Kids are influenced by what the adults and teenagers (especially parents and siblings) around them say and the media that they consume. No name is weird or mockable to a child until they hear an adult suggest that something is wrong with it. My (7 yo) son has a few classmates with incredibly unconventional (to me) names. Those names are normal to him because he has never heard anyone make negative comments about them. We need to watch what we say around our kids. They're incredibly impressionable. |
This perfectly describes the one John Paul I knew at my (Catholic) college. |
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I think it’s very French. Jean-Paul
Like it! |
Same! Also a Catholic college grad and also knew a JP who was a frat bro and kinda d*uch*y. Definitely sounds like a Pope name and agree with the others, no hyphen. |
Eh, Sarah Jessica doesn't have a hyphen but goes by Sarah Jessica. You just keep correcting folks until they get it. |
John Paul will just make people think of the Pope. John Luke will make people think you're massive fans of Star Trek. Yes it's Jean-Luc, but it sounds the same. And yes the hyphen will be a pain in the butt. Just give him John as a first name and whatever you want as the middle name and you can call him by both at home. |
Anyone who goes by their initials tends to be a d*uche. I know a JC, JD, JJ, TJ, DJ, KC, AJ. I'm not kidding when I say they're all full of themselves and think they're God's gift to the world! It's a strange phenomenon. |
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Hope John Paul was a pretty terrible pope so it’s a hard note for me as a catholic.
If I heard that you named your kid, John Paul, and you were Catholic, I would think you were part of the Steve Bannon club. |
A certain OJ has entered the chat... |
My ILs were trying this because they didn't like my first son's name and I put a hard stop to that! I love John-Paul, I think it's very handsome. Kids don't make fun of each others names these days. They find plenty of other stuff to mock but names aren't one of them. |
| Ehh I wouldn't want to be this closely aligned with the Pope who hid all the pedo priests. But. You do you! |
Exactly, a kid would be more likely to be made fun of for not having a phone (or something similar) nowadays rather than their name. Even when I was in school, I never saw anyone get made fun of for their name. I did, however, see kids be bullied due to their clothing, physical appearance, socioeconomic status, personality, behavior, interests, physical + mental disabilities, medical conditions, innocence, religiousness, and other perceived differences that made them an easy target. The lesson here is to teach our children to be kind and make them feel safe to come to us if they're being treated poorly by anyone. The lesson should not be to avoid using perfectly normal names because we blindly assume that they will be made fun of. |
We are Catholic, but our inspiration comes from St. John the Apostle and St. Paul the Apostle rather than Pope John Paul II. I do see how he would be most people's first thought when hearing the name though (especially because our family is Catholic). It would probably be easier to pull off if we were Protestant, haha! |
Actually, it's common when you have a male who is a Jr. For example, Father is known as John Paul or JP, son as Paul or J. Paul. |
I’m Catholic and I find that all the really problematic and judgmental passages from the Bible are Paul’s letter to some group or another. I know theologians often rehab those passages by saying that you need to look at them in their historical context…..but my big takeaway is that St. Paul was the kind of guy who persecuted Christians before Damascus and was the same sort of black and white judgemental thinker after conversion. IMHO, saying St. Paul is worse than JPiI. “Wives obey your husbands as you obey the Lord” is truly not my favorite parts from the Bible. Matthew , on the other hand, I can get behind and that’s an under utilized name. |