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I would have posted this list last night, but we had a thunderstorm and power outage. There were a great many wonderful suggestions made, and I wanted everyone to see. The other post is pretty far down now, so here ya go.

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First off, there was discussion of a number of -ing names that are not verbs. Some of them are nouns, some are surnames or other proper names, whether actually in use or only discussed here. These are:

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Aisling
Browning
Channing
Gamling (Tolkien Dwarvish)
Harding
Irving
Kipling
King
Manning
Spring
Starling
Sterling
Yearling

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Then there are all the present-participle verbs that were suggested. I'm including some I thought of as I was compiling everyone else's, and these new ones of mine are marked with an *. There is at least one name for every letter of the alphabet except X and O. I don't know of any verbs beginning with X. O needs a whole discussion on its own, which we'll have after the list.

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Heightening the cool factor on some of these names is the fact that some are both verb and noun, like Painting for example. Also enhancing their actual usability, imo, is the fact that some of them strongly resemble real names already in use, like Christening for example.

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Okay, ready? Go!

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Amazing
Angling
Arching *
Astounding
Being
Believing
Blazing
Blessing
Brightening
Building
Burning
Calling
Caring
Caving
Charming
Christening *
Courting
Creeping
Dancing
Dashing
Darkening (Lightening's brother)
Dawning
Dreaming
Edging *
Enduring
Farthing
Freeing *
Gazing
Glazing *
Glowing
Gliding
Going
Grinning
Hawking
Hearkening *
Heartening *
Hiking
Holding
Honouring / Honoring
Hoping
Hunting
Icing
Inkling
Jiving
Joining *
Joshing
Knowing
Lacing
Lancing
Laughing *
Learning
Lightening (as in, getting lighter)
Lightning (as in, flashes of light with rain)
Linking
Living
Loving
Making *
Meriting
Naming *
Netting *
Noting * (as in, to note, not "Notting" like Notting Hill)
Pacing *
Painting
Playing *
Quilling *
Racing
Raining
Reiding (?)
Rhyming
Riding
Ringing
Rising
Roaring
Rolling
Saving
Searching
Sailing
Sallying
Seeing
Seeking
Shining
Singing
Sleeting
Smiling
Snowing
Soaring
Spicing
Stunning
Tracking
Trailing
Trekking
Trusting
Turning
Twirlling
Urging *
Voicing *
Walking
Whirling
Whispering
Willing
Wishing
Yearning
Zooming *

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My favorites, the ones I really like and think could be real names in actual use, are Blessing, Christening (Christian / Christine), Lacing (noun and verb, sounds like Lacy), Lancing (like Lancelot, which I have always loved), Quilling (most Q names are just quirky enough anyway that this could blend right in), and Willing (like William / Willem). Plus, of course, the three that got me started thinking about all this, Hawking, Dashing and Soaring.

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So, about the lack of O names. All the O verbs I can think of have questionable meanings, that I would not want to saddle a kid with (although that's true of a few of the suggestions above as well). No one suggested any O names, and of the ones I could think of, I didn't want to include any. Tell me what you think of any of these, or can you think of others?

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Obeying
Obliging
Offing
Ogling
Oiling
Omitting
Opening
Opposing
Ordering
Owning

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:-)

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ETA the comment about Lancing, which I forgot initially

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~Lillian~
Proud daughter of Ann and John
Proud sister of Lauren and Leah
Proud wife of David
Proud mother of Alexander, Scarlett, Sophia, and Gideon

This message was edited 7/23/2006, 1:38 PM