What's in a name?

When we chose a name for Bianca, Terence wanted to call her "Bianca" because it means "white" in Italian and of course with our surname being White he thought this would be perfect. I had to put my foot down when he suggested "Lily" as a middle name for Bianca - because Bianca Lily White would just be overdoing it. And with his sense of humour I had to endure suggestions such as "Snowy" (which drove me mad). I thought the combination of Bianca Marie White would go quite well until somebody pointed out that it would spell "BMW" and that was the end of that idea. So in the end Bianca became Bianca Leigh White.

And then with Caitlyn I insisted on choosing her name as Terence chose Bianca's name. So I chose Caitlyn (just because I always liked it) and Anne as a second name (because it goes quite well together) - no particular reason, I just liked it.

We didn't want to choose family names, but wanted our kids to have their own names.

I do find it amazing that some parents would give their children some obscure names that they would have to live with for the rest of their lives or names that nobody could ever pronounce. Of course celebrities do it all the time - take "Apple" for example. I wanted names that wouldn't become the object of ridicule, that would be easy to spell and pronounce.

So when I read this article I can only feel so sorry for these kids. Imagine being named: Number 16 Bus Shelter, Violence, Benson and Hedges (given to twins), or Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.