japanese, but is just made up).

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

I had been a boy I would have probably been called Phillip. After 3 boys my parents were just expecting a 4th to complete the set, so they really hadn't thought about a girl's name. So they were caught a little by surprise and (according to my mother) Dad chose my name in a big hurry. It's a fairly old name, and the full version is still uncommon. (For years the only other place I saw it was on tombstones or in the cast list of 1930's movies.) My parents never shortened my name, but everywhere else I became Rosie or Rose.

When we found out that Jack was on the way we spent days talking about names. We drew up a short list of both boys and girls names, but it seemed that we had a lot more girls names to choose from, and only a few favourite boys names. We were all set to wait and see which name suited him, but it took all of about 5 seconds after he was born to see that 'Jack' was just right. In the end we complicated things by following the family custom of naming him for his father, but using his middle name for day to day.

[skelkins.livejournal.com]

I was adopted as an infant, so my parents never contemplated a boy's name for me - they knew they were getting a girl.

They did, however, show a remarkable knack for cultural bellwetherism. Both my older sister's name and my own - in both cases, names which while by no means obscure, were not particularly popular when they chose them - would become the most common girl's name in the US two years later.

[tucker620.livejournal.com]

I'd have been named for my father, and been a James, Jr.--or "Jay", as my brother is known by family now--or rebelled a bit and shortened one of the middle names and been a "Nate" (Nathaniel is one of his two middles^^) He would have been a Christopher if I'd been male, and I'd likely have called him 'Christopher Robin' all the time when he was small^^

[hellspoette.livejournal.com]

I popped out as Lara; I would have been Daniel. I don't feel anything in particular about the name 'Daniel'; it's not awful, and I could have made it work. At least no one would be calling me "Laura", *sigh*.

I like that you made a post about this. It's something I think about a lot, actually. I also often wonder what I would be like, were I boy... It's not so much that I have a gender identity disorder; I just like the idea of being able to change my form to suit my mood and/or given conditions (ala Proteus, or what have you). Some days I would just like to be a thin charismatic man who can get away with wearing trim suits and fedora hats. Even if my name, in that case, would be Daniel.

[raleighj.livejournal.com]

My middle name would have been Nick (after my grandfather).

As my oldest brother's first name is Joseph, there's a high probability that that name would have ended up being my first name. Robert is also a possibility (after a good friend of my parents), but I don't think as likely.

I've honestly never thought about it before.

[sophie-spence.livejournal.com]

I was supposed to be a Matthew after my dad. My mother and father were so certain that their first child would be a boy, they didn't talk about a girl's name at all. What would have been the point? (Mom says now she doesn't know why they were so sure.) So I went unnamed for five days after I was born. Oddly, when my brother was born a year later, they named him something else.

[desultory6.livejournal.com]

I would have been Grant. It's my mothers maiden name. I was called Spikey before I was born which amuses me to no end.

[guza.livejournal.com]

Really like this entry. :)) have read all the comments.

My boy name was going to be Luka. My alternative girl name was Lara. I really like those names, but I like my own too. :))

[silvery-wraith.livejournal.com]

I would have been Leon, or Lee for short. It would have been after my grand-father, who'd died some 30 years prior. I really, really like that, even when I was born a girl, my parents still incorporated 'Lee' into my name.

[anehan]

I had never thought about this before, so I had to text my mother. I'd have been Julius, which amuses me greatly. It seems to me that my parents have done their utmost best to give us all uncommon names, and they have succeeded quite well.

I was really surprised when I found out a few months ago that there was another person in my home town with the same first and last names as I have, because although my last name is not exactly rare around here, I knew only one other person called Helka before. Had I been named Severiina like my parents at first planned, I'd probably have gone through my life without meeting anyone with the same name.

The year I was born, 10 girls were name Helka in Finland and only one girl was named Severiina. 68 boys were named Julius.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I would have been Thomas Sloane Williams. For years, I thought that was after my father's brother, who died when he was young. Sloane was after the brother. I don't know where they got 'Thomas'.

Which would have broken with tradition. The eldest boy was always named after the surname. My father was a William Williams. So was his father, though my dad got the middle initial of 'J' (he later turned it into 'James').

I was named 'Karen'. It was a popular name in the 50s. My mother loved it since she could remember. So must a lot of other women who were born in the 20s. I can tell you that I am not a Karen. They're perky, outgoing, potential cheerleaders, and every one I've ever met play the piano. I changed my name to Ceridwen, which suits me much better.

[trazzie.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting question, I've never thought about it. At least not for my name. My daughter (and she knows this) would have been Daniel Paul, and my son would have been Crystal Elaine (I am now extremely thankful he's a boy) :P

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

If I'd been a boy, I was going to be Phillip Neal--Neal would have been a middle name. I think about it every once in a while and wonder how "Phillip" would have been different from me, which experiences he wouldn't have had and what things I can't imagine he would have done. I'm a non-slasher, by the way. Slash just doesn't do anything for me.

I think it's kind of sad that most parents these days seem to know the sex of a baby ahead of time, so they probably don't pick out alternate names like that. Why deprive a whole generation of this type of speculation?

My mother also mentioned that at one point she considered naming me Adelheid so that she could call me Heidi for short. (My mother's very German, as you might guess!) I don't think she considered it for very long, though, and I feel extremely lucky on that count! I really, really don't feel like a "Heidi." She also thought about Julianne, but couldn't come up with a middle name to go with it. I wouldn't have minded that one. It's not too far from the name I did end up with.

[biichan.livejournal.com]

I forget what I would have been called as a boy. It might have been Benjamin, maybe? I do remember that I was supposed to be a Jennifer but then my cousin Jenny was born five months before I was so they named me Rebecca instead.

I could be a Jenny, I suppose. It was way too popular as a name for older kids when I was born but by the time I was in elementary school I only had like one girl named Jenny in my class.

[alula-auburn.livejournal.com]

I would have been Jeffrey Alan. Jeff is the name of one of my mom's brother's, and Alan is my dad's name. (My brother's middle name is also Alan). Her other brother is technically my brother's godfather (along with his at-the-time girlfriend, oops), so I suppose that was going to even out. Jeffrey/Jeff seems much more of a rough-and-tumble name to me than I can imagine myself. And it does make me curious about what it would be like to have a name with a built-in nickname (my name is pretty un-abrievable), and to share a name with a family member we saw at least two or three times a year. My cousin--daughter of the non-Jeff uncle (who doesn't have kids) is named after both of her grandmothers, and was often referred to as littleIngrid when she was a toddler. (I know there are people who find Ingrid a less-than-pretty name, but my cousin has the presence to pull it off, and since our grandmother has since passed away, it's sort of a big family thing that she has the name now.)

My "alternate" girl name was Emily Jane--which is funny, because I roomed with two different girls named Emily in college. That was also the girl name for my older brother, and it was the plan until about T-minus-two-months when my dad suddenly decided that he was tired of the name. So some brainstorming ensued and my mom sort of absently mentioned that she'd always thought her grandmother's name was pretty. My great-grandmother died when my mom was about fifteen, so my dad had never met her or even heard what her name was, and my mom had thought vaguely that it might sound too old-fashioned. But my dad loved it, and so I became Marie Elizabeth. (According to the Beyond Jennifer and Jason people, it is too old-fashioned, but I'm much more of a Marie than the hipper alternative Mariel). I think we both could have pulled off Emily, but then I know so many Emilys it doesn't hold much stereotypical weight to me.

(In general, I love names, and read baby name books for fun--there's a great one that has the names organized by literary reference, which is occasionally quite useful. I also took the naming of things--dolls and stuffed animals--very, very seriously, albeit with some bizarre results. (Ah, LeeAnn Holly Pepper, my 1984 Cabbage Patch doll. I also was given one of those dolls from a series that's supposed to "match" you--so mine had red hair and green eyes"--when I was about four and being on a literal bent called the doll Little Marie. My mom is big into dolls and bought me the historical American Girl dolls almost as they were coming out, even though by doll five (Addy) I was past playing with them--my mother still takes them out to dress up for Halloween, and change seasonally, though. Anyway, when I was in high school they released a "contemporary" doll where you could specify hair and eye color and skin tone and my mother just had to get me one--complete with glasses to match my pre-LASIK self--and no one can ever refer to her as anything but Teen Marie. I'm not sure this is particularly relevent, but naming things was definitely a big power thing for me that translated directly into writing via character names.)

[(Anonymous)]

I knew a Thor in high school:P He was a tall good-looking kid from Finland with long white-blonde hair. Every girl in school threw themselves at him and he certainly didn't mind:P I wonder if that's a way to live up to your name?

[kishmish.livejournal.com]

I knew a Thor in high school:P He was a tall good-looking kid from Finland with long white-blonde hair. Every girl in school threw themselves at him and he certainly didn't mind:P I wonder if that's a way to live up to your name?