1 week ago
Monday, March 24, 2008
Two Shannon's
When our daughter was born, no one knew how hard it would be to find a name for this new little girl. Had she been a boy(which is what I was expecting to have-remember-this was in the day when you still GUESSED at what you were having) she would have been Mark Phillip.....but no....she was a girl. The nurse had a hissy fit that we couldn't/wouldn't name her right away and the hubby and I struggled to find a name that fit this precious bundle. We finally settled on "Shannon" and all was right with the world.....until she found out-at the age of 7 or something- that "Shannon" is a boys' name in Ireland. Oh!! the wailing and gnashing of teeth and she decided right there that she would be "Monique"....which lasted not as long as one would think! As time went by, we heard different remarks -from her- about her name..."What, were you on DRUGS or something when you named me?" "How could you pick a name that has so many "N"s in it?" (with her middle name and last name she does have a copious amount of "n"s--6 to be exact)--"Why didn't you name me after a relative?"__(Okay --some female names in my family......"OTA", "LOTA","LETHA", "LENORE", "BESSIE", "AVIS","AVEN"---do you see what I had to work with?!!) AND, I was working with a hubby who had decided that one weird name in the family (mine) was enough---I know I know....I married him in spite of all prejudice's!!! So , Shannon eventually came to terms with her name and has settled into it. Over the weekend, she met-for the first time- a guy named Shannon and here they are. They really had a fun time with their names. Shannon, the guy, was amazed that we had chosen to go with the "river theme" for our girls' names in our family. (The Neva being a river in Russia and The Shannon being a river in Ireland) I didn't have the heart to tell him he was wrong!
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6 comments:
A very nice story, wonderfully told! So, at least your daughter has learnt that Shannon is a boy's AND a girl's name! ... and now she is happy about it!
Could you make a similar story about the choice of Neva? I guess it comes rather from the Spanish (snow) than from the river?
Girl's names that sound like boy's names seem to be very popular today. You were just a trend setter.
However n is a hard letter for children to master.
I find it hard to believe that Shannon's main concern is her name... from the daughter of someone who is 5'11&3/4". The fact that she is a foot taller than everyone else shouldn't make it hard for her to have a traditionally male name.
As a side note, i only know female Shannons. I think it's a beautiful name.
I recently read an article about male/female names...It said that once a male name becomes widely adopted for girls, it often drops out of use for boys. They listed several that used to be male names that now are more female: Ashley, Courtney, Beverly, Carol, Hilary, Lindsey, Vivian to name a few. Some names that are exceptions to this trend are: Cameron, Dakota, Dylan, and Jordan...these still have more males with these names than females. They didn't mention Shannon but I am glad you didn't name her after the family names...Bessie, Ota, Nina, and Lota Marie would NOT be good choices!! I only know one Shannon, my wonderful niece, and the fact that I just learned she shares a name with a river in Ireland...must be where she learned gets the "green" gene!!
Hi, this is the first time I visited this blog but go to your other blog often. My friend has a daughter named Shannon, I must send this link to them, they will find it amusing.
I had an uncle Lesley which these days is a girls name.
I only know one Shannon, who is a boy, but Shannon is also an airport in Ireland!
When my new grandson was born, mummy and daddy had picked out a boys name, but had no idea what girls name would have been used if he had turned out to be a girl!
Persanally I'm not keen on names that can be used for either gender. too confusing for my little brain.
For instance, I know both boys and girls called Taylor and McKenzie... which of course were formerly family names.
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