When we’re painting we talk about all sorts of weird things that we probably wouldn’t otherwise get around to. And while painting the bedroom we got to the topic of “names that our parents almost gave us.” Get this. My mom wanted to name me Gina. We would have been John & Gina. That made us titter. Not sure if it’s a had to be there thing though. Either way, John’s dad’s choice of names takes the cake. He wanted to name John… wait for it… Lars.
Lars Petersik.
How funny is that? If I had seen tall dirty blond John at work and asked a coworker “oh who’s that?” and heard them respond with ” that’s Lars Petersik, he’s an account manager.” Let’s just say I would have been all “niiiiice to meeeeeeet you Laaaaars” with that over-enunciated-because-I’m-not-sure-you’re-great-at-deciphering-super-speedy-NY-talkers connotation. The same long drawn out delivery I use with my only-speaks-Italian grandmother. It would have been hysterical. John probably never would have let me live it down. Or asked me to marry him a year-ish later.
But that’s not all. Apparently John’s dad also wanted to name John “Vector.” Because he liked math. How I was able to continue painting with tears of laughter streaming down my face is beyond me. So it got us wondering what you guys were almost named. Come on… someone out there can beat Vector and Lars, right?
Laura says
yep. if i had been a boy, bartholomew.
Meredith says
If Lizzy was a boy, Justin really wanted to name the hypothetical boy baby Nolan Ryan Ourlastname. Granted, Ryan is his older brother’s middle name, but I told him that we were not naming our child Nolan Ryan. He could have Nolan, or Ryan, but not both.
In other news, I’m really glad that Justin’s parents decided on Gilbert for his MIDDLE name instead of his first name!
gena says
Oh, I can beat that …. my husband wanted to name our son:
SKYWALKER ! He thought it would look great on a Miami Dolphins jersey someday….. thank God I got to the birth certificate forms first !
Emily @ Merrypad says
Nothing to be embarrassed of like Vector, but they definitely wanted a boy both with my sister and I because they both agreed whole-heartedly on the name Max. But that ended up being the dog’s name in the end.
Nina says
Lars is a pretty common name where I come from and I think it would have sounded very well with your last name…You could’ve passed for someone from Sweden or so ;)
My parents wanted to name me Tina but decided to go for Nina last minute. Thanks mom & dad! I had 5 Tinas in my year in school…
DawnSC says
My husband and I have been discussing names for hypothetical non-furry children (still hypothetical, but what can I say, I like planning :-P). He likes nouns, which struck me as an odd category, but I was willing to go with it since I figured it was still pretty broad. Girl nouns are fairly easy but we have a harder time with boy nouns. Considering we’re both engineers, I’ll have to bring up Vector tonight. :) Particularly since I’m convinced we’ll create some artsy baby to offset our science-geekiness, so Vector would be even more ironic. hehe
Je @ das Sushi says
My Dad wanted to name me Wolfgang, were I a boy. My mom says thank God I was a girl and she didn’t have to fight *that* fight.
Renee says
I was almost named Rilla, after a great great something or other. I could just imagine being called Rilla Gorilla growing up. Thankfully my parents changed their minds. Funny thing is my youngest cousin actually got the name Rilla. But she goes by her middle name Claire, much better.
Lisa says
If I had been a boy, my parents were going to name me Eric…which happens to be my husband’s name. :-)
Hannah says
Athena. Athena Marie. Can’t you just imagine the nicknames that could come out of that… “Thenie” Who in their right mind would want to do that to their child?! Thank the Lord that my parents came to their senses.
shereen says
Hahah – my husband (David) was supposed to be a Rebecca. My parents picked out Malyka for me, but thought “Malyka Khan” sounded too noisy.
lindsay says
My husband’s top name choices for a boy are Lethal, Ranger, and Byron. And he’s serious! I think God smiled on me in order to avoid this catastrophe which is why we are having a girl soon.
Keri Lynn says
My mother went through an asssortment of names from Penelope to Crystal Rainbow (thank god she passed on that one!)…my dad’s middle name is Chester and he goes by Chet so Chetney was in the cards at one point in time. She finally decided Brittany Lynn was the final name but while my mother was passed out after her c-section my paternal grandmother gave me the name Keri. Apparently there was a one-armed lady at Farm Fresh with that name and spelled like that and my grandmother loved it. The creepy thing is that my mom had an imaginary friend when she was little named Carrie but my grandmother or father didn’t know that.
Jen @ das Sushi says
Maybe our parents should have done *something* else, though…I see there are three Jen/Jenn’s on this page already!
Oh! Oops, I mistyped mine. That’s Jen @ das Sushi.
Liz says
My name was supposed to be Laura Marie, but my Aunt was pregnant at the same time as my Mom and gave birth a few days before Her. She hadn’t thought of a name yet – so she just stole the name my Mom had picked out for me. Yep, my Aunt stole my name from me before I was even born! Needless to say my Mom was not too pleased. Then my parents apparently couldn’t think of anything else before I was born so I was given my older sisters middle name, Elizabeth. Talk about hand me downs!
Ana Hogan says
My mom wanted to name me Pearl or Alia. For the longest time, when I was little, I wished she had named me Pearl. ha ha!
Jaime says
If I was a boy, my name was going to be Stephen King.
Yup! I was going to be named after the man that has made me forever scared and freaked out by clowns!! That, and my pet coming back to life after I buried him ;)
Sam says
My parents didn’t have a funny second option for me. HOWEVER, had my sister been a boy, she would be named Hunter Utah Terry. Our parents say she was destined to be a basketball player and that her nickname would be “You Tall” Terry! Ridiculous and somewhat redneck.
Becky says
My mom really really wanted to name me “Billie Jean”…(I was born in 1984). THANK GOD my dad was able to change her mind and they went with Rebecca Ann instead!! phew! Although to this day my mom still says she thinks it would have been “cute”. LOL!
Sarah B says
If I had been a boy I would have been Nicholas. Nothing too exciting. But I have a few fun ones of other people…
My aunt was almost Jayla Johnston-my great grandma vetoed that one (stripper name anyone?!)
I know a Sara Lee, like the baked good brand.
My cousin’s baby was almost named Thor (after the brand of tools) but she and her husband agreed to that as the middle name. He’s now Jackson Thor.
and I know a guy with flower power parents…his name is Zachariah Sugarbear. He will never live that down :)
Cassie says
My dad was all about naming me Salvator. My mom said with a name like that I’d most likely grow up to be a garbage man. She wanted Nicholas. Lucky for them they has a girl and the debate ended right there.
Cheryl says
Nasturtium Chrysanthemum but they would call me “Nasty” for short.
At least, that’s what they told my older sister to freak her out.
Sarah H says
I have a cousin whose name is Ashley Noel. When she was born, someone asked, after hearing her name, “How can you spell Ashley with no L?”
(And if I was a boy, my name would have been Gregory.)
Meghan says
I was going to be ELMER had I been born a boy! Phew!
In related news, my best friend just announced that if she has a son she’d like to name him Laird. Oy.
emily @ the happy home says
i was born near christmas, and my parents totally wanted to name me HOLLY.
love the name, but that’s just cruel.
Anne says
My parents used to love to eat tater tots pre-kiddos and used to joke that they would name their first kid “Tater”. Luckily for me they got a dog before I was born. Yes…he was named Tater!
Whitney says
My husband went to school with someone whose last name is Christmas. He and his wife had a little girl just before Christmas and did the unthinkable…they named her Mary Christmas. Poor kiddo! At least she has the hope of taking her husband’s name one day. :)
Brigid says
My name was always pretty set (although they tossed around Alana for a while) but my brother-in-law once said he really wanted to name a future son ‘Brock’. Not such a bad name…but paired with the last name Lee it turns into BROCCOLI!
Newlywed Next Door says
If I would have been a boy my Dad was dead set on naming me Leif (like Leif Ericson, the Norse explorer). And my name would have been Leif Andersen. Good thing I was a girl! :)
Kimberly says
My Mom named me Kimberly, but originally she wanted to name me Selena. It would be so weird if I was a Selena right now. Me and the hubs would be Selena + Kyle instead of Kim + Kyle. Me no likey! So happy to be a Kimberly!!!
Wendy says
If my son had turned out to be a daughter, my husband wanted to name her Beverly Olivia….Doesn’t sound so bad until you realize we went to the University of Texas (longhorn named Bevo is our school mascot). When he told me the name….I was intrigued, then when he told me why he liked the name…..steam came from my ears. We are not naming a child after a college mascot!
Lani says
It’s not great….but I was such a big baby that the doctors swore I was a boy….so up until I came out…I was Thomas Ming (a combo of my parents eldest brothers). Thank goodness I had an older sister so I didn’t have to live in boy clothes my whole baby-hood!
Traci says
I was going to be Cara. I’m much happier with Traci– there aren’t a whole lot of us and there are even less with the same spelling.
Cristina says
Michellin – a combination of my parents’ names, Mike and Linda, or a brand of tire. Magdelene was another option. My husband REALLY wanted to name our son Hurcules, thankfully we settled on Elijah.
Erika B says
Well, I was going to be named “Ford” if I was a boy. If that doesn’t win for most hick-ish and embarrassing, I don’t know what does. God knew what He was doing when He made me a girl.
Krissy says
Ahaha, thanks for the laugh! I got a real kick out of “Vector”. (My first thought was the cereal before you mentioned the math thing.)
I don’t know what alternate girl name I would have been, but if I was a boy, my parents wanted to call me Darcy.
Moira says
I was almost Rebecca Sue, and they were going to call me “Becky Sue.” Uh, no. Thank goodness they came across my real name (which I hated as a kid because it was different – now I love it).
Leslie says
I would have been a boy Billy Ray.
Worst baby name that I’ve heard recently– Baynon, which was the name of a friend’s family friend. The guy died right around the time that she found out she was pregnant. I told her that grief makes people do strange things! Luckily she is having a girl. :)
PS: “Lars and the Real Girl” is a REALLY good movie!!
D says
I don’t have any cool almost names, but I did work with a Marybeth Butterworth
haha :)
brandt @ New House on the Blog says
Lars? Wow…Lars Petersik does have a nice ring to it. Like a Viking. I imagine the TECHNO VIKING when I think of that.
Either that, or it reminds me of the movie “Lars and the Real Girl,” which I highly recommend.
Abby says
My dad wanted to name me Roberta…after
(wait for it…)
Roberto Clemente. The baseball player. He’s a tried and true Pittsburgh Pirate fan. Thankfully, my mom intervened.
cheryl says
My dad wanted to name me Denise… after his OLD GIRLFRIEND (who is also my moms cousin)!!! My mom pulled rank and named me Cheryl after my aunt.
If I were a boy I would have been Eric. 21 years later I married an Eric!
My brother was allowed to name my little sister. If she were a boy it was Jamal Habeeb??!!! We are a French-Canadian family in New England! Jillian it was!!
Gloria says
So I’m curious? What embarrasing thing did you almost name Clara?
When we were pregant with our 3rd boy, we asked our then 3-year-old for some middle name suggestions, thinking it’d be cute if he had a hand in helping name the new baby. Only stipulation was that the middle name had to end in a “r”….(we had a pattern going and didn’t want to break it). His name suggestion: Chomper! (He had been watching quite a bit of Land Before Time around that time). And the funny thing? We ALMOST did it, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to stick him with that name for the rest of his life.
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Gloria,
Well, we like to think that we didn’t have any terrible names picked out for Clara, but scroll back to learn some of the history behind picking her name and some other names we liked but couldn’t use.
xo,
s
Summer says
Haha, my husband is an irish boy…super white skin, red hair, freckles all over…and his mom wanted to name him Tyrone!!! HAHA!!! he never would have lived through school had that happened. Better yet, when we got married we both said we would name a baby girl Madison…and then we tried it with our last name Cowley…and realized we would call her Maddy Cowley…MAD COW!!! She would have killed us!
Jade Travers says
hahaha… its the same story with my husband (he doesn’t have red hair, just a red moustache)… it was either Tyrone or Densel!
Funnelcloud Rachel says
Vector!!! We just watched the movie “Despicable Me” last night and the villian’s name is Vector!
My husband was looking through some books that trace his ancestry a few years ago and learned that he had a relative named DIDYMUS. We immediately (jokingly) decided that that would be the name of our future firstborn son. We’ve joked about it so long now that I think some people think we are serious!
samantha says
when my mum was pregnant with me, my Brother who was around 6 going on 7 was in love with two TV characters, one was a witch and the other was a mute mermaid called miranda, the witch won and i was named Samantha, (you know from bewithced) but it was a close call….sorry to anyone named Miranda.
Meredith says
OH! I have another couple good ones! I went to high school with a kid whose mother re-married, and he took his step-father’s last name….leaving him named Brandon Brandon.
I also went to school with another kid whose name was Justin Thyme. No joke.
Also, when I worked with child welfare, I had about seven girls on my caseload with the first name “Unique”. Heh.
Britt says
One of the contenders for my husband’s name was Otto. There was no way I could have married him with the name Otto! I apologize to any Otto’s out there…
Amanda says
My brother’s name is Adam. My dad wanted to name me Eve! He didn’t win that one, but my initials were “ABC” must to everyone’s amusement.
Sarah Rigs says
I was almost Sarah Lee!
I’m really glad my parents decided to ditch the middle name and just go with Sarah.