Gregliana is the bundle o’ joy recently born to a Gregory and a Liliana, so the origina is obvious. I’m impressed that the baby name page software was able to pick out the two names and assign a meaning (Greg = Vigilant, Ana= Gracious).
I don’t find it “that bad, other than its status as a name smoosh. (My real middle name is a smoosh between the #2 and #3 names in Mom’s final cut.) But the child is in for a lifetime of spelling out and explanations.
And in the news… Especially with snarky people like me ready to comment, and various (people who mistakenly think they are) stakeholders applying pressure to the parents-to-be, the idea of punting the whole decision and relying on some formula has a certain appeal.
Here is an article on family traditions in baby names. In my family, the eldest son is a Jr., and the youngest has names from each grandfather — only I, the daughter, have a name that wasn’t broken in by any female elder. (And Grandma, after whom I was not named, apparently let her disappointment known.) I have a coworker who basically had no choice about either of her son’s names, citing family tradition on her husband’s side.
I respect this practice for the continuity it represents — one Mom featured in the article says she thinks of family whenever she looks at her twin daughters and thinks of their family-tradition names. But I don’t really condone it for myself.
I am unlikely to become a parent at this point, but I have always said that if I did, I would name a child after any particular person. It can be inconvenient for the child, and it will inevitably disappoint whichever potential namesake doesn’t make the cut. In some families, it sends an uncomfortable message. Where, for example, did Kate Hudson get her son’s middle name (Russell)? She apparently chose to honor Kurt Russell, who helped raise her… but simultaneously made what could be viewed as a public slap in the face to her biological father, Bill Hudson. This blog has no standing to comment on the various relationship issues involved, but in selecting this name, the family chose to focus some additional attention to the fact that those issues do exist.
That factor makes a strong case for some of the formulas mentioned in the article. “Sorry, Aunt Martha, but the first daughter is always named after the maternal grandmother. It’s out of my hands!”