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10.21.2009

about names

p h o e b e
what is so hard about this name?
i honestly thought our greatest obstacle with this it is that people would think of this flaky lady.
but ty and i have both encountered several blank stares, quizzical looks, and spent many a time spelling out her name for people. no it's phoebe. not ceebee, teebee or beebee. or heaven forbid, ty's brother's proununciation: pahobee.

i never thought this would happen to us as we are pretty picky with the naming process. a few requirements need to be met before ever even considering giving it as a name that the entire world will use to recognize our child by.
  • first choice is to name it after someone we know. someone strong and good and...fill in the blank of whatever is important to you. several years ago ty and i watched a documentary on this lady:to say that we were impressed with Phoebe Ann Moses is an understatement. it might be obvious to some that ty was drawn to her because she was a chick with gun skills. not so with me; what was impressive was her amazing life dedicated and lived out with high morals, standards, kindness and generosity. she always sewed her own costumes to make sure they were modest and not too revealing during her shows. upon her death it was found out that her entire fortune was sent to her charities. among those reasons, and many others, we chalked up the name "phoebe" to our girl list.
  • second requirement, the meaning. it must be a tried and true name with significant meaning to it. Phoebe ♀
    Pronounced 'fee-bee': Latin form of the name of a Greek deity, Phoibe (from phoibos , meaning 'bright')
  • and last, but least, it must be phonetically easy to spell and read. (i think this is where we messed up). i took for granted that as phoebe is ancient Greek it would be easy for people to recognize and spell. woopsies. it's not pheobe, but PHOEBE. O before E.
oh well, you can her beebee or ceebee or pahobee. and you can even mispell it, i don't care. but we are not changing the spelling to feebee. i could never bring myself to do it. so you'll have to endure. and so will she when that one substitute teacher takes roll & asks for, pahobee? is pahobee here? anyone? anyone?

4 comments:

my name is becky kelly said...

Annie Oakley's name is Phoebe?!? That's fantastic!
huh, i guess if you're not familiar with that name, it would be pretty tricky to pronounce.... She'll be able to handle it!
Substitutes mess everything up, so she won't be alone. :)
I LOVE the name!

Melanie said...

You know my thoughts about naming babies and other people's opinions. :)

And I think there are enough weird spellings of every name out there now that no matter what we pick for our kids they'll be doomed to spelling it for the rest of their lives. I never thought I'd have to spell my kids' names out to people, and I do.

We love you Phoebe.

Camrin said...

I think the name is cute! I am one for naming kids after people. My kids all have a story and I will soon post about it on my blog. :)

Austrie said...

I can give her a few tips on how to deal with people who can't pronounce your name. haha, at the beginning of every semester i must explain my name, where it came from, that people do indeed shorten my name and call me austrie. it gets confusing...but in the end i just tell them, "it's like austria, without the "uh"...

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