On picking a baby name in 1996

When my ex was about 8.85 months pregnant in 1996, we travelled from Montreal to Gaspe. In a bookstore in Quebec, there were no English titles and few English speakers beyond QC, so I bought a baby name book there in French just cuz and there was some time pressure coming up, too. *I* picked a name because my ex and I ended up taking turns and this was my turn and, in the process that was unfolding in 1996, I had an opinion: Genevieve. This name, btw, is a 2 or 3000 yo pre-Celtic name that means roughly “white wave” or “white woman” or something close to that if we go back far enough. Oops, I had no idea that 2021 was on its way at the time, heh. Sorry D.

Then, in a restaurant in Quebec, the waiter, after training me in how to order and drink a “Caribou” (sherry with a shot of vodka) also trained me in French vs Quebecois speech patterns (he had a strong anti-france bias and a strong command of regional inflections along with a comedian’s delivery). He then also trained me in how to pronounce Genevieve thusly: 1) English – jen-eh-veeev’, 2) French – jean’-vee-evv, and 3) angry parent – Jahn-VEEV’’’.

For her entire life up to college I called her Gen or Gwen or Gwinnie (my favorite but it was private, only between her and I) because Genevieve and Gwen and Gwendolyn (and others) are semi-related and very very old cognates. In college she finally cut the cord and said: “hereafter thou all shalt call me Genevieve and only Genevieve.” OK. And that is what her college friends called her. Me? to adapt I called usually called her Vieve. Gen still slips out now and then, though.

“Genevieve,” I later found out, was a common name for my grandmother’s era in the 20s. I often heard this: “oh, my grandmother’s name is Genevieve,” etc. For reference, the other common names at that time were names like Mabel and Gertrude, just to give some context. Ha.

My mother, a notorious pain in the ass (I hate to say it but really, it was true. Ask my siblings or her vanishingly few friends at late ages), had a place in this conversation, as well.  When my ex gave birth, we, of course, called around to family on both sides. The most common response (x 10 or 12 or more) was more or less: “how is the baby, how is the mother?” Cool, and proper. But when we got to my mom, it was only: “what did you name her? Is that a family name…?” After my “no” the coolness coming through the phone was like the air off a Greenland glacier. Several years later – my mother was a Paris-o-phile, btw – she finally figured out that “Genevieve” was the patron saint of Paris. THEN it was ok but not until then.

Whatever. I thought then, and think now, that that the name was lovely, euphonious and loaded with history. I mean, my antecedents all came from the shores of the North Sea: Angles, Juuts, Saxons, Normans, Britons, Picts, Vikings, etc… So, let’s call Genevieve a Frank or Norman name… but then the Normans were heavily inflected by the Vikings. Maybe I should have called her Sigrid or Freya or something. But then there is that Euphony thing.  In the end I think it was a good choice and she now has a named presence in the world that came from a bookstore in Quebec in 1996 as well as 3000 years of history.