geK0 said:
Daniel
It's not a bad name; "dan" is nice and concise, while "danny" sounds cute coming from a girlfriend. It supposedly means "God is my judge" in Hebrew, which sort of fits an ideal that is very important to me, that is to not judge others regardless of how much you disapprove with their actions (Only God, if he even exists, should : \).
It's not the best name I could hope for, but it's certainly not one to complain about.
Wow, ninja'd at the first response.
Though I'll add that the first time I looked up the meaning behind my name the stupid site said it meant "Faith in God's Law," at which point I immediately considered a name change because that subtext being attached to my identity made me sick.
I brooded over that for a time, then decided to cross reference with a few other sites. That's when I found "God is my Judge" to be a more widespread meaning.
That was more acceptable. While it may, in essence, be the same thing, I like to interpret it as a difference between slavish obeidience and the ultimate freedom.
"Faith in God's Law," to me, meant "I believe that all this religious bullshit is correct and thereby abide by the dictates of conmen with rosaries who have fooled people into believing they can interpret the will of the Divine" (no offence to religious folks here, but I reflexively take issue with
any religion being considered "correct"), and so was repugnant.
However, I heard "God is my Judge" as "No man or woman, however high their station, granted by whatever power on this Earth or beyond, has the right to judge me. My actions are between me and The Divine, the rest of the world can burn."
It's lead me to be both very critical of myself, and rather arrogant.
That and Daniel has an almost lyrical quality to it, so I prefer to be called by that. Dan reminds me too much of a bible-thumping uncle of mine (guess why I don't like it), and Danny is... well... it was fine when I was little, but... well hell I'm not
that gay.
tl;dr
I like my name, as it means all that I do is between me and the Divine. Everyone else can sit on their thumbs and spin.