When do names go from invented to acceptable?

BackseatDriver

I'm not really a fan of a million spelling variations for names that are all pronounced exactly the same, but I actually enjoy the evolution of names. I also don't mind names that are created, but I know there are a lot of "traditionalists" out there that prefer names with a long history that are well accepted as given names. But what about names like Jessica, Miranda, Pamela, Wendy, Dorian, Vanessa, Caitlin (with its American pronunciation), Katelyn (with its American spelling)- are these valid names? At what point does a name become acceptable and "traditional" in your opinion?

 

HannahO28

Here's the "rules" I kind of generally think of. They're not hard and fast rules by any means. More like general guidlines.  

I think names should have at least a 100 year history to be acceptable or valid. (so most of the ones that you have listed "count". They've been used in literature for more than 100 years) 

For a name to be traditional or classic, I think it should be used fairly regularly over a long period of time. There are some "true classics" that have always been in use, and probably always will be in use (Elizabeth and John). There are also "revised classics" that were used over long periods of time in the past, have fallen out of fashion, but will always come back (Henry, Penelope). 

 

SnoopyLuv

HannahO28:

Here's the "rules" I kind of generally think of. They're not hard and fast rules by any means. More like general guidlines.  

I think names should have at least a 100 year history to be acceptable or valid. (so most of the ones that you have listed "count". They've been used in literature for more than 100 years) 

For a name to be traditional or classic, I think it should be used fairly regularly over a long period of time. There are some "true classics" that have always been in use, and probably always will be in use (Elizabeth and John). There are also "revised classics" that were used over long periods of time in the past, have fallen out of fashion, but will always come back (Henry, Penelope). 

 

I like this. 

slukd79

Unfortunately (for us), our daughter's name has a one hundred year old history as a female first name and we get a decent amount of judgement from this board for it being a surname turned first name, a male name turned female name etc. So... It is in the eye of the beholder. We consider her name a classic on my H's side of the family due to the history/generations involved. But our difficulty is that it has caught on like wild fire and been tossed in the trendy pile.

My follow up question for something of this nature, is when is it acceptable for a boys name to switch to a girls. You rarely see names like Meredith get flack for being a female name. Yet it began as a male name. A couple of days ago I saw a two separate posts state they had males named Pearl in their family tree. When did it switch and why is it OK as a classic for girls now?

(This is a concern of mine with our boy name, August. I have seen a few posts for it either being considered for a girl or a baby girl already has the name. Ultimately I don't know where it is headed and will need to make a decision regardless. But I am curious!)

austenreader85

Well, at one point all names were new and "made up."  But the way they were created had sense about them.  There weren't smoosh names 100 years ago that are to honor 2 people with different names.  There weren't crazy spellings within the same language/culture for the same name.  The closest thing to that happening is Katherine/Catherine and Elisabeth/Elizabeth.  Such as when you read about the wives of Henry VIII sometimes you will see Katherine of Aragon and sometimes Catherine.  But no inventive spellings with extra letters that are supposed to make the same sound.  And definitely not with the purpose of needing to make the name unique.

How names were created, traditionally, is that they were taken from words that exactly or closely sounded like the meaning they implied.  We see this easily with English virtue names.  My name is Chasity.  It's taken from the Latin root word chastity, which means purity.  So, when it became a name it's because someone wanted to instill a feeling of purity in their daughter.

Now, we have people named after cities and cars.  I don't think our forefathers would have named their children after wagons.

Now, how did a name like Catherine, which does not sound like anything in English become so common and acceptable?  Catherine actually is Greek.  Well, not Catherine- something that sounds like Catherine when we hear it and so it was Anglisized.

So,  one culture came in contact with another and borrowed a well established name and changed the pronunciation a bit.  That is still much different from deciding suddenly that the word apple is a name or that manzana (Spanish for apple) is a name or that mansannah (my invented transliterated word for manzana) is a name..  And it's still a far cry from deciding to spell Christina as Kryystyinaa or whatever whacked out spellings people come up with.

Traditional, to me, means consistently in usage for centuries.  

FWIW:  Behind the name has this info on the names you asked about.

Jessica:   This name was first used in this form by Shakespeare in his play 'The Merchant of Venice' (1596), where it belongs to the daughter of Shylock. Shakespeare probably based it on the biblical name ISCAH, which would have been spelled Jescha in his time. It was not commonly used as a given name until the middle of the 20th century.

     ISCAH:  From the Hebrew name ???????? (Yiskah) which meant "to behold". In the Old Testament this is the name of Abraham's niece, mentioned only briefly. This is the basis of the English name Jessica.

Miranda:  Derived from Latin mirandus meaning "admirable, wonderful". The name was created by Shakespeare for the heroine in his play 'The Tempest' (1611). It did not become a common English given name until the 20th century. This is also the name of one of the moons of Uranus.

Pamela:  This name was invented in the late 16th century by the poet Sir Philip Sidney for use in his poem 'Arcadia'. He possibly intended it to mean "all sweetness" from Greek pa? (pan) "all" and ?e?? (meli) "honey". It was later employed by author Samuel Richardson for the heroine in his novel 'Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded' (1740), after which time it became used as a given name. It did not become popular until the 20th century.

Wendy:  In the case of the character from J. M. Barrie's play 'Peter Pan' (1904), it was created from the nickname fwendy "friend", given to the author by a young friend. However, the name was used prior to the play (rarely), in which case it could be related to the Welsh name GWENDOLEN and other names beginning with the element gwen meaning "white, fair, blessed".

       Gwendolen:  Means "white ring", derived from the Welsh elements gwen "white, fair, blessed" and dolen "ring". This was the name of a mythical queen of the Britons who defeated her husband in battle, as told by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Dorian:  The name was first used by Oscar Wilde in his novel 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (1891), which tells the story of a man whose portrait ages while he stays young. Wilde probably took it from the name of the ancient Greek tribe the Dorians.  Also, BTN mentions this is a masculine name- just wanted to put that out there because all others you listed are female.

Vanessa:  Invented by author Jonathan Swift for his poem 'Cadenus and Vanessa' (1726). He arrived at it by rearranging the initial syllables of the first name and surname of Esther Vanhomrigh, his close friend. Vanessa was later used as the name of a genus of butterfly. It was a rare given name until the mid-20th century, at which point it became fairly popular.

Caitlin:

GENDER: Feminine

USAGE: Irish, English

PRONOUNCED: KAHT-leen (Irish), KAYT-lin (English)   [key]

Meaning & History

Anglicized form of CAITL?N

          CAITL?N: 

GENDER: Feminine

USAGE: Irish

PRONOUNCED: KAHT-leen   [key]

Meaning & History

Irish form of Cateline, the Old French form of KATHERINE.

 

Katelyn: 

GENDER: Feminine

USAGE: English (Modern)

PRONOUNCED: KAYT-lin   [key]

Meaning & History

Variant of CAITLIN

 

So to answer your questions.  I would not consider any of the names traditional, except Caitlin but I know in the US it does not have traditional usage so that doesn't really count to me.  But, I'd say they're all legit.  But, I find Caitlin and it's variants annoying because there are so many.  But as long as they're actually normal spellings that are logically arrived at, then it's ok with me.  Khaitelynn would not be ok!  Caitlynn, Katelynn are not really legit IMO because the extra n is unnecessary.

Are there exceptions to these sorts of rules?  Of course.  If you're trying to honor your grandmothers:  Katherine and Lynn then sure, Katelynn is ok.  If your DH always wanted to honor his war buddy Sgt. Adolph Mason who saved his life but you have a very German last name so you can't go near Adolph so you chose Mason- yeah ok.  But for the vast majority of people it's not needed to go those routes.  One or two people thinking Nevaeh is cute "because she came from heaven" is not so bad.  It's when it becomes a craze.  

And most sad of all, that if things continue and Nevaeh becomes very popular and somehow stays that way for 300 years, then down the line someone could actually argue that it's a traditional name.

Wow, sorry for the book, I'm just a very opinionated name nerd.