Name Dandan's sprog

[dandan]

I fear that naming him after a Dutchie would result in an inability to stay on-topic and a fear of the local mountains. Romania is quite a long way away from here and we are grateful for that.

(I went to see the solar eclipse in southern Hungary and when I suggested I pop over the border into Romania the locals were shocked. Apart from the problem with visas/paperwork at the border (bribe), you are very likely to get stopped by bandits/police (bribe/fine/no car). Maybe it was local prejudice but they persuaded me that it wasn't a good idea)

[Bram]

Think of it as naming him after a legendary author.

And by the way, no more off-topicness for me. I've recently established a secret society that has infiltrated boards across the entirity of the internet, which is only knows as the 'Thread Orderliness-Policy Infringement Commitee' (T.O.P.I.C.) and can be recognized by its omnipresent logo:

We have vowed to take action wherever we see the injustice of thread hijacking and general off-topicness and as such...um....uh-oh.

[Hi-Val]

I only bring up Anselm because of 1.) St. Anselm's contributions to modern theological philosophy and 2.) Anselm Kiefer is one of my favorite artists.

List of Saints names for browsing: http://wordbytes.org/saints/names.htm

Honestly, I'd go with Wolfgang if for no other reason than he forced Satan to build him a church. What can I say, Wolfgang is fuckin' metal.

Think of artists, writers, philosophers, musicians and composers that you like. Some of the most interesting names I heard were two brothers named Emerson and Spencer.

[Dr. Sylvan]

You could name him for the mighty Jungle Lion which the DCI so ph34rs, but then he might not be allowed into sanctioned Magic events. ;)

I can personally attest to Philip being a lousy name. Everyone wants to call you Phil, but unless you radiate "I am a human supercomputer" like I do, "Phil" makes you sound like a fan of American football, beer, and truckstop diners. And if you manage to get a bunch of people to call you Philip for long periods of time, you sound wicked pretentious (think about adding the extra syllable, and it's really formal-sounding). This may have been exacerbated by my mother's years-long effort to get everyone to call me Philip, and by always being "Philip with one L" which really does suck, despite Bram's anecdote.

The rest of this is going to run with my American naming thoughts, so not living in crazy ex-commie land, I don't know whether the same problems exist at all.

An important trick of naming that I will aim for if I ever happen to spawn a new processing node, is to pick something that is not overused, but doesn't sound terrible (where terrible can sometimes mean that you feel it's so unusual you've never seen it before).

So I would automatically rule out things like John, Matt, Michael, Steven, Christopher, Brian, (and for girls) Jessica, Jennifer, Julie/Julia, Christine/Kristin/Christina, Elizabeth, etc. There are more of these names for boys than for girls, because it is okay to name a girl something that cannot be shortened to one syllable, especially if it ends in an "ee" sound, but a boy's name usually has to either be one syllable or be naturally shortened to one syllable (Matthew--Matt is a perfect example). You can see the male name problem by thinking about the TMD full members, where there are like twenty different Steves.

Names like Mark, Alan (potential misspelling problem), Anthony, Ben, Brent, Neil, Keith, or Kevin are solid for boys. For girls, I'd suggest Caitlin, Amy, Anne, or Amanda (which has a lot of nickname flexibility).

Also, middle names are where you have full license to abuse your child and curse them with something you think is cool that would sound utterly crazy as a first name. Mythological references, traditional family names, plugs for obscure Magic references ("why did you name me 'Dan Sylvan Saunders', Dad?"), and all that stuff belongs in the middle name. When they're young you can tell them to just claim that they don't have a middle name if they don't like it. It's foolproof!

[Jacob Orlove]

You should name it "Sprog Saunders".

[Bram]

I can personally attest to Philip being a lousy name. Everyone wants to call you Phil, but unless you radiate "I am a human supercomputer" like I do, "Phil" makes you sound like a fan of American football, beer, and truckstop diners.

The Dr.Sylvan / Philip combination somehow always puts me in mind of Dr. Phil, whom I hardly associate with truckstops diners and football (OK, maybe a little bit with beer, however). Besides, you're not Phil. You're Pip!

Also, middle names are where you have full license to abuse your child and curse them with something you think is cool that would sound utterly crazy as a first name.

NOOOOO! Please do not force your unborn child to spend the rest of his or her natural life filling out endless arrays of middle names (that serve NO PURPOSE AT ALL other than to induce RSI) on official documents. I have no middle names whatsoever. Additionally, this make you assert yourself. Example.
'First names?'
'Bram.'
'Just Bram?'
'You got a problem with that, bitch?'
See where I'm going with this? It's cool not to have a middle name.

[Methuselahn]

The true test for finding a good name is if you can yell it real loud outside your back door 3 times in a row.  Just something to keep in mind.

[Matt]

"Sprog! SPROG! SPROG!"

[Hi-Val]

Bram, it's well-known that people without middle names lack a soul.

[dandan]

Official forms here do not even consider the possibility of a middle name.

Phil (lip/ip) wouldn't be so bad except Slovak pronounces every letter (apart from the ones they don't but mentioning that spoils their pet bitch about the English language). Being called
P-H-IL
(P pronounced as in Peter, H as in hut, IL as in ill)

Pneumatic actually starts with a P over here.

I know from in-field testing of the word 'sprog' with Rebecca that my wife is not that keen on it.

As someone with more than a dash of Scottish blood, another thing to consider is that people over here celebrate name days. That means that if I avoid names on the name-day list (so no Tibor or Bohumil) I save money every year, money that can be invested in cards from Ebay (which obviously counts as an investment rather than expenditure).

Wolfgang - too German - I don't want him to grow up to be better than me at Magic!
Bram - I have the feeling that the world (or at least the flat low areas of it) are full of bitter and twisted women, used and abused by someone of this name. Could be wrong.

[Joel Rojo]

Keeping the serious tone of my last post, I'd like to say that I have you covered

You could also try this one, but the first one might be more amusing.

Actually, when I play d&d, I like to give my characthers porn like names, like Dick Everhard, Máximo Rigor, etc, a friend also did this, naming his "Max Hardcore".

No, really, I'd like to suggest, but mostly, the names I'd like to use for my sons, eventually, are in spanish, and I guess they wouldn't fit for your child. If you find my randomness annoying I'll stop and delete it.

[dandan]

Alas my work filter doesn't seem to approve of those sites

[Bram]

Strange. My work filter, while banning almost every other concievable site, seems to have no problem with Dutch purity tests and applets that reveal your Dutch pr0n name.

[dandan]

The lack of denial of my claim of a world filled with Bram-spurned women is very telling!

[dandan]

The ultrasound suggests that it may be a girl so most of my ideas for names have gone out of the window. Matthew was in pole position.

Emma, Rachel, Monica (yes, we do watch Friends), Jennifer (probably too much Friends) and Amy have now moved to the fore. Phoebe isn't up for discussion.

On the plus side, the number of female Magic players is set to rise.

[Kowal]

If I were you and it were a girl, I would name it Sarah. I've always been partial to that name. That or Jessica.

[Bram]

Dandan: congrats! (almost).

Nwo that we've narrowed down the options by some 50%:

Tiegan (aztec girl name meaning little princess in the big valley) or a nice Welsh name like Caitlin (possibly hottest name ever), or Catherine or Yeesha (yes, I'm a MYST fanatic).

[dandan]

I heartily approve of Tiegan and Caitlin and shall use them to lobby for a name that I actually stand a chance of my wife accepting. I thought Caitlin was an Irish name (as I have Irish, Scottish and English blood, choosing a Welsh name would be errrrrr odd. Still I do odd things...)

Slovak pronunciation

Tee-eh-gan
(t)sa-eh-tlyn

Rachel has the serious downside of starting with R and I already have an 'R. Saunders' sprog.

Do you think I can get away with calling the sprog Dangoandbuymorecardsonebay? The idea of my wife shouting that out three times has a certain appeal.

[walkingdude]

I think that one of the best things you can do is give you child a name with a really large range of legitimate nickname possibilities that still sounds classy if they need to use their full name on respectable forms. By these standards Elizabeth and Katharine really are just far and away the best. Jennifer while not quite as good is still money. Giving your kid a wide range of nicknames lets them have a good choice of self expression.

When children switch from middle school to high school or high school to college they often want to change themselves or change their image and switching nicknames is psychologically a big part of this since their old name carries baggage. If a kid named Mathew is made fun of in middle school while going by Matt they are either forced to use their full name in high school or stick with an old name with baggage that will hold them down and just result in them getting made fun of more.  While no one ever wants to think that their kid will get made fun of its always better to have a plan for the worst even if it’s never needed.

[dandan]

Elizabeth gets translated to Alzbeta in Slovak (Don't ask) and I'd hate that to happen to a kid of mine. Slovak kids typically get ko/ka endings to 'shortened' names so Catherine, Katherine means Katka, Jane becomes Janka, Daniella goes to Danka (as does Dagmar). As Slovak is fairly phonetic they are terrible at spelling anything remotely different (I have no chance at all with Saunders).

[Bram]

Katka

This sounds incredibly hot. Choose this, and you'd better pray that by the time your daughter will be 20 years old, I won't still be 27.

[Kowal]

Agreed, Katka is hella hot.

[dandan]

In my experience, I can confirm that Katka does indeed appear to be a hot name usually belonging to hot Slovak women. I'm not sure if it is a good idea to choose a name that appeals to the Dutch (they have already bought 2 houses in my little village - I guess even Slovakia is better than Holland) but Katerina/Catherine does appeal (i don't own a horse).

Note that Katka sounds a little like Kafka (big in former Czechoslovakia, honest!) and Kafka is very unhot as a name. My recent experience with the Slovak medical system has shown me that his ideas on administration have been taken to heart by the masses.

[dandan]

Well, the dude has arrived (1 Feb 51cm and 3.34 kilos for those who care).

At the moment it looks like Nicholas Matthew although my wife is not convinced and keeps mentioning Thomas.

At any rate another kid means an increased chance that Magic cards will be acceptable as birthday presents for the sprogs in the future. As my daughter's main interest in Magic cards are cards with carnivorous felines and scary monsters (I feel leaning to Noble Panther and Suicide Black), I may have to rely on my son to take up an interest in the Time Walk and Mishra's Workshops that are so sadly lacking in the 'family' collection.

[Limbo]

Congratulations with the latest addition to your family.

Maybe you should give him a panoptic mirror with a time walk imprinted on it, so he will be an adult tomorrow. Then he can become the new world champion in no-time

[Bram]

OMG! Congrats!

I wanted to place some random comment about what a shame it is it didn't turn out to be a girl, but it would be inappropriate (I *had* to mention it somehow, though ;-) and anyway, I'm just too genuinely happy for you to crack jokes.

Congrats again. I hope everyone is healthy? Both Nicholas and Thomas are fine names. Matter of fact, I only know cool people named Nicholas or Thomas, so his future is looking bright either way :-)

[rvs]

Congrats dandan.

[BWM]

congrats dandan...

[Dr. Sylvan]

Congratulations!

When does he get his TMD account? (And wouldn't it be awesome to have a TMD alias before he has a real name?!)

[dandan]

I'll give him so Magic cards to chew on (I suspect they'll be the same ones that Rebecca got and virtually all commons anyway) and we'll see which he prefers. His TMD name can be the card he chew-zes.

As for being future World Champion I fear he starts with a genetic disadvantage, being related to me (and his mother refuses to play against anything packing countermagic or discard).