What is it like to name a baby after a video game character?
It’s a risk. But it’s the same risk taken whenever a child is named after any fictional character, not just one from a video game.A few months before our second child was born (and without knowing the gender), I bought the game, The Last of Us. It was an impulse buy. I was on vacation and, as one who never sleeps, would continually wake up early and crave a new game. It was also on this vacation that my wife and I promised each other we would settle on names for our future baby.Suffice it to say, I fell in love with the character, Ellie, as I assume almost every human being who played the game did. She was witty, creative, and, most importantly, easy to like on a number of levels. She was someone I wanted to see succeed.Years earlier, my wife and I agreed that we would name a girl Noelle if she were born near Christmas. When our baby's due date was pegged as Thanksgiving, we cycled through names and did not necessarily land on one we liked.That was, until I met Ellie.We convinced ourselves that Thanksgiving was close enough to the Christmas season to continue with the plan of using Noelle, but my stipulation was that her nickname would be Ellie.I didn't finish the game. I had a new Ellie to fill my thoughts.In November, we gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and promptly named her Noelle. As soon as we introduced her to the world and her big sister, we declared that she would also go by "Ellie." I vividly remember my older daughter walking through the halls of the hospital with me and singing, "You can call her 'Ellie.' You can call her 'Ellie.'" And so we did.The irony is that, as our Ellie's personality developed, she became more separated from the character after whom she was named. My daughter is warm, loving, friendly, and is constantly looking to make people smile. I would argue that the Ellie from the game, albeit an awesome person, is none of the qualities described above.Eventually, I happened to look into what each of my children's name meant. As it turns out, "Ellie" is equivalent to a "shining light." In that sense, there is no name more fitting for a child, as my Ellie lights up a room.It's a gamble, and sometimes it pays off as the names align. But, as it turns out, my child's personality better fits the name given to one of the most beloved characters in a video game.The good news is that both Ellies are truly outstanding individuals.
Would it be Wong to name your child after a video game character? like LINK?
I think it's okay. If I have a kid I'll name him Urza.
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Did you name your child after a character in a book and were you inspired by the character's name or the character's ethics or their personality?
No, but…I am the one actually named after a book character myself. The title character from the wonderful Russian book “The Adventures of Dennis” by Viktor Dragunsky[1]. Actually, the more exact translation of the book's title, “Денискины рассказы”, would be “The Stories of Dennis”, but whatever…The book is a collection of short stories, told by the title character - a little boy named Deniska (the Russian diminutive for ‘Dennis’). The boy is absolutely charming, sweet, naive and wise at the same time. The book was an immediate and hysterical hit in the USSR back in the '60s, and still remains a great reading.So, from what I was able to learn, my parents were inspired by the character's personality. Maybe by his ethics too - little Dennis in the stories usually made the right choice, often more of a moral and not the smartass one.How do I feel about that? Nothing special, just a peculiar family story.Footnotes[1] The Adventures of Dennis - Wikipedia
What if you named your kid after a Star Fox character and who would it be?
So, If I felt like giving my child a geek-culture-inspired name as opposed to a nickname, I would probably make it their middle rather than first name so they could choose to go by it if they felt like it. Giving a child a name their peers are likely to consider strange, unfamiliar, or readily mockable, without a good reason (the name is meaningful to you, your family, etc...) seems unkind. That said, if for some reason I found myself metaphysically obligated to first-name a child after a Star Fox character, I'd probably pick Star Fox' father, James, or Krystal from Star Fox Adventures. Other reasonable-to-my-sensibilities, and mostly-unobjectionable-to-dominant-american/western-culture-sensibilities-as-I-understand-them names from star fox might includeWolfLeonAndrewKattAmandaBillDashLucySource: List of Star Fox charactersAs for "What if" I did this, They'd probably grow up the way most children in my socio-economic class with one of those names would, and they'd have a nice little story about their name for their future geeky spouse about the fact that they got their name in part because their father was placed under an inexplicably specific curse.
Is it acceptable to name my child after an anime character?
If seen worse “should I name my baby” questions, but still, think of your child as a teenager, and mostly, as an adult looking for a job. I'm not saying we must blindly conform and blend in the mainstream, but a name is something you carry with you your whole life, so one shoul make a wise decision when naming a child.Of the names you suggest, Levi is an actual biblical name and Kaneki sounds Japanese. If you are not Japanese I wouldn't choose the second one. Ciel means heaven in French, but no one will know how to pronounce or spell it, so it will just be trouble for your child.But most importantly, you must probably be an anime fan, but will you still be thirty years from now? Or will you look back and realise that you gave your (now grown up) child a name from a phase you completely grew out of?If you insist though (and it’s a boy) Levi is the best choice.
How did being named after a fictional character affect your life?
It meant I wound up, completely by accident, being given the most popular name for baby girls born the year I was. This was a total accident and I doubt my mother had any idea that was the case.I’m name for the character in this author’s books: Eunice Young Smith My mother had read the Jennifer Hill stories (about a girl from the city who moves to the country with her family and ends up living on a farm with lots of animals with a detour back to the big city where she briefly takes up dancing then goes back to the country and gets a horse…wait a minute….I’m not sure if my mother named me for her or cloned her.) She really liked them when she was young, so when she was picking girls’ names, she liked that one best. Laura may have been under consideration, though that’s more ‘fictionalized version of a real person’, and Ann, no e, obviously not from the book, was in the running. Fortunately, despite her liking the books and passing them along to me, Cherry (as in Cherry Ames, [whatever] Nurse) was never under consideration.The net result was, in high school, we had three “Jennifers” in my German class for four years and Frau Hipsher tried to sort it by calling us “Jen”, “Jenny”, and “Jennifer” (me), but she could never quite keep straight which of us was supposed to be which so we just ran with whatever she said when she was looking at us. And I’ve spent a big chunk of my life explaining my name isn’t “Jenny”, and just grinning and bearing being dubbed “Jen.” It could be a lot worse.