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Edison
What's you're opinion on Edison?
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I like it. Be a bit of a disappointment if the child brought home D's in science tho.
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Wow, I'm way in the minority here. Oh well.I don't mind it at all. It sounds nice and I have no use for Edward or Edmund, but this is a much better "Ed" in my opinion. That said, I should state that I have no problem whatsoever with last names as first names. I don't get why that's so terrible.Thomas Edison association - yes, but I can see Edison climbing the ranks and the more it's used, the less strong the association becomes.
As for Thomas Edison being a less than admirable fellow, well that is pretty much irrelevant as very few people would actually know that. Anyhow, I'd say it's fair game. But apparently I'm the only one. :o)
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I don't think there is anything wrong with using surnames as first names, either. I used to think it was stupid unless the name was already in your family, but now I really don't mind it. A lot of them sound nice.
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I have a philosophy on surnames as given names.Its OK (lovely even) if:If you are honoring someone (that you know or admire or are related to- anyone)
It's a family name
It's a mashup of names that are significant to youIt's NOT Ok if:It just sounds so nice
The name has no meaning to you
You are not honoring anyone known to you or admired by you.That all being said: If you are picking Edison to honor Thomas Edison: cool. If you are picking it because Ed/Edward/Eduardo etc.. is a common name tradition that you want to carry on in your own way: cool
If you are picking it because it sounds nice, I think that there would be a huge connection to Thomas Edison and that it wouldn't be worth using because you would be constantly explaining : "NO! I just liked the name" which is so much less of a nice explaination than "Actually, I admire Thomas Edison a lot" or "Actually, he's named after my great g'pa"
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With Edmund and Edward around who would want to touch the name Edison.
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I love it, it's in my top 5 for boys! I originally used to love Addison for boys but found it some what unusable now due to it being used almost exclusively for girls now. I found Edison had similar qualities so replaced Addison with Edison on my list, and I love the nickname Eddie :)ETA: I realise there is a huge connection with Thomas Edison but I really don't associate it too much with him anymore. If you name a child Edison, people will initially think of Thomas Edison but the more they interact with the child the more they will forget about the Thomas Edison association (which isn't a bad one!)

This message was edited 4/3/2011, 3:21 PM

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Edison was not a nice man.He employed goons to beat up his competition, stole ideas from other people and more or less ran a criminal organization.
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I have heard of these allegations but they aren't the part that sticks in my mind about Thomas Edison. He was an simply an investor to most people.
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Yes, but most people would only think of him as an inventor.
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I don't know about this.I thought of him solely as an inventor until I went to college, and that's when the truth came out. This is a case of someone who was previously respected slowly but surely falling out of that spot. Edison's antics were brought up in science class, in sociology class and especially my film classes. At some point the kid is going to have a class where Edison is discussed and it's not going to be favorable.
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I've never heard that about himAnd I'm educated, so not sure how I missed it. Proves that average joe more than likely doesn't know he wasn't a nice guy, either.
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Agreed
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Hm.I'll ask around then and see. I know that I took a lot of film classes and they talked about how Edison destroyed studios and what-not...I don't know.
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I only learned about Edison twice in school: once, in elementary school, when we briefly went over his life and accomplishments, then in college, where we discussed his contributions to the film industry. I learned he was kind of a bastard, too, but that was later, after I had read a book about him. Anyway, ask random strangers on the street about Edison and I guarantee they still wouldn't zero in on what a horrible person he was. Some might, but most would likely talk about the fact that he was an inventor first (and I bet a few would insist he invented the light bulb). Let's face it, a lot of people tend to forget what they learned in school, or never received a quality education in the first place...but that's a post for another day.

This message was edited 4/4/2011, 3:13 PM

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Also......the fact that Edison "stole" ideas from other people doesn't make him unique. Eli Whitney didn't come up with system of interchangeable parts- a Frenchman beat him to it by about ten years. Henry Ford's engineers were the ones who conceived the assembly line. George Pullman did not invent the Pullman sleeping car. Whether these people "stole" their ideas from others or were simply smart enough to patent it before anyone else did is up for debate, but inventors have a history of doing this sort of thing. This doesn't make Edison unusual.
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Too tied to Thomas Edisonwho was not a nice man at all.
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All I think of is Thomas Edison. Not a bad association, but it seems so historical and old that I think it would look out of place on a young baby/toddler/kid. I'd assume an Edison's parents were history buffs.(edit because I wrote "loo" instead of "look".... O_o)Edit again: The parents would be wannabe-history buffs, because real history buffs would know how, er, not-nice Thomas Edison was! As a non-history-buff myself, I didn't actually know about Edison's 'antics' before reading vigdis's post, so... yeah.

This message was edited 4/3/2011, 4:00 PM

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I think of it as a last name rather than a first name. It's not too bad, though. I didn't know how bad Thomas Edison was until reading vigdis' post, but I guess it's fair to say a lot of people don't know that.

This message was edited 4/3/2011, 6:06 PM

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