N and I had agreed years ago that if we ever had a daughter, I would give her my last name and choose her first name, and if we had a son, he would give him his last name and pick his first name.
So yesterday N set to work choosing the first name for the boy. He doesn’t follow the news on principle, mind you.
“So how about we call him Tamerlan?” he asked. “It’s a beautiful name.”
I had to explain why this wasn’t a smart choice at this particular moment in time.
In the spirit of full disclosure, though, I have to confess that I suggested the name “Mason” after my favorite character from the soap opera Santa Barbara. N had to explain why this was not happening.
Clarissa's Blog 
Is Tamerlan a name that is used in US too?
I ask since if you intend to raise a kid in US, better to give a name that sounds usual in US. Having 100% Russian (and/or to some US people – Muslim sounding) name surely won’t contribute to his popularity, to say the least.
Many children of immigrants to Israel change their names, Hebrew-ize them. My younger brother didn’t want to have a completely Russian sounding name, so he changed it to something that sounds OK in several languages and 100% usual in Israel. I decided not to change my name, but understand it can hurt one, while searching for a job f.e.
You and N are immigrants, but to your child US will be a mother country and English – a mother tongue. Most children don’t want to stand out, but rather to belong to their society. Their in a way it isn’t so for parents who immigrated.
LikeLike
Wanted to add that my brother’s decision is the usual one for children, who arrive young to Israel. So, it’s most common reaction in little immigrant 1st generation children. Adult immigrants in Israel give their born-in-Israel children 100% Hebrew, Jewish Israeli names.
LikeLike
I’m not the one who is choosing the boy’s name, so none of this is up to me. I had beautiful names selected for 3 girls (both 1st and last), but now they are not needed.
LikeLike
If N reads your blog, this info is to him, then.
If you wish, you can tell him.
LikeLike
I apparently live under a rock, what’s wrong with Mason?
LikeLike
No, it’s a great name, but N. thinks it’s tacky to name a kid after a soap opera character. 🙂 🙂
Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the soap opera connection.
LikeLike
I named my first daughter after a comic book character.
LikeLike
Jason?
LikeLike
Cason?
LikeLike
“N. thinks it’s tacky to name a kid after a soap opera character”
Tacky? Maybe a little (cough_a lot_cough), but it shows you’re assimilating!
Next stop puttnig peanuts in a can of coke so you can eat and drink at the same time! (or a car with no tires on bricks in the front yard)
LikeLike
I never heard of peanuts in a can of Coke. This actually sounds like fun. 🙂
LikeLike
“And Tamerlane, it’s widely known
Without a bomb to call his own,
Destroyed whole populations.”
This is the first thing that came to mind when I heard the suspect’s name. It’s from Phyllis McGinley’s The Conquerors.
LikeLike
Name him “David” 😉
LikeLike
Yes, ‘David’ is a good name.
LikeLike
This name is actually in the running 🙂 but it is too Jewish to my ear. We will be like some sort of Jewish wannabes. 🙂 The same goes for “Jacob” that N. likes.
LikeLike
I agree.
LikeLike
Jesus is too Jewish, also.
LikeLike
Dzhokhar! 😉
Nah…we have too much of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Dudayev (see the connection?), blughhhh….
LikeLike
A song about parents choosing names (for your French speaking readers):
HITLER ROBERT
Les granolas font chier
Avec leur macramé
Leurs grands vêtements fleuris
Et leur air abruti
Et comme s’ils n’étaient pas
Assez nombreux ici-bas
Font des enfants à qui ils donnent des noms de granolas
Soleil Laflamme, Pluie Gauthier
Marie-Québec Morissette, Arbre Laforêt, Humus Langevin
Ce sont des noms ridicules qui font chier
Pour faire contrepoids
À ces noms granolas
Moé si j’ai un enfant
Je lui donnerai un nom méchant
Moé si j’ai un fils je l’appellerai pas Fabrice ni Patrice
Je vais le nommer Hitler Robert
Si les granolas peuvent donner aux leurs des noms de fleurs
Et le vétérinaire donner aux siens des noms de chiens
Si les communistes peuvent donner des noms communs aux leurs
Moé qui suis heavy, si j’en ai, j’appellerai mon premier Hitler
C’est mon droit de parent
Fuck you si vous êtes pas contents
Hitler Robert
Mon exemple ne manquera sûrement pas de faire boule de neige
Si bien que dans quelques années dans tous les collèges
Quand le professeur va prendre les présences
Ça ne sera pas rare qu’on entende :
« Pinochet Robitaille?
– Présent.
– Pol Pot Massicote?
– Présent.
– Staline Nguyen?
– Présent.
– Saddam Lapalme?
– Présent.
– Hitler Robert? …Hitler Robert? …Hitler Robert? »
Hitler Robert a foxé
Il s’est encore défilé
Malgré toutes les remontrances
Il multiplie les absences
Au lieu d’aller à l’école
Comme les autres petits mongols
Il joue aux jeux vidéo
Il vole des revues pornos
Il va fumer en cachette
Met d’la marde d’ins boîtes à lettres
Il va péter les tires
De l’auto du directeur
Malgré tous les coups de strap
Il ne change pas de cap
Il s’entête dans sa dérape
Impossible qu’on le réchappe
Il est nul, il est nul, il est nul, oui, oui
http://mononc.com/chanson/hitler-robert/
LikeLike
My name is too Spanish sounding to name your child and Robert sounds too boring and average. Oh well!
I second the notion that Mason is a great name. I knew a guy by the name of Mason who went to my old high school.
LikeLike
Name him “James”, this is very populaRRRR: http://names.mongabay.com/male_names.htm
LikeLike
Let’s remember that we speak Russian at home and the last name is very Slavic, so the name has to make sense in a Russian-speaking context.
LikeLike
You’re right, I was not serious. James would have no sense, clearly.
Why not “Alex” instead of “Alexei”?
LikeLike
“Why not “Alex” instead of “Alexei”?”
– Yeah, I’m sure my current husband will be super happy to name his son after my previous husband. 🙂 🙂
This is the problem every woman with a rich past faces. 🙂
LikeLike
Oops…
LikeLike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Russian_ice_hockey_players
LikeLike
http://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/nationality/russian-nhl-players-career-stats.html
LikeLike
One of them is actually my relative. But I won’t say which.
LikeLike
Those are younger. http://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/nationality/active-russian-nhl-players-career-stats.html
LikeLike
Daniel seems both very American and sufficiently Russian.
LikeLike
My oldest friend from high school got there first. She named her kid Daniel.
You see? This is hard! 🙂
LikeLike
So what? We have several names that run in the family. It’s fine, if both of you like the name.
LikeLike
Personally, I also like Tom and Harry. Tom seems more Russian than Harry to me.
Alex is an extremely Russian name. At least, in Israel. Only immigrants have it, their children already don’t.
LikeLike
What about Max(im)?
LikeLike
I LOVE this name. But my cousin in Montreal already has it.
LikeLike
I wanted Anton, but for some mysterious reason N. hates it.
LikeLike
Peter, Marian?
LikeLike
I know! Michael.
Andrew is Russian too.
I also like Gabriel.
LikeLike
I thought you were going to name the baby Olivier (for the salad). :p
Leo(nid) –easy to spell and say.
Peter- pretty classic.
Erik — also pretty classic.
I sometimes think there should a crosscultural name dictionary, but I have to come across someone willing to take this on.
LikeLike
You just open a can of worms…
LikeLike
It wasn’t me! This was N.’s idea! I told my father and he is now in a state over this whole thing.
This would be my Jewish father. 🙂 🙂
LikeLike
I can understand David sounding “too Jewish” to you given your background, but I pretty sure that for most whitebread Americans the name has no particular Jewish connotations. I grew up around kids from all kinds of Christian (and non-religious) backgrounds named David.
I’d say the same for Jacob (to a lesser extent since I didn’t grow up around any Jacobs).
LikeLike
Yes, but we speak Russian at home. And when pronounced in Russian, these names sound as Jewish as they come.
LikeLike
“N and I had agreed years ago that if we ever had a daughter, I would give her my last name and choose her first name, and if we had a son, he would give him his last name and pick his first name.”
Well isn’t that just nice for the straight people have that option. 😛
LikeLike
I also love the name Tamerlan (or Tamerlane … it’s been rendered in English in a lot of ways, including “Tamburlaine”). That was like the first thing I thought of once they released the suspects’ names: “Tamerlan? What a beautiful name!”
But yes, it will probably be tarnished for the rest of my life because of the Tsarnaevs’ evil deed. So I wouldn’t want to saddle a son with it, even if I do continue to find it beautiful.
LikeLike
Clarissa, could you write a post on the languages you plan/hope to raise your child among? You say you speak Russian at home, so I suppose the plan will be for your son to be bilingual at a minimum. Is it particularly important to you or N, though, that he speak Russian? If he resists once he learns English (at school or elsewhere), will you try to force it or feel any disappointment? Will you try to teach him Spanish? Would it be important to you to hire a multilingual nanny or send him to a bilingual school? Just curious.
LikeLike
Gladly!
LikeLike
Wasn’t the original some kind of warlord?
LikeLike
Yes, and in the 1390s he cut a bloody swath through southern Russia (and eastern Ukraine? I’m not sure), from the Caucuses to the outskirts of Moscow. Also, allegedly, when his army sacked Delhi, they built a pyramid of 80,000 human skulls.
But we could probably tell similar stories about Alexander of Macedon and Czar Peter (so called “the Great”).
LikeLike
“Yes, and in the 1390s he cut a bloody swath through southern Russia (and eastern Ukraine? I’m not sure), from the Caucuses to the outskirts of Moscow. Also, allegedly, when his army sacked Delhi, they built a pyramid of 80,000 human skulls.
But we could probably tell similar stories about Alexander of Macedon and Czar Peter (so called “the Great”).”
– This is uncanny because this is precisely what my father said on the subject yesterday. Alexander and Peter were his specific references. 🙂
LikeLike
You could stick with Tamer or Timur, or there’s many other Turkic-Mongolian warlords, Genghis, Kubilai, Jahangir . . . 😉
LikeLike
OK, I had to look up Jahangir. Kudos.
LikeLike
The thing to really remember is to not give your child any name which other kids can turn into an insult in school. I named my sons Richard and William – oops!
LikeLike
“The thing to really remember is to not give your child any name which other kids can turn into an insult in school. I named my sons Richard and William – oops!”
– Oh yes! This is the most crucial consideration. This is why I rejected N.’s plan to call the boy after my great-grandfather whose name is spelled in English as Semen. 🙂 🙂 You have to agree that this is a lot worse than Dick and Willy. 🙂
LikeLike
Conrad?
LikeLike
Hmm. Beautiful name. Thank you, we will consider it.
LikeLike
Or Konrad?
LikeLike