Tag: names

she of a thousand names.

she of a thousand names.

by Joanne ♥ 0 Leave a Comment
What's in your name? via OnomastikFun fact: We considered the name Poppy, after CNN’s Poppy Harlow, but when it was pointed out
that kids would end up calling her “Poopy,” 😦 we put the kibosh on that.
     .
Before Aisha was born, her father and I had taken to calling her Peanut, based on the way she looked in her ultrasound. Right after her delivery, and for a few weeks following, she was nothing but a big face and cheeks, so I took to calling her Bobblehead, Cheeks McGee or Colonel Fathead (in the most loving way, of course).

Over time, she has become Le Babe, El Bebe, Baba, Baba-lu and Baba-licious. Our neighbours are Sri Lankan, and a term of endearment in their native Tamil is, Chunkitty Bala (I’ve no idea how to spell it, so I’m going with phonetics. My apologies). My father is the only one who calls her that, but more often than not, he just shortens it to “Chunk”. This is perfect, since she is indeed a little chunk o’goodness. Her Portuguese father calls her Amor, or Menina and my least favourite, Boneca – it just means “doll,” but I hate the way it sounds: buh-NEH-kah.

I imagine one day, when she is old enough to speak, she will filter through the nicknames and respond to only those that she likes. For now, though, she is Peanut to her father, Chunk to her grandfather, plain ol’ Aisha to her grandmother, and Baba to me.

The dog, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. 😀

naming conventions.

naming conventions.

by Joanne ♥ 1 Comment


Perhaps Phoebe’s on to something…

Long before we decided to become parents, the boy and I talked about names for our children. We figured we should be in agreement before the actual event, so as not to leave our future kid in a nameless purgatory. However, previous discussions found us unable to come up with anything mutually inoffensive.

It is Portuguese custom to name children after relatives (living or dead), and early on I suspected that if we were to have a boy, he would want his son to bear the name of his deceased brother. Far be it from me to be the bitch who denies such a poignant request (more like declaration, but whatevs), I have agreed to this, with a few stipulations. Since I am not Portuguese, and would like my baby to have a first name that my Bajan relatives could say without butchering, we would have to give the boy a relatively Anglo (or at the very least, pronounceable)  first name.

“He could have his own first name, and your brother’s names as the middle ones,” I offered. The boy seemed okay with that, pointing out that we still had to come up with a first name. “I like the name Sonny,” he said, tentatively.

Sonny… Read more ›