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HelpRe: Honoring - would you ask permission.
in reply to a message by Bex
You don't have to ask permission. Honoring naming isn't about honoring the person's will IMO. If you wanted to honor the will of a living relative you would just ask them to give the child a middle name of their choice, and they could use their own if they liked. But if you're choosing the name, honoring about honoring the namesake's memory, to be honest. Even if she's still alive. It's about honoring your own idea of her, not the person herself.
I'd ask permission only if it meant something to me to have permission or approval. If I knew I would feel bad about Grandma saying "oh god, you named her Mary Hilda?? Poor child!" or about Dad saying "Gabriel? But that wasn't his name at all!" then I would ask for permission. But if I knew I really wanted to use the name regardless of their feelings, I'd use it regardless.
I was talking about names with my 8 year old daughter yesterday. We mentioned honoring middle names - she said her friend's middle name was the friend's grandmother's first name, and I asked what the friend's mother's middle name was, to see if it was the same. I suggested that my daughter almost got her (living) grandmother's name as a middle name, and also my sister's name was a candidate. She was confused and laughed - that would be confusing and unfair, she said, for two people in our family to have partly the same name. We agreed that it's best to name people after relatives who are dead. That's pretty much how I feel about it, and how I decided to name my kids (both have, as MN's, the first names of dead relatives).
- mirfak
I'd ask permission only if it meant something to me to have permission or approval. If I knew I would feel bad about Grandma saying "oh god, you named her Mary Hilda?? Poor child!" or about Dad saying "Gabriel? But that wasn't his name at all!" then I would ask for permission. But if I knew I really wanted to use the name regardless of their feelings, I'd use it regardless.
I was talking about names with my 8 year old daughter yesterday. We mentioned honoring middle names - she said her friend's middle name was the friend's grandmother's first name, and I asked what the friend's mother's middle name was, to see if it was the same. I suggested that my daughter almost got her (living) grandmother's name as a middle name, and also my sister's name was a candidate. She was confused and laughed - that would be confusing and unfair, she said, for two people in our family to have partly the same name. We agreed that it's best to name people after relatives who are dead. That's pretty much how I feel about it, and how I decided to name my kids (both have, as MN's, the first names of dead relatives).
- mirfak
This message was edited 7/24/2014, 9:21 PM
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