names?

[Alli]

O.K., i know i'm probably bugging all of you with all my questions, but here's another one. How do you sign names? I know that Rachel signs Alex and Leah with just the first letter of their names. Or do you fingerspell them?

[amiller]

Typically, names are fingerspelled. Deaf people sometimes give each other (and their hearing friends and family) "name signs" which are short representations of their name. Leah, for example, got her name sign from a Deaf friend because she had burls at the end of her hair as a child. Alex's sign is the sign for "Brown" (his last name) with an "A" handshape. I have a Deaf friend here whose name is Brian Barwise, and his name sign is "BAR+WISE"... Melody Hull's name sign is "Sing" with an "M handshape... the list goes on.

One thing though - it is OK for hearing families to use "family" signs at home, but true name signs should be given only by a member of the Deaf community.

[Teresa Jo]

One thing though - it is OK for hearing families to use "family" signs at home, but true name signs should be given only by a member of the Deaf community.

I am happy to know this! I need a sign for my 13 year old stepson. His name is David. When he is visiting, he and Daniel have a lot of fun together. David makes him laugh and they play and act silly together. I want Daniel to be able to refer to him with a sign, but I need to know that what I am making his sign is not already a sign for something else. Any ideas/suggestions of what I can use??

[amiller]

The letter "D" is a good start... let's see. In our family, Anyka signs "C" at the forehead for my husband Chad (her stepdad). She signs "Sister" for my older daughter Jessalyn. My nephew Vincent and Anyka are three months apart and when they were babies, my brother and his family lived in our house. So instead of saying "the baby is ..." we would say "the boy" or "the girl" to distingusih WHICH baby we were referencing. So Vin is "Boy" to us, and his sign is "V+BOY". My other nephew (my sister's son) is Joey, and his sign is J + RUN because he is fast! My sister is AUNT+S (Susanna), her husband is UNCLE + R (Raymond). My brother is UNCLE+T (Tony) and his wife is AUNT+J (Jayne). Anyka's Godmother Becca we were fingerspelling, but Anyka made up a B tapping her chin which I think is the sign for Beer. For my niece, we fingerspelled Brooke until Anyka made a B sliding down the face (which is brown, but totally unrelated). My friend Kat is a K handshape brushing the cheek, like the sign for Kat, and her son Stephen is S+TRAIN because he has a really cool Train set Anyka likes, so she started signing his name like that.

So go with what works! And pick something your child can sign - then run it by the group to be sure it isn't obscene ;)

[HeatherB]

So go with what works! And pick something your child can sign - then run it by the group to be sure it isn't obscene ;)

When I was young and very interested in signing, we (my sister and I) picked up somewhere the idea that you can use the first letter and a feature - I suppose very much what you've described, except for us my mother chose facial features, hair, etc. So now I have 2 sons that are learning ASL and I've wanted signs for their names. For Gabriel, I love his eyes, so I put a "G" next to the eyes (which, coincidentally, is what my mother did for me, but with an "H"). For Iain, it's his smile, so an "I" at the mouth. Anything wrong with those? ;)

Also, when you say you do a letter+sign, do you form the sign with the letter shape, or do the letter THEN the sign?

[amiller]

We,, in our case it varies by sign. We sign a "V" on the forehead and then boy in one smooth motion for Vincent, an "O" at normal placement and the "grandma" for my mom, "C" on the forehead for Chad, and for aunts/uncles we use the normal sign and then the letter at normal placement.

But that is just us!

[aligreat]

For Gabriel, I love his eyes, so I put a "G" next to the eyes (which, coincidentally, is what my mother did for me, but with an "H"). For Iain, it's his smile, so an "I" at the mouth. Anything wrong with those? ;)

The "G" by the eye could be mistaken for the sign for glasses, but that is usually done with two hands. The "I" by the mouth reminds me of the Austin Powers bad guy, but you probably do it differently. I'm sure that both signs are fine.

[Lezliej]

You can put the first letter of the first name over your heart for a "generic" sign name.

[musictchr1]

You can put the first letter of the first name over your heart for a "generic" sign name.

I was told this by my ASL teacher as well.... is it a regional thing? We're in the midwest, FWIW.

[alices_dad]

But watch out for doing that with someone whose name begins with 'C' as that's also the sign for 'Cop'. Fortunately, my friend Colleen is a cop...

We decided early on to sign an 'A' for Alice and shake it because she was a wiggly baby.

[aligreat]

But watch out for doing that with someone whose name begins with 'C' as that's also the sign for 'Cop'. Fortunately, my friend Colleen is a cop...

Also, signing 'A' there means "attitude," 'G' means "guilty," 'L' means "lazy," and I believe that there are others. It is a place for personality traits. The first time I saw a 'B' signed there as a name sign for a man named Brian, I was trying to figure out if he was bold, bashful, or what the sign could mean. Then someone explained to me that it was his name sign. :o

[Lezliej]

There is a book called "Name Signs". http://www.harriscomm.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=2126. A Deaf man named Sam Supalla did some research on name signs in the Deaf community. The book is very interesting.

[nickelplatedtrombone]

I have been signing "third" for a friend who is a third in his family, he is called Trace. And my younger son's name is Jason, which means healer, so we have been signing "heal." I thought I was pretty smart to do this, but now after reading about the deaf community giving names I want to be sure that what I am doing is ok. Nobody in my family is deaf, but my oldest son is severely speech delayed, possible apraxic, so we have been using sign for that reason. We are also not associated with any signing group, so I have just been doing this on my own.