The Pagan Baby Name Dilemma
Saturday November 29, 2008
Choose your child's name carefully!© Getty Images
For starters, Oak and Willow aren't too bad. I think nature names are borderline... they're unusual enough that people say, "Wow, what an unusual name!" but not so weird that no one knows what it means or thinks you're a freak for giving it to your child. Besides, there are more people using nature names nowadays -- I personally know children named Sage, Phoenix, Wynter and Skye, and they're all perfectly well-adjusted kids.
That having been said, there's also the dilemma of just going overboard. If your child's name sounds like he should be living in the Shire and cavorting with elves, then you may want to reconsider. Besides, what exactly is a Pagan baby name? There's no big list to choose from, and "Pagan" encompasses a lot of different cultures. What you may want to do is look into your own family's heritage, and select something that reflects your ancestry and cultural background. For more on this, read Selecting a Pagan Baby Name.
Of course, if you really want to shock your family (or if you're just easily amused, like I am), you can always play with the Random Pagan Name Generator.
Comments
We had this dilemma with our kids, and we toyed with some out-there names and some more common ones. We ended up naming our son Liam Joesph to reflect our Celtic heritage. For our daughter, we went with Naomi as a first name (the biblical nature bothered us, but her spirit was adamant about that name!) and Rhiannon as a middle name to pull in our beliefs. We felt those were both good compromises between recognizable names that aren’t overly common (Liam is popular in some areas, but there aren’t many where we live) that reflected our beliefs without screaming them.
With my children I had dreams several weeks prior to their birth that clearly gave me their names. For my son I dreamt of coyotes howling at the moon, night after night…so I named him Gabriel Coyote, Gabriel being the 13 Sepheria in the Qabala related to the moon and Coyote for obvious reasons. With my daughter; I had dreams about the Goddess Freyja speaking to me about her (my daughter) and how she will help to bring Serenity to my life…thus her name is Serenity Freyja.
Listen to your dreams your childs spirit may very well reveal a name to you.
Brightest Blessings and congratulations!
Actually, Hobbit names are wonderful: they’re usually flowers. While Rose might seem a bit like your grandmother, how about other ones like Lily, Pansy, or (one of my favourites) Peony.
Well, that’s true, the flower ones are lovely… it’s the more D&D-sounding names that are a little off-putting. While it would have been really cool to have named my son Thorin Shieldbreaker, we stuck with Zac.
patti
Also, remember that children are individuals. I’d recommend choosing some a little religion-neutral. Coming from a hugely t’tian family and always feeling put upon when I am forced to use my legal name has been a thorn in my side for years. The same goes for your pagan babies. Your child may not choose to be pagan later in life.
Be careful.
When naming our child we did what we wanted to do. My family tradition is that we have long names and my husbands is that they have odd ones so with a mother Andrionna and a father Zebulun we have decided to name our girl Elliodonous (Elliot for short) Jolliette, a mix between jolly my husbands middle name and lei one of my middle names and for our boy we’ve decided on Ezikiel Alucard Jolly (Zeke). With me as a pagan and him as a christian we wanted neutral names so that our children would grow up to choose whichever they felt most comfortable with.