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HelpRe: Claire, Clare, Clair and Sinclair
in reply to a message by Felie
The only one I enjoy at all as a fn is Clare. Given enough daughters, I'd use it happily - so much neater and tidier than Claire, and since they sound identical in English, why bother? I don't think of it as a geographical name at all, though I'm aware of the Irish link of course.
Clair should certainly be (m), but I doubt whether a Clair boy in an English environment would thank his namer. And it would look odd on a girl, to me at least. As a mn for a boy, it'd be fine and possibly a good way to honour a Clare or Claire or Clara.
Sinclair is all male to me, and quite handsome; since it's Scottish I wouldn't be surprised to see it used as a (f) name, but only in the mn position and only for family reasons.
Associations ... well, I knew a woman who'd been brought up an Anglican but converted to Catholicism as an adult. Her given names are not quite Rosemary Brenda, but it's close! She chose Clare as her confirmation name, explaining that she felt a great affinity for St Clare, the friend of St Francis. Unfortunately, she was quite well off and proud of it, and was also alarmingly obese: she lied about her food intake, showing her colleagues the high-fibre diet biscuit she was going to eat for lunch, with perhaps an apple. The canteen used to close at noon and open again at 12:45 so the staff could prepare for the lunchtime rush, but Rosemary would disappear at about 11:30, order two meat pies with chips and gravy, and gobble them down before reappearing just in time to publicly munch her biscuit! Clare seemed a horrible irony, but a beautiful name: I shuddered to think what the historical Clare and Francis would have thought of her, but she managed not to notice the contrast between name and actions.
Clair should certainly be (m), but I doubt whether a Clair boy in an English environment would thank his namer. And it would look odd on a girl, to me at least. As a mn for a boy, it'd be fine and possibly a good way to honour a Clare or Claire or Clara.
Sinclair is all male to me, and quite handsome; since it's Scottish I wouldn't be surprised to see it used as a (f) name, but only in the mn position and only for family reasons.
Associations ... well, I knew a woman who'd been brought up an Anglican but converted to Catholicism as an adult. Her given names are not quite Rosemary Brenda, but it's close! She chose Clare as her confirmation name, explaining that she felt a great affinity for St Clare, the friend of St Francis. Unfortunately, she was quite well off and proud of it, and was also alarmingly obese: she lied about her food intake, showing her colleagues the high-fibre diet biscuit she was going to eat for lunch, with perhaps an apple. The canteen used to close at noon and open again at 12:45 so the staff could prepare for the lunchtime rush, but Rosemary would disappear at about 11:30, order two meat pies with chips and gravy, and gobble them down before reappearing just in time to publicly munch her biscuit! Clare seemed a horrible irony, but a beautiful name: I shuddered to think what the historical Clare and Francis would have thought of her, but she managed not to notice the contrast between name and actions.
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