I wasn't teased for my first name at all (though I dropped the last three letters for a long time). The last name was a different story.

A radio DJ over here called Sara Cox named her first son Isaac. After the pointing and laughing died away, I think she changed it. But maybe not. Ima go check.

Dare sounds great to me.

The hands-down absolutely prettiest name I know, belonging to a Faire friend of mine, is Aurora Jude.

The one girl name I loved as much as Matilda was Memorie, my maternal grandmother's name (my grandfather and one or two other select persons called her Mem), but Hec sincerely disliked it. I really, really hope one of my sibs or cousins uses it for a sprog, because it's lovely and unusual and my grandmother was a striking, complicated person and I'd hate to think of her name vanishing away.

my organization feels the need to have these on the weekend.

Shows a lack of commitment to the cause. If it is important enough to get people together to make change, it is important enough to schedule during work days. Or, at the very, very least, give comp days in return.

Memorie is very pretty.

Memorie is very pretty.

Very. I've never heard that.

Place I used to work insisted on having their annual picnic on a Saturday. In the middle of the summer, when it's really, really, hot and humid. ALWAYS some place waaaay out of town. Wouldn't help those of us without cars get rides to the place. And they'd last almost all day.

I finally stopped going. Didn't make me look good to management, but I just got fed up with losing a day to that nonsense.

I've found it's hard to top Emeline (the name, though topping the kid will be difficult also). People compliment us a lot on it. I'm afraid that the next one will have a "boring" name.

Memorie is pretty, though it's not enough in my personal style family that I'd use it. (That style being, more or less, "Child wouldn't sound out of place as a character in one of my books." Which is also why I prefer Edmund Patrick or Edmund Arthur to Brendan Edmund. Brendan is a fine name, but it doesn't sound turn-of-the-19th century British enough!) It reminds me of friends of DH's who named their daughter Ever after a great-grandmother. We'd never heard of it, but then found an Ever who's probably a great-great aunt or something of mine in the cemetery where my dad is buried.

My great-grandmother was named Esther and called Stella. I kind of like that, though I also like Estie as a nickname. (It is very certain in my mind that my first daughter will be named Esther. If the child's father seriously objects to this, I'd possibly be willing to compromise to either Ella or Elizabeth, with Esther as the Hebrew name.)