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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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.  [/quote]

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![/quote]

I never wanted my kids to have common names at all, but I know someone who was so proud that none of her 5 kids had names in the top 1,000 and I always felt like saying - yeah but for a reason... although her kids names were relatively straight-forward[/quote]

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