Our guest blogger Marion Roach first wrote about her sister Margaret’s horse-inspired name on her blog She Said, She Said, part of the sisters’ joint site, The Sister Project.  Margaret Roach, the former editor of “Martha Stewart Living”, also runs the site A Way To Garden.

My family frequently names those we love for sports idols. For instance, among the dozen cats and dogs who have come and gone in my life there was Saratoga Roach, a terrier of a beagle, named for the late-summer racetrack in upstate New York, and Cleveland, a hapless chocolate lab, named for the Browns.

Then there is my sister, Margaret, named for the 1954 winner of the Belmont Stakes.

At one point in his life our father was a turf reporter, spending his winters at Hialeah, his summers in Saratoga and the time between at the racetracks in the East. Amid the crowd he covered, one of the great pastimes was naming thoroughbreds. It’s an art—no name can be more than 18 characters, including punctuation and spaces—as well as a science: Names frequently reflect breeding, sometimes with great flourish. For instance, the year before my sister was born, the great horse of 1953 was a colt whose father was Polynesian and mother was named Geisha. Their champion offspring was crowned Native Dancer. It’s a great tradition.

And one that continued into my family. My father had a horse named for him—it was called Sportseditor. I have a sailboat named Ruffian, for the magnificent dark filly who didn’t know the meaning of the word quit, until she broke down at the mile marker in a match race against Foolish Pleasure in 1975.

But all this really started in January 1954, when my father and mother, on their way to Hialeah, stopped off to see Max Hirsch, the great horse trainer, at his winter quarters in South Carolina.

In due course it was revealed that there was an offspring on the way in our household.

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A Nameberry visitor commented recently that she loved ultra-feminine proper names with tomboyish nicknames. That’s a sentiment we echo.

If you’re torn between girls’ names with a conventionally female image and ones that sound more androgynous, these choices have it all. They give you (and your daughter) the choice between going totally girly and sidestepping conventional gender identity, at least when it comes to your name.

Some very feminine names with tomboyish nicknames are:

Alexandra – Alex

Allegra — Al

Antonia — Toni

Araminta or Arabella — Ari

Augusta — Gus

Aurora – Rory

Bernadette — Bernie

Camilla — Cam

Catherine — Cat

Charlotte – Charlie

Christiana — Chris

Clementine — Clem

Cordelia — Cory

Daniella – Dani

Francesca – Frankie

Frederica – Freddi

Georgia – Geo

Harriet – Harri

Henrietta — Hank

Isabella — Izzy

Jessamine – Jessie

Josephine or Joanna – Jo

Julia, Juliet or Juliana – Jules

Lavinia — Vinni

Leonora – Leo

Louisa – Lou

Martina – Marti

Matilda – Matti

Maxine – Max

Melania – Mel

Michaela/Mikayla – Micki or Mike

Natalie – Nat

Natasha — Sasha

Nicole – Nicki

Philippa – Flip

Rosemary – Romy

Samantha – Sam

Stephanie – Stevie

Theodora – Teddi

Veronica – Ronni

Victoria – Vic or Tori

Sometimes pre-natal nickname stories have a happy ending. For instance, when my British mother-in-law was pregnant with my husband, she was planning to follow the family tradition of using the initials C and R for the names of the boys in the family. Dad was Roy Colin, and they settled on Roger Clive for their first son. The only thing was that all through the pregnancy, her in-laws insisting on referring to the fetus as Christopher Robin, as in “How’s little Christopher Robin doing?” In the end, they heard this so often that when the time came, he couldn’t be anything but Christopher Robin–and their second son became Roger Clive.

Granted, that isn’t really a nickname example–this is more about the sometimes silly pet names we give our babies-to-be which shouldn’t be allowed into the delivery room. Think of little Peanut Rademacher, son of General Hospital star Ingo. Now picture him calling up a girl for a date and saying “Hi, my name is Peanut Rademacher.” It seems that, according to the dad, “We were calling him that when he was in mommy” and they couldn’t let it go.

Of course the individual names people use in pregnancy are infinite, but here are a few not-to-go-on-the-birth-certificate examples I’ve run across. (And bear in mind the title of one of our favorite blogs–”You can’t call it ‘it’!”

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BABY DUMPLING
BEAN
BINKY
BOOBIE
BUMPKIN, LUMPKIN, PUMPKIN
BUMPO
BUMPY, JUMPY
BUNNY
CHICKPEA
CLETUS (the fetus)
EMBRY
FISHY
FRISKY
GIBLET, NIBLET
GREMLIN
JUNEBUG
JUNIOR
LAMBKIN
LOLLIPOP
MONKEY
MUNCHKIN
NUGGET
PEANUT
PEEWEE
PIE
POPPET
PIXEL, PIXIE
POOH
PUDDING
SCHMOO
SHRIMP
SMIDGE
SNOOKIE, SNOOKS
SPROUT
SQUIRT
SWEETPEA
TOOTSIE, TOOTSIE ROLL
WEENIE

You probably have one or two of your own to add to the list.

I was talking to an acquaintance the other day and when she mentioned her young daughter Becca, I suddenly thought, “Hey, whatever happened to  Becky?”  You rarely hear of a Rebecca under the age of 13 these days who is called by that traditional diminutive.

This is something that happens with pet forms in general–they go through phases and changes as much as–or indeed more than–the mother name.  For example when you hear the name Elizabeth, you have no idea of her age–she could be 99 or 9 months old–but you can certainly guess that Betty is a Grandma and that Liz and Beth are probably young adults. 

Some other examples: Patricia’s nicknames went from Patsy to Patty to Pat to Tricia to Trish to practically non-existent.  The no longer popular Mary spawned any number of offshoots before it faded, including Mamie, Molly and Polly.  Katherine moved from Kate and Katie to Kit and Kitty to Kay and Kathy, back to Kate and Katie,  to the current Kat; and Edward launched not only Eddie and Ward but Ed, Ted and Ned.

But the prizes for the two names with the most mutable  pet forms and offshoots have to go to Margaret and Elizabeth, many of whose diminutives have become stand-alone names.  Here, in the roughest chronological order, is what Margarets and Elizabeths been known as over time:

MARGARET

PEG
PEGGY
MAGGIE
MAGO

MARGO

MAY
DAISY
MADGE
MIDGE
MAISIE
MARGIE
MEGGIE
MEG
GRETA

ELIZABETH

TIBBY
ELIZA
BETSY
BESS
BESSIE
ELSIE
BETTA
ELSA
BETTY
BETH
LIBBY
LIZBETH
ELISA
ELISE
LISA
LIZA
LIZZIE
LIZ
(But note that many, if not most baby Elizabeths these days are called Elizabeth.)

A return engagement by one of our all-time favorite bloggers, Abby Sandel of appellationmountain.net.

Call it the Great Naming Compromise of 2001.

Other couples sign pre-nups. My husband and I negotiated our children’s names before we cut our wedding cake. The agreement was simple. Our firstborn son would receive his father’s name; our firstborn daughter would be named after my mother. Given that he likes Emily while I prefer Calixto, this was no small compromise.

Our son Alexander arrived in 2004. Alexander’s grandfather was over the moon to have a namesake. And while our son wears at least four nicknames, sometimes in the same sentence, we’ve been happy with our choice.

Four years later, the ultrasound tech announced that baby #2 was a girl. We had a name, right?

Not exactly.

My mother’s name is Clarina. She’s named after her grandmother. Trouble is, Mom heartily dislikes her flowing, feminine name–and forbid me to pass it down. Back in 2001, we’d settled on Claire Caroline as a wearable, grandmother-approved interpretation.

As my due date approached, I worried that we’d inevitably need a way to distinguish the two Claires. My husband agreed that pre-emptive nicknaming is not a bad thing in a family with members known as Bird, Boat, Ritz, Ketch, Rohn, Stir and the Vees.

Only how do you wrest a nickname from Claire?

Our first thought was Callie. But would Callie be confused with Kaylie, Hallie and Kelly? Plus, our son often answers to Aly. Rhyming sib names? Not for us, thanks.

I pushed hard for Coco, but my husband got more of a “gorilla” than “high fashion” vibe.

After hours staring at Claire Caroline, the nickname emerged–Clio. My husband immediately agreed. Best of all, it matches with yet another family memory. My (late) father used to call me Cleopatra.

With just weeks to go, I decided that Clio needed one more syllable to make her name complete. A friend had mentioned avian names months earlier. As I looked over her list, I noticed Wren–the perfect way to honor my sister, known in the family as Bird.

Claire Caroline Wren arrived on October 2, and Clio suits her quite well. While I’m sometimes regretful that we limited our list, we learned that it is possible to marry creativity and tradition.