A lot of people have asked us where the name Warren came from. No, it's not a family name, and no, he's not named after Warren Buffet (I think he sang Maragaritaville).
On Hallowe'en night, Lori and I were out driving in my brand-new (to me) black Highlander, and I was trying to decide on a name for it. I'd put on some evening-appropriate music, and we were throwing names back and forth. But then one of my favorite songs came on - Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, which instantly struck me as the perfect name for my new car. It's not quite 'Millennium Falcon,' but it's a great vehicle name.
Of course, we knew we were pregnant by then, and had been tossing around boy names for months. So, in the way that I'd been doing with every boy name we'd come across, I said, "Roland would make a great name." Keep in mind, I'd been doing this with every name I'd come across. At the time, I was leaning heavily toward "Bishop" as a good name for a boy.* For that matter, I thought 'Helvetica' would make a pretty girl's name, so what do I know?
Lori made that face. I'd come to know that face pretty well by then. Then she said, "But you know, Warren is a nice name."
So my son's not necessarily named for Warren Zevon, but you could say his name is Warren because of Warren Zevon.
Warren Daniel was going to be Warren Mitchell until about three weeks ago. But I changed my mind about it in the middle of the night, and hinted to Lori that I wanted to make my name his middle name.
And the name we'd picked out for a girl? Ilaria Kate, Ilaria being the Italian form of Hillary, which we'd encountered on our trip to Disney World last Spring. Ilaria sold us gelato at Epcot Center.
* - Which leads directly to my favorite joke name, 'Ignatius Pius,' who we could nickname 'Pope.'
Roy | March 10, 2008 9:17 AM
I hope you were joking about confusing Warren Buffet for Jimmy Buffet. Yes, I am just going to tell myself that you were joking. Just joking. A joke, that's it.
Anyway, I have always liked the name Roland. When I was a wee lad playing SSI's D&D RPGs on the Commodore 64, the name of my primary character was always Roland. At the time (being about 7 or 8) I didn't even realize it was a real name. I simply used it because it seemed like a good derivative of Roy. Then I was exposed to Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series and fell in love with the name even more. I don't know if I could ever name a son Roland because of the fear that I would impart just a fraction of the Ka from King's Roland upon my son.
Sara | March 16, 2008 2:43 PM
Actually, Daniel, Ilaria worked in one of the gift shops in the Italian pavilion. The one we went into right after your wife and I had bellinis.