on to baby names (in a very long winded manner)

[smileswhf]

My husband and I aren't much alike on the surface. When you meet J. you know immediately that he is a classic geek. In terms of background he comes from a kind, conservative (not in a political sense), traditional family and he has grown up to be all of those things himself. I am more of a hippy. My family was whacked. I prefer avant garde and I struggle with how to make our lives more colorful without changing the things that J. likes and is comfortable with. You would think the issue of a baby name would be something that we would conflict over. Not so much.

Weeks before we knew the gender, I was trying to get J. to talk about it. He didn't want to. It was just too soon for him. But we did very quickly lay down some ground rules. No repeat of names from the current generation. I feel strongly that kids should have their own name to go with their own identity. And j. didn't want any wacky hippy names. No moonbeam or sunshine or space cadet. In my defense I only started suggesting names like that to annoy him. ;) From there we both really quickly gravitated toward family names. Back when we talked about this for just a few minutes over the breakfast table, j. asked me what my mother's middle name is. It's Mae. It turns out that was his grandmother's nickname. His grandmother's name was Domenica. I said something like, "Oh, that's pretty" and the conversation ended. It turns out that we both really like this name. It's a family name but no one in the family currently has it. It's pretty and it goes with j's Italian last name. It is different, though. It has not been in the top 1000 names for the last 10 years and was only just in the top 1000 names back in grandma's day. It's old fashioned but not so old fashioned that you feel sorry for the kid -- unlike most of the names in my family. Domenica has potential for good nicknames -- mae, nicky, and my favorite domino. I proposed that if we gave her a really plain other name, then she could use that if she found domenica to be a burden. On the topic of plain names, we both like laura. So the only proposed name we have up for discussion right now is either domenica laura or laura domenica.

My question to all of you: what do you think about saddling a kid with the name Domenica. Cool or a reason to hate your parents?

Comments

[ivy]

I think it's cool! I like the pairing of normal and unusual, too.

[cwendy41.livejournal.com]

Awwww, I guess the name River-Moonbeam Ocean is out of the question.

[cwendy41.livejournal.com]

On a more serious note, I think that Domenica sounds very spunky. Not too old fashioned, but not too "modern" either. Also note likely that there would be another one in her school. Cute as a little girl name, but also respectable enough to be used as an adult.

The one thing that some of my friends with unique names hated is how whenever they went to the store as kids, they could not find mugs/stickers/keychains/etc bauble with their names on it. I don't know how "Domenica" would fare on this front.

[caereala.livejournal.com]

I like it a lot. If it were mine, I would use Nica as a nickname.