What's in a Name...

I've seen lots of articles lately with the pros and cons of naming children unique names. It is a measure of respect to be able to pronounce and spell a person's name correctly and to argue or almost lecture someone over the choice of names they have picked for their child is downright disrespectful in my eyes.

For example, my daughter has the name of a movie character who is a vampire queen, although this is not where we first heard it. When family asked where we did get it, I referenced this movie and got negative comments back. One family member was constantly asking us to change it, up until she was born. She named her two children boring/ preppy "traditional" names and had wanted us to do the same. The thing is, my husband and I are not traditional in any way. We had a Gothic wedding, complete with bonding and a private blood ceremony. Some family members were unhappy about this, but we still did it.

My name could be debated. I am named after a character from an mid-80's scifi series that my dad liked at the time. Thankfully, it is also the name of a group of stars that make up the constellation Cassiopeia, though spelled slightly different. My middle name is derived from two cousins my mom helped to raise and one is uniquely spelled. It is fun to challenge people to spell these two names, three names if you use my shortened every-day name. People always want to spell it with every variation when it is simply spelled Cassi. No K's, no e's, and no y's please. Just take that difficult part off the end of my name and there you go. No bells, no whistles.

My family is full of one-of-a-kind names, my sister, my cousins, a few of them that has taken me at least 20 years to be able to both spell and pronounce. My point here is have fun and have some respect for those who have these interesting names. Ask them how their parents came up with the name they were given. Maybe it is a family name that isn't used as much, maybe it's from a book or a television series, maybe they were just creative. Just be respectful about it, you may be hearing that name for years to come.