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HelpRe: Cruel?
in reply to a message by Katie
I wrote a rant in response to Albus Severus that I think addresses all the fan names, so I'll just put it at the beginning...
Albus Severus - YES. On two levels: one, it was cruel for Harry to name his child this, and he had an excuse. This is an awful name which would envoke teasing irrelvant of the books. Second, and more importantly, the amount of fanboyishness is too, too much. The child would be forever tied to Harry Potter.
This is my personal rule with fan/honouring names: it doesn't matter what person is being referenced, whether it's high brow or not. (I fell for Margery because of a comedy sketch and love Martha and Abigail because of a very silly musical about the signing of the declaration, I'm not proud.) What matters is whether every person who meets the kid will think of that one person/book, etc, irrelevant of whether this association is positive, negative or neutral. Adolf is not okay, but neither is Lincoln.
A child is not a banner to advertise their parents' interests- by this I don't mean one should never reference those interests or heros, but only that the child shouldn't be tied to them. If I decided to honour heros and named my kids, say, Katherine, Linnet, Gwendolen, Cora and Thomas (only a few of my many reference names), they wouldn't have that problem. If I named them Shakespeare, Sweeney, Wilde, Sondheim and Rosencrantz, they would. (They would also all have last names...) Am I making sense, or am I rambling and likely starting an argument? I hope I don't offend anyone who likes hero names because I like and have many hero names...just, not ones like Albus Severus likely to make a kid miserable.
My thoughts on the others:
Sirius (mn) - Fine as a middle name.
Draco Christian - A little too overdramatic, a little too tied to HP. Christian Draco would be okay in the HP respect, but still overdramatic.
Constantine (mn) - Fine as a middle name.
Chandler (mn) - Plenty of people seem fine with it as a first name. I think it could stand a short sharp shock from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block, but I wouldn't call it cruel, just an unweildy and annoying surname.
Richey James
Ponyboy - Yes. In a word, yes.
Sodapop - Yes.
Amadeus (as a mn) - I like it as a MN.
Cash (prolly just as a mn) - Yeah. Don't name your child after money.
Gerard (mn) - I don't like it particularly, but I'm confused about what would make it cruel.
Albus Severus - YES. On two levels: one, it was cruel for Harry to name his child this, and he had an excuse. This is an awful name which would envoke teasing irrelvant of the books. Second, and more importantly, the amount of fanboyishness is too, too much. The child would be forever tied to Harry Potter.
This is my personal rule with fan/honouring names: it doesn't matter what person is being referenced, whether it's high brow or not. (I fell for Margery because of a comedy sketch and love Martha and Abigail because of a very silly musical about the signing of the declaration, I'm not proud.) What matters is whether every person who meets the kid will think of that one person/book, etc, irrelevant of whether this association is positive, negative or neutral. Adolf is not okay, but neither is Lincoln.
A child is not a banner to advertise their parents' interests- by this I don't mean one should never reference those interests or heros, but only that the child shouldn't be tied to them. If I decided to honour heros and named my kids, say, Katherine, Linnet, Gwendolen, Cora and Thomas (only a few of my many reference names), they wouldn't have that problem. If I named them Shakespeare, Sweeney, Wilde, Sondheim and Rosencrantz, they would. (They would also all have last names...) Am I making sense, or am I rambling and likely starting an argument? I hope I don't offend anyone who likes hero names because I like and have many hero names...just, not ones like Albus Severus likely to make a kid miserable.
My thoughts on the others:
Sirius (mn) - Fine as a middle name.
Draco Christian - A little too overdramatic, a little too tied to HP. Christian Draco would be okay in the HP respect, but still overdramatic.
Constantine (mn) - Fine as a middle name.
Chandler (mn) - Plenty of people seem fine with it as a first name. I think it could stand a short sharp shock from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block, but I wouldn't call it cruel, just an unweildy and annoying surname.
Richey James
Ponyboy - Yes. In a word, yes.
Sodapop - Yes.
Amadeus (as a mn) - I like it as a MN.
Cash (prolly just as a mn) - Yeah. Don't name your child after money.
Gerard (mn) - I don't like it particularly, but I'm confused about what would make it cruel.
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