“Who’s my big girl?”
“Me!”
“What’s your name?”
“Me!”… or sometimes… “Baby!”
“Sophie, say ‘Sophie’.”
She gets all somber, a little pouty, and her little voice always comes back with
“No.”
She is now 28 months-old and has never spoken her name, though she has no problems saying other names. Anybody ever experience this? It’s a little weird, but not a big issue (she’ll get around to it eventually). But I’m just wondering what could be going through her head that makes her refuse to say her name.
I very much doubt that she fails to ]respond to her name, eg when you say it as you walk into the room? Don’t assume she should be doing certain things at certain ages to the point that you’re frustrated, otherwise she’ll be very aware of that frustration. I was still struggling to speak without mixing simple words up when I started school, and I turned out just fine
No, no, no… I hope I didn’t leave that impression.
She knows her name, responds to “Sophie” or “Sophia” or “Soph,” she just absolutely refuses to say it. She’ll gladly say anything else you ask her to say, but refuses to speak her name.
I have experienced various forms of this with all of my kids as well. It’s not about not saying her name, it’s about getting your attention. Not saying her name does it, every time. The harder you try, the less she will cooperate.
Be sneaky, tell her she doesn’t KNOW her name. If she says “uh-huh” say “nuh-uh”. Repeat ad nauseum until she yells out her name.
Yup, I agree. It’s a 2 year old testing her boundaries. A power trip for toddlers.
Can’t wait till my 19 month old gets to that stage. She’s still in the “checking answers phase.” Asks a question 15 times in a row to see if she gets the same answer every time. And the question is usually “Maaa Ma-ma?” (translates to “Where is Mom and why in the world did she leave me in your care?”)
Our munchkin girl is 33 months. Now she was a little late to the talking thing as she didn’t say much more than the necessary nouns like “mama, dada, doggy, kitty, cheerios, milk …” until her second birthday. Pretty much every day after that she said something new. She’s recently in a new phase of actually having frivolous conversation!
She didn’t start saying her name until about 3 months ago. One day instead of “me” out popped “cara.” Now she tells everyone her name. Clerks in the stores think she’s a hoot.
Hi, she says to them. Once they answer she says, how doin? Then she puffs her chest out and points at herself and says “me cara” then a lot of stuff I just don’t always understand. Her waving and saying, bye - see ya soon, never fails to leave them laughing.
I worried myself silly about her not talking and not saying her name and I listened gravely to everyone who “confided” that they thought something was wrong. She’s fine.
Like others have said - don’t turn it into a power trip! Goodness toddlers are stubborn little animals! One thing that really helped me learn a lot about my kid’s skills was eavesdropping. When she is playing quietly by herself - listen and watch her. I discovered that while she will count like this when I ask her to count " one two eight nine ten" that when lining up cars and counting all by herself she counts to 15 flawlessly. She also says a lot to her bears that she doesn’t yet say to us.
My niece did the exact same thing, and as others have said, it’s a toddler-sized power game. She knows full well what she’s expected to say, she doesn’t won’t because it’s a place where she can draw her own line in the sand. Don’t worry about it – she’ll certainly outgrow it soon enough.
My neice would name everyone in the extended family, including pets, but when it got down to her own name, she’d either purposely answer with another person’s name, or she’d just tilt her head and refuse to answer. Smiling all the while. And when it came to constructing sentences, she’d refer to herself as “the little girl.” It was too funny – my sister and I would ask her questions just to get her to call herself “the little girl” and crack up.
Kind of the opposite scenario of my other niece (her older sister), who went through an extended phase of refering to herself in third person. Not “me” or “mine,” but “Aubrey” and “Aubrey’s”. Also adorable, in my opinion.
No, this isn’t something that worries or frustrates me - I didn’t speak at all until I was 3, and then for 2 years had my own language that nobody understood except for my brother.
My 5 year old boy STILL refuses to say his name. I think everyone had paid way to much attention to that. My advice to you, stop asking her to say her name. My boy is now in kindergarten and I’m getting notes from the teacher about it. He’s very stubborn in many ways!
When I saw the OP was from 2004 I assumed the reason the little girl wouldn’t say her name was because it was Voldemort, and so she refused to say it. Obviously she’s not actually Voldemort, she just shares a name with he who must not be named. JohnT won’t say her name either, so he calls her Sophie.
At the same age, my cousin mispronounced his own name. The grownups found that utterly cute and started adressing him by the mispronunciation, which made him utterly furious. Sophie isn’t the easiest name to pronounce… maybe your daughter isn’t sure how to say it and is preemptively refusing to.
