I think the sound of
Merlin is unisex and pleasant, though
Merlin always makes me think of male wizards with long white beards, which is not a feminine image. I would not name a daughter
Merlin because it isn't my style. I decided to ask myself how I'd feel if I was named
Merlin and I oddly think I would love it. I don't know why but I'd feel very awesome if I was named
Merlin but I'm really geeky.
Also my partner wants to have a daughter named
Dante and I'm okay with that being used for a girl even if it isn't my style and even though the most famous
Dante is depicted as very masculine looking with a large hook nose, I think
Dante works for a girl in spite of that.
Plus the only
Taliesin I have ever actually met was a girl so maybe I'm predisposed to feeling more comfortable with male Arthurian legend names being used for girls. Though everyone knows
Merlin and almost no one knows of
Taliesin, so it is a little different. My partner and his mother love Arthurian legend but neither of them thought of
Taliesin when Jeopardy this November had this as the final question "Built in 1911, this Wisconsin home was named for a Welsh bard associated with
King Arthur." None of the Jeopardy contestants knew the answer either but I knew it right away, took me less than a second to know the answer. To be fair a couple of years ago I watched a PBS documentary about
Frank Lloyd Wright and since
Taliesin was the name of his own home and a lot of drama happened there they talked about the
Taliesin home a lot, plus I always pay close attention to names especially when they are ones I like.
I think
Merlin for a girl or a boy would be cool but they would probably only enjoy having it as their name if they are a geek. If you and your partner are geeks there is a good chance your children will be too.
Merlin is one of the geekiest names I can think of, they'd probably be nicknamed Wizard. Same applies for a kid named
Gandalf which is equally geeky as
Merlin. Personally I think all or most of my children will be geeks since my partner and I are major geeks, also their aunts and uncles will all be geeks, my sister is less of a geek but my partners siblings are all very geeky. So I always think "Yes I can pull that name off because my children will most likely be geeks and if they aren't they can always rename themselves." Any child I have will probably enjoy having a geeky name because instead of watching football on Sundays we will watch Doctor Who and movie marathons of Lord of the Rings and
Star Wars. Geekiness will be their mothers milk; we will play board games, pen and paper rpg's, video games, and every night I will read to them from fantasy novels and picture books.
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This message was edited 3/21/2013, 2:06 AM