has your child's name caused problems in their life?

[Anonymous]

Has your child's name caused problems in their life?

Has having an awkward / ill-fitting / uncool name, or any kind of name that someone in showbiz would feel compelled to change, harmed your child in detectable ways?

[Anonymous]

You won’t get honest, introspective answers here. Most parents will be unwilling to admit they made a mistake with their kid’s name.

Now, if you asked in the off-topic forum if anyone was given a name that has caused them problems, you’ll get more honest answers. People don’t like to admit they made mistakes, but they do enjoy talking about the mistakes their parents made!

[Anonymous]

I let my ex pick our third child's name and I hate it and wish I hadn't. It's Isabella. She's one of like, 400 Isabella's in her class. Plus, I don't even like the name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I let my ex pick our third child's name and I hate it and wish I hadn't. It's Isabella. She's one of like, 400 Isabella's in her class. Plus, I don't even like the name.

Ok. But has it actually caused problems for her? Because while I understand you don’t like it, it’s not really in the category OP is talking about, of a name so bad you’d have to change it.

Also, I’m sure it feels like it’s way too common to you, probably because you wanted a less common name than your ex, but statistically it’s not that common, despite being a popular name. There’s a lot of diversity in names now and it’s unlikely your DD will struggle with being one of a bunch of Isabellas. I know kids with even more popular names (Charlotte, Emma, Sophia) and none of them ever complain about this issue.

[Anonymous]

As far as I know, my kids like their names. On the other hand:

My mother had an extremely common name for her generation, which she hated. As a result, she invented a name (she thought, it’s apparently not uncommon in a foreign country, but pronounced differently). Regardless of how carefully I spell it out, people tend to spontaneously transform it to obe of several familiar names that are similar. As a result, my medical records have been lost countless times. Mispronunciation is a given. It didn’t help that my father thought it was too big a mouthful, so they gave me a nickname that was only slightly more common. My grandparents didn’t like that nickname, so they gave me another with common alternate spellings. (It thoroughly confused our church that heard half our family calling me one thing, the other half calling me something else, neither of which was my actual name. Nobody used that.) When I went away to college, I tried to simplify my life as much as possible by dropping the nicknames and just using my formal first name. Unfortunately, my college boyfriend who I married shortly after graduation had an unusual last name. I could, of course, have retained my maiden name, but I preferred to adopt his.

Over the years, my answer when asked my name has evolved. I now automatically answer along the lines of “Larle, L-A-R-L-E, like Larla but with an “e” at the end instead of an “a”. This reduces, but does not eliminate confusion. Meanwhile, if I’m at the doctor’s office, waiting for them to call my name, I know I won’t actually hear my name. I may hear one of a handful of similar names, or something that has been completely mangled. The mangled versions are actually more helpful, because when I check if the conventional name was supposed to be mine, sometimes it’s actually someone else’s.

My mother succeeded in that I’ve never had confusion caused by someone having my same name. I have, however, had confusion caused by others having similar names that seem more likely to others than my own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As far as I know, my kids like their names. On the other hand:

My mother had an extremely common name for her generation, which she hated. As a result, she invented a name (she thought, it’s apparently not uncommon in a foreign country, but pronounced differently). Regardless of how carefully I spell it out, people tend to spontaneously transform it to obe of several familiar names that are similar. As a result, my medical records have been lost countless times. Mispronunciation is a given. It didn’t help that my father thought it was too big a mouthful, so they gave me a nickname that was only slightly more common. My grandparents didn’t like that nickname, so they gave me another with common alternate spellings. (It thoroughly confused our church that heard half our family calling me one thing, the other half calling me something else, neither of which was my actual name. Nobody used that.) When I went away to college, I tried to simplify my life as much as possible by dropping the nicknames and just using my formal first name. Unfortunately, my college boyfriend who I married shortly after graduation had an unusual last name. I could, of course, have retained my maiden name, but I preferred to adopt his.

Over the years, my answer when asked my name has evolved. I now automatically answer along the lines of “Larle, L-A-R-L-E, like Larla but with an “e” at the end instead of an “a”. This reduces, but does not eliminate confusion. Meanwhile, if I’m at the doctor’s office, waiting for them to call my name, I know I won’t actually hear my name. I may hear one of a handful of similar names, or something that has been completely mangled. The mangled versions are actually more helpful, because when I check if the conventional name was supposed to be mine, sometimes it’s actually someone else’s.

My mother succeeded in that I’ve never had confusion caused by someone having my same name. I have, however, had confusion caused by others having similar names that seem more likely to others than my own.

That sounds really hard, I’m sorry.

A lesson for everyone who grew up with an ultra-common name and don’t want to do the same to your kid— don’t overcorrect! Stay out of the top 100 if it matters to you, but pick a name that’s recognizably a name!

[Anonymous]

I, personally, don’t care for gender neutral names. The one that comes to mind is Taylor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I, personally, don’t care for gender neutral names. The one that comes to mind is Taylor.

If you are named Taylor, be prepared for me to call you Tyler 50% of the time.

[Anonymous]

Growing up my brother had a very common name but I didn’t. I was always annoyed that he could always find personalized stuff - every store had pencils and keychains with his name on it while I could never find my own. Everyone knew how to spell his name but I had to spell mine out every time.
When my dd was born i wanted to make sure they didn’t happen so we picked a more popular name (that’s become super popular, rising in popularity every year.). Didn’t expect that…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I, personally, don’t care for gender neutral names. The one that comes to mind is Taylor.

If you are named Taylor, be prepared for me to call you Tyler 50% of the time.

True, no one considers the hear-impaired when they name a baby.



/s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I, personally, don’t care for gender neutral names. The one that comes to mind is Taylor.

I have a gender neutral name (actually leans more male than female), and while I like my name and actually like gender neutral names, it has caused problems. Examples: notified I was delinquent in signing up for the draft when turned 18, assigned a male roommate freshman year of college, having to spend hours as the social security office to unf*ck my SSN and be able to file taxes online (I’m not entirely sure how this relates to gender, but I guess that was the problem)… the list goes on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Growing up my brother had a very common name but I didn’t. I was always annoyed that he could always find personalized stuff - every store had pencils and keychains with his name on it while I could never find my own. Everyone knew how to spell his name but I had to spell mine out every time.
When my dd was born i wanted to make sure they didn’t happen so we picked a more popular name (that’s become super popular, rising in popularity every year.). Didn’t expect that…

I was the one with the common name while my sister was the one with the interesting name growing up. She definitely was annoyed about never being able to buy keychains, etc ever — I remember when she as an adult she visited the country our ancestors were from (also where her name is from) and bought herself a mug as her name just because she could. Whereas I was so jealous she had an interesting/cool name and mine was super boring and shared by five people in my class every year. As adults I think we’ve both made peace with our names and the pros and cons of uniqueness vs commonality.

I named my oldest daughter after my sister and the only issue I’ve had this far is one time a pharmacist swore up and down he didn’t have her prescription ready because he was looking her name up under a common American name that sounds similar but starts with a different letter (think Ekaterin vs Katherine). I’ve learned to spell the name clearly for things like that.

I call my younger child by her middle name since the first name is shared by several relatives and I kind of regret not swapping the names (name I call her as first, family name middle) although I didn’t settled in middle name as nickname until after she was born so I don’t blame myself for that too too much.

[Anonymous]

Gave our kids middle eastern ethnic names when they were born about five years before 911. Regretted it after all that. Whole lotta kids named Osama etc suddenly became Sammie in kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Had a kid in my kindergarten class named Axel. At pick up time - there were older kids there (pick up rooms were organized by family). The older kid asked Axel - what's your name.

Axel

What?!? Your name is A$$hole?? (this was shouted)

I jumped up to intervene. There were other parents coming in -- then I apologized to Axel's mom who said:

Oh that's OK -- my mom said people would think his name is A$$hole.

OK then....

[Anonymous]

What about "normal" names that aren't bad, but just don't roll off the tongue, alone or in first+last name combo? Really minor, but feels like the audio equivalent of ill-fitting clothes and unkempt hair.