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HelpRe: Honoring grandma - Janice
in reply to a message by jrs
I'm a firm believer that to honor, one should use the exact name. And I've said so here on the board, in a way that particularly applies to your situation, in that my name is Janice just as is your grandmother's.
I read in your post below that your grandmother is too ill for you to ask her what her preferences are. I also read that you were considering Jane as a middle name as a way to honor her.
I've made at least one post here, maybe more, about how insulted I were to feel if my daughter had a baby girl and came to me and said, "Mom, I wanted to honor you, so her middle name is Jane." I've posted about how, though my name is a form of Jane, my name is not Jane itself--I don't relate to Jane the same way I do with Janice, I don't feel the same frisson of recognition when I see it in print, I don't automatically turn my head when I hear someone say "Jane". Jane is not my name. Neither is Jean or Joan or Janine or Janelle or anything else. All I would hear if my daughter said, "Jane is honoring you" would be "I hate your name too much to use it."
I'm no good at finding old posts, otherwise I'd find it and post the link for you.
Anyway, yes, one of my pet peeves is people who say they want to honor and then bend over backwards trying to find any name other than the name of the person they want to honor and desperately try to find some link between the names. And as a Janice, I can tell you that Jane is not Janice. Oh, and neither is any other name that starts with a J! The fact that two names start with the same letter doesn't make them the same name, and I'm always mystified as to how people think this is honoring. If I wouldn't be happy to hear "Jane is honoring you" let's not even discuss how I would feel hearing "Juliet is honoring you." Um, how exactly?
Anyway if you use Janice as a middle name, to me the second middle name, if there is one, doesn't matter. You've got *Janice* in there, and that's your grandmother's name. Felicity Janice Meriel has very good flow, though.
I read in your post below that your grandmother is too ill for you to ask her what her preferences are. I also read that you were considering Jane as a middle name as a way to honor her.
I've made at least one post here, maybe more, about how insulted I were to feel if my daughter had a baby girl and came to me and said, "Mom, I wanted to honor you, so her middle name is Jane." I've posted about how, though my name is a form of Jane, my name is not Jane itself--I don't relate to Jane the same way I do with Janice, I don't feel the same frisson of recognition when I see it in print, I don't automatically turn my head when I hear someone say "Jane". Jane is not my name. Neither is Jean or Joan or Janine or Janelle or anything else. All I would hear if my daughter said, "Jane is honoring you" would be "I hate your name too much to use it."
I'm no good at finding old posts, otherwise I'd find it and post the link for you.
Anyway, yes, one of my pet peeves is people who say they want to honor and then bend over backwards trying to find any name other than the name of the person they want to honor and desperately try to find some link between the names. And as a Janice, I can tell you that Jane is not Janice. Oh, and neither is any other name that starts with a J! The fact that two names start with the same letter doesn't make them the same name, and I'm always mystified as to how people think this is honoring. If I wouldn't be happy to hear "Jane is honoring you" let's not even discuss how I would feel hearing "Juliet is honoring you." Um, how exactly?
Anyway if you use Janice as a middle name, to me the second middle name, if there is one, doesn't matter. You've got *Janice* in there, and that's your grandmother's name. Felicity Janice Meriel has very good flow, though.
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