Re: Valentine
in reply to a message by Perrine
Valentine (English prn) for a girl is alright... It's not my favorite. Because I always suspect someone means it to sound like "Valentine" in the cheesy sense of "dear one," which I do not like. And because I like it as a guyname, and like thinking it sounds masculine and like it means vigorous.
It *could* just be a name that means vigorous, and sounds alright to use for gals... I can see that, and it'd be cool. But it's kind of a stretch for me, because I tend to think that people would not ever have thought of using it cross-gender, if the Valentine's Day "dear one" meaning and associations did not exist.
Valentine (French -een) for a girl is alright, but I don't like the sound of it. I think Valentina is much more appealing, sounds more vigorous, elegant and powerful.
more explanation you didn't ask for, about how I feel about this name:
I feel like when it's gendered masculine (mentally picturing "on a boy/man") and pronounced the English way, it sounds like its meaning. Like a traditional guyname, but antique style. English equivalent of Valentin.
It's not that it couldn't be a cool girl name even though it is traditionally more masculine in English - I think it could. But it's the Valentine's Day thing, *interacting* with the gender of the bearer... ruins it. Ruined the Ender's Game character for me completely - her name made me cringe. She obviously existed only to show off something good about Ender, and her name really set that off, for me, and it was just yuck.
The worst way to imagine the name, in my mind, is if it's on a boy, but is meant to evoke the cheesy "dear one" thing and Valentine's Day romance stuff. Names for boys that I feel are trying to seem "tender lover"-ish gross me out bigtime, they're like Peaches or Allure for a girl, too objectifying/sexualizing. For this reason, I would hesitate to use Valentine for a boy, even though I think it's awesome - I would hate for others to think it sounds romancey.
All that's just my feelings about the name in my imagination, though.
It makes a fine name for either gender, and IRL I would not have a problem with it at all if I met someone named it, girl or boy.
- mirfak
It *could* just be a name that means vigorous, and sounds alright to use for gals... I can see that, and it'd be cool. But it's kind of a stretch for me, because I tend to think that people would not ever have thought of using it cross-gender, if the Valentine's Day "dear one" meaning and associations did not exist.
Valentine (French -een) for a girl is alright, but I don't like the sound of it. I think Valentina is much more appealing, sounds more vigorous, elegant and powerful.
more explanation you didn't ask for, about how I feel about this name:
I feel like when it's gendered masculine (mentally picturing "on a boy/man") and pronounced the English way, it sounds like its meaning. Like a traditional guyname, but antique style. English equivalent of Valentin.
It's not that it couldn't be a cool girl name even though it is traditionally more masculine in English - I think it could. But it's the Valentine's Day thing, *interacting* with the gender of the bearer... ruins it. Ruined the Ender's Game character for me completely - her name made me cringe. She obviously existed only to show off something good about Ender, and her name really set that off, for me, and it was just yuck.
The worst way to imagine the name, in my mind, is if it's on a boy, but is meant to evoke the cheesy "dear one" thing and Valentine's Day romance stuff. Names for boys that I feel are trying to seem "tender lover"-ish gross me out bigtime, they're like Peaches or Allure for a girl, too objectifying/sexualizing. For this reason, I would hesitate to use Valentine for a boy, even though I think it's awesome - I would hate for others to think it sounds romancey.
All that's just my feelings about the name in my imagination, though.
It makes a fine name for either gender, and IRL I would not have a problem with it at all if I met someone named it, girl or boy.
- mirfak
This message was edited 8/6/2021, 1:04 PM