My name is Karen .... but apparently my Mum wanted to call me Joanne. Now, I should explain, that over here in USA the middle name is almost a given thing. In Britain, it's not AS expected. My Dad absolutely HATED middle names and told my Mum that Joanne was too much like two names ... JO and ANNE. So that was vetoed and I was named Karen .. no idea why.
My sons name is Sebastian ...firstly, I too strived for something a bit different. But I had also fallen in love with the name when I read the book "Brideshead Revisited" and it was also made into a fabulous TV series which I equally adored. His second name is William. William is my ex-husbands middle name and also the name of his deceased father. We wanted the name to continue through the family, out of respect to his Dad who died in his 40s from cancer.
My daughter is called Juliet. If she had been a boy, her name would have been Alexander. Both myself and her Dad thought it was a very beautiful english name. It was quite a while before we realised that our Juliet .. from Romeo and Juliet .... had a last name to match!!!! You see her last name, and so my ex-husbands name is Moore. Which if you rearrange the letters can spell Romeo. So my daughter truly is a Shakespearean baby!!!!