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[Opinions] Re: Honesty
Pretty good point, now that I think about it. Imagine if you were 6 feet tall with size 12 feet and weighed 250 pounds, and the floor shook with each step you took, you constantly knocked things over, and your name was Grace? Using a virtue name seems like you're trying to force a particular virtue on your child that she may not have. I'm beginning to agree with you.
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My brother -- 8 years older -- always made fun of me whenever I did something clumsy. He would say, "Should've named you Grace!" in a sarcastic tone.Fortunately, I'm small. Imagine if I had happened to be a large girl/woman. Then it would have been that much worse.So anyway, in general I agree with you on virtue names. While it seems like a nice idea to attach a positive meaning to your child's name, what if Chastity is a slut, Faith is an atheist, and so forth? Maybe it's better to let your child start life with a "clean slate," name-wise.
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Because I feel that I need to stick up for virtue names...I think it is like any other name with a meaning. If you care about the meanings of names you generally use it in the spirit of that meaning, in that you think it is something positive and nice or maybe something your child can aspire to. For example, I like the names Prudence and Verity. I would consider them both for a daughter. No one is every going to always be prudent or always be truthful. No one. But the intent behind the name is there, that being truthful or prudent is such a worthwhile trait that it is worth naming a person after.
Besides which, I don't generally think of virtue names as words when they are used on people. Grace has its own history as a name that is separate to the word.
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