What/Who were you named after?

I was named after my grandmother (first name) and her daughter, my birth mother (middle name). I never liked my first name which was Helen. I was given to her oldest brother and his wife, my mother and father who raised me, since I was a baby (sad story I won't go into now). My mother thought I looked like an Evelyn, so that's what she started calling me and so did the rest of the family, my friends and even co-workers. HR knew to put my real name on my paychecks, but to never call me by that name.

For some unknown reason, the only ones who got away with calling me Helen were a family of neighbors across the street from us. A couple of years after I accepted Islam, I changed my name to an Islamic one, which was done legally in court. I took my husband's last name and chose an apropos first name for myself. I kept my middle name to honor my birth mother. My husband was very patient...because I kept my first husband's name for business reasons and didn't take time to change it until a couple of years after I retired.
 
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The eldest male in our family was, until recently, always called William. I have a very ordinary first name, although my middle name seems quite common in this part of Scotland. Our children are not named after anyone, in fact, mother specifically asked that none of the granddaughters were named Margaret after her. We just chose names that we thought would be suitable.
 
I had a good friend that took his father's name, and his father got his name from his father, and my friend became John Paul III, rather than just "Junior." Imagine a dynasty in the making. I lost track of him, even though I was best man at his wedding. I don't know what he named his son.
 
Maybe after Bonnie Blue in Gone With The Wind …? ,, my favorite color is Blue, and I’ve always been scared of riding horses. :)


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horseless carriage said:
You have to start with our family name: "Taylor." Back in the 1940's there was a Hollywood star named Spangler Arlington Brugh.
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He was a real heartthrob and mother had a crush on him. His wife was the actress, Barbara Stanwyck.
When my mother was delivered of her new baby, a boy, she and Dad were thrilled. Dad wanted to name him Herbert after his own father, who had been a victim of the London bombing in world war two.
Mother had other ideas, she suggested Robin. "Robin!" Dad said, "he will be teased mercilessly with that name." At the time there was a lady politician with the name Robyn, Dad prohibably had her in mind.
Seeing his crestfallen wife, Dad capitulated, suggesting a mutual hybrid. "Hybrid?" Queried mother. Dad said that their baby could have Rob, as in Robin and Bert as in Herbert. Therefore the baby was named Robert.
Poor Dad, if only he knew. Spangler Arlington Brugh has the stage name: Robert Taylor.
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I remember Spangler Arlington Brugh from my childhood. At the time, I thought the name was very funny, especially considering how ordinary and common his stage name was. In those days, he probably never would have become a movie star with a name like that. Today, his real name might be an asset.
 
I was named for my grandmother (my mother's mother). My mom didn't like the name much, it was one of those old-fashioned Biblical names. So she got a name dictionary and looked up derivatives. She came up with a name similar to my grandmother's, but so unusual that I'm probably the only one in the world with that name.
 
I had just an ordinary popular name for the era, when I lived overseas I had a coworker who called me the first+last name of a famous actress whose first name matched mine. I didn't like my name and had already for years been accustomed to use a false last name when ordering pizza, because my real last name would be so butchered/mispronounced I wouldn't recognize it when they called my name to pick up my order at the counter (obviously this was long before pizza delivery and apps etc).

So I changed my first and last name twice legally, and the middle name also the second time. I thought I wouldn't be hearing my coworker call me by the famous actress name anymore, but I underestimated her, she immediately switched to calling me by a famous actress name that had my new first name. LOL

So now I'm named after a great-aunt (for first name) and grandmother (for middle name) and easy-to-pronounce last name (tho I thought it would be easy to spell but it turns out I over-simplified it and people keep inserting an extra silent letter and doubling another letter).
 
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