Name Poll Analysis and Commentary

[same_sky]

Oh, internets, how you make me laugh. The name poll did not turn out as expected, either here or with my family. Let's start with a few random points.

• Our last name is the Swedish equivalent (phonetically) of Yayer. Think Erik Gustaf. I should have mentioned that, but I didn't think of it. It starts with a G.


• Yes, Evelyn is my name (Bertha) and Linnea (Lou) is M's name. I don't think that surprised any of you, at least not any of you with the Swedish connection.


• Evalee was my grandmother's name. I like Evelyn regardless of that, but it makes it a little more special.


• Linnea is really hard to pair with a middle name, in my opinion.


• Grace is not a name that I love. I like it as a middle name, but the main reason it made it into the set of names is because it sounds quite nice with them. It was also a contender with Linnea until Sage. (We also considered Linnea Joy.)


• Here's the thing with Sage. M wouldn't agree to it as a first name, but he is agreeable if we get to use his first name. I rather wanted to name her Sage, period. So, after it occurred to me that Linnea Sage sounds good together--and I think it does--then that became fairly final as a choice. M also likes Linnea Grace, but I am lukewarm on Grace at this point. I like Evelyn Sage better, too. Also, Evelyn Grace would have the initials EGG. That's kind of weird.


• I would also like to think of a Swedish name to go with Evelyn, so it would be more fair. M doesn't really care much about this.


• Maybe most mothers get primary naming responsibility, and that is great. M and I have some co-dependency issues (which we are not at all disturbed by) and we tend to want to agree on what brand of orange juice to buy.That's just how we are. It would actually feel pretty weird to me to do it the other way.


• What do we really want to name Ducky but can't? Eowyn. But we're not going to.

We were absolutely sure that my family would go for Evelyn. Point one: it is after my grandmother. We all adored my grandmother. Point two: it is not foreign. My family is not big on the foreign. We gave them a vote and it came out 5:0 in favor of Linnea Sage. They all liked Sage, by the way.. at least after they thought about it for a minute.

We were fairly sure that the internet demographic would come down strongly in favor of Linnea. Right now, it's 16:9, Evelyn, though everyone here seems to have wanted to vote for Linnea Grace. My friends at work pretty much all wanted to vote for Linnea Grace, too. Of course, Linnea Grace isn't really one of the options for the above reason, but still. ;) Also, I'm not so sure that we ever said the first and last name out loud (duh.. we did the whole names, mostly) and as jakubicka pointed out, Linnea Yayer has a very awkward double "ay" sound in the middle. To be honest, I was leaning towards going with Linnea until this afternoon when I thought about that. M is extremely unconvinced, and claims that saying it in Swedish makes it sound okay. I remain unconvinced. If you're of the Swedish-speaking persuasion, you can let me know if you agree with him, but at the same time, we kind of don't live in Sweden, so it's a flimsy argument at best.

Everyone who works with M? Pretty much hated both of them. This could be for one of two three reasons. 1) Not the target audience--they are not necessarily people who like classic names. 2) Work environment is much coarser than friends or family. Possibly no one likes the names but are too polite to say so, whereas M's co-workers don't mind a bit of rudeness over coffee and machine guns. 3) Bad taste. ;)

So anyway, we were completely wrong as to what others would like, but I have really enjoyed the commentary. Now watch us come up with something completely different when it comes time to make it official. :) We're having fun with it now, though. It felt like an insurmountable, unfun task when we first started. It feels better now that we're pretty sure that the child will actually get a name.

Comments

[sunflower-pixie.livejournal.com]

i think that ducky will make a good pet/nickname. :)

i'm so excited for you :)

[queensheba.livejournal.com]

Evelyn sounds a little "old lady"-ish to me. It's not an unpleasant name, it just doesn't sound like a young person. I prefer Linnea - I like that a lot.

[big-bubba.livejournal.com]

M is right, of course.

[kapuhi.livejournal.com]

I didn't read the comments yet from the poll post, so I may be chiming in late, but have you considered combining the names? It struck me as I drove home today. Yes, I considered your naming issues all the way home. :)

How about Eva Linnea? Evelyn Naia? Evelynnea Sage? Um, that doesn't work as well. But.. just a thought. :)

[ms-jacket.livejournal.com]

What is so funny is that Linnea IS an old-fashioned name that is is becoming popular again but since most Americans have never head of it, they don't have the association of it being older. Look at some of the names that are coming back these days: Grace, Sofia or Sofie, Ruby, Lily, Charlotte, Amelia, etc.

I think Evelyn is fine if you'd call her Evie when she's a little girl, but I tell you people LOVE the name Linnea here in the US. I am constantly complimented on that name ("beautiful name for a beautiful girl"), I love that it's a pretty flower.

We went round and round with middle names and ended up going with Louise. I know it doesn't flow, I know it isn't the most gorgeous name, but I just couldn't bring myself to give her a dull or overly common middle name.

Since you won't be living in Sweden (or?) I think the pronunciation thing with the last name is a biggie. Either way, people will associate the name with your lovely little ducky and any preconceived notions will dissipate.

[blue-eyed-girl.livejournal.com]

I agree about the way Linnea sounds with your last name, and I feel your pain ... when I was pregnant with Tage and we were struggling to come up with a girl name, we finally decided on one that we both loved: Kerstin. We even shook hands on the deal.

Then we said it with our last name.

Kerstin Tjerngren. Not so much. In Swedish they nearly rhyme, and all those bulky "sh"-type sounds ruin the effect. Éxit Kerstin.

I get your wanting to use Sage as a middle name, too. Petra's middle name is Isadora because I finally resigned myself to the fact that Olof would never agree to it as a first name.

(Oh, and Ally, I think Linnéa Louise flows quite nicely.)

[e11en.livejournal.com]

We had no middle name for Ingrid when she was born. We had wanted something Welsh, since we met in the Welsh speaking part of Wales, but it was so hard to make one work. Then there was the whole, no one could pronounce them correctly in either of our families. We also contemplated a Welsh first name instead of Anders but ran into the same road blocks. So there we were, trying to fill in all the paperwork to be able to leave the hospital and we still didn't have the middle name line filled out on the birth certificate. We could have waited but we knew she would be Ingrid and I wanted it settled. I said to G, "Don't you have any old dead relatives whose names we can use?" Only then did he come to think of his Mormor's name, which was Hilma. Well, it doesn't get any older foreign lady sounding than that but we really liked the way it sounded together and that it had a family significance. IHB are inoffensive enough initials so there you have it. I like Evelyn Sage too. Then you have ESG which is nothing I can think of.