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If you're determined to honor her, why on Earth does it matter whether or not you personally like the name? How important is honoring your mom by giving her name to your daughter? If you really hate the name enough that you'd feel guilty inflicting it on your daughter - then just don't honor. It's not as if anything is really lost if you don't.

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I used my dad's name, Bruce, as my son's middle name ... and I still don't like the name Bruce. But I love remembering my dad that way, more than I dislike the name Bruce. I might've honored my grandma in my daughter's middle name too - but her name was Edna. And she died when I was pretty young. So my dislike for the name Edna is greater than my urge to honor Edna. That's really how simple it is. I used Claudia instead. I say that it honors my grandfather, Claude. But I like Claudia so much, that honestly I might've used it anyhow. The "honoring" aspect just made it easier to choose!

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I don't think you need to use both your mother's names to honor her. I personally like Merle just fine, and I think someone in your baby's generation will too, but I think it's unnecessary to use two names to honor. If you want to use a second middle name, hey, you could honor someone else, or you could try to honor yourself by naming her using a name that symbolizes something meaningful to you. Even if it's just "Meriel is elegant" ;-)

This message was edited 12/4/2010, 9:26 AM