Spinoff to my other thread, origin of baby names

How important is the origin of a name? As I mentioned in my other post, DH wants to give DD an Italian name. His argument is anything goes these days. People don't associate names with ethnicity. What do you think?

Re: Spinoff to my other thread, origin of baby names

I think each couple has to do what they are comfortable with. There's no real right or wrong, but for me personally, I would not give my child a name that reflects an ethnicity other than mine and DH's. We're both Jewish, from Eastern European descent. We aren't super-religious, so we aren't going to use very Hebrew sounding names, but are leaning toward those with a biblical/Hebrew origin that are pretty common in English (e.g., Sarah, Deborah, Rebecca, Rachel, Hannah, Jacob, Gabriel, Samuel, David). I would feel weird giving my child a name that reflected a different ethnicity, but that's just me. I love Grace as a middle name, but to me, that's a name with more of a Christian origin, so we won't use it (I know, that's religion, not ethnicity, but still).

Re: Spinoff to my other thread, origin of baby names

For me, the origin doesn't matter so much as long as it "goes" with the last name. Our last name is Spanish. I'm half Irish but I feel like if I gave our child an Irish first name it would sound very funny. That being said, we're not picking a Spanish first name either. I just don't want to pick anything that really doesn't "go" at all.

Re: Spinoff to my other thread, origin of baby names

Message edited 2/7/2012 2:34:55 PM.