My kids all like their names, or haven’t expressed any particular opinion.
I’d hate it if any of them wanted to change their names. They were all either named after beloved relatives whose memory we’d like to see honored by their namesakes, or with meaningful thought by my wife and me. Of course, if they really hated the names, I’d rather they got it changed than live an unhappy life because they stuck with a name they hated, but it would seriously sadden me.
Only one of my kids has a name that is particularly uncommon (amongst Orthodox Jews), but I know he likes it.
My son Carl is named after my grandfather, and likes his name very much: it is short (and so does not require shortening), relatively uncommon (there aren’t four or five other “Carls” in his class in school) without being truly unusual, not subject to difficulties in spelling (other than the “c or k” thing), has family meaning for him, and he enjoys the historic meaning of the name.
My children each have a Bible name and a name that reflect their father’s (my husband’s) heritage. We tried to keep their first names simple because our last name is deceptively complicated. So our daughter has a traditional, classic first name and an Italian middle name. It flows well. She likes her name, but right now, she thinks she will probably take her husband’s last name if/when she marries. She may not; we’ve discussed the pros and cons, but she probably will. She likes tradition. My son has an Irish name that is fairly simply as his first name; his middle name is his father’s first name. His name flows well, too. In the heat of argument, when he is looking to wound me, he will tell me that he hates his first name and can’t wait to change it. shrug I hope he doesn’t; I think it’s just button-pushing. But when he’s old enough to do so, I won’t fight him if that’s what he chooses.
Are you thinking of changing it to Anaamika? I’ve always thought yours was one of the loveliest usernames on the SDMB.
No kids, but changing a name is a family tradition of sorts, at least in my nuclear family: my mom shed a saint’s name she acquired at confirmation; my sister ditched her first name (although she’s always gone by her middle name), in favor of our maternal grandmother’s maiden name; and my dad happily and joyfully exorcized the hideous name he’s always been called by - “Stanley”, and I don’t blame him for a minute - in favor of a more unusual variant that allows him to still go by “Stan”, which he has done sice he was old enough to make his preferences clear.
Me, I like my name, even though it’s an extremely common name of Hebrew origin. My two - yep, two - middle names are okay, though WASP-y as hell. But I cannot abide the most common short form of my name, and I see red when people mutilate my name in such fashion. So much so that I now go by my surname at work.
My oldest doesn’t like her name. She was named after her grandmother and thinks the name is dated and old fashioned. She says her middle name sounds like it came from an eighties teen movie. It kind of makes me sad because the names do mean a lot to me. They weren’t just chosen to be popular and I think they’re very pretty names that make me think of the people I loved enough to name a child after. But what can ya do? It’s not exactly breaking my heart. Still, when she complains about it (which is rare, to be fair) there’s a brief twinge of sadness, I guess a silly little reaction to a perceived disrespect of their memories.
My younger daughter loves her name. She’s still a child and thinks she has a princess name so that’s all that matters. When she’s older she’ll likely gripe because I gave her such a sissy name, or a long name, or a flower name, or whatever she comes up with. Eventually,like her mom (Cynthia Dawn. Uggh!) she’ll learn to live with her name.
He’s never said so directly to me, but I suspect my son doesn’t (or at least didn’t for a time) care for his name. In middle school he tried to go by his first and middle initials. It didn’t stick, and I haven’t heard anything about it in years.
For those wanting to change their name how about Max Power? A name so awesome it even works for the ladies. One of my grand aunts is a Maxine and she has always gone by Max.
My son (will be 11 in a few weeks) likes his name and knows what it means. Actually, he knows the the obvious meaning because it is a noun in English, but as a name it is a relatively uncommon yet well known first name. (So it isn’t like naming him Rock, or Eagle) It was the only name his father came up with that wasn’t completely stupid. (how about E.Z. no names, just initials… it would work for a boy or a girl. NO. How about Lobos? No. Our child is not a spanish wolf. How about … Shaneequa for a girl… No getting names from Maury Povich show… ) When he picked a short, anglo-saxon traditional male first name I jumped all over it. I wanted to throw in a Thomas or a Robert in there as a middle name for family traditions, but we went with my last name as a middle name. My last name is also a first name, also works with the British first name. My son has his dad’s last name which is kind of funny. The father fought me tooth and nail about signing the birth registration, etc but he finally did when my son was almost 6 months old. The next week we split forever. I have kept his name as registered, but my son knows he can change it when he gets older. So far he wants to keep his last name as his last name to honor his paternal grandmother, but he knows he has options. He has talked about adding Robert, but I said do it for yourself, not for me.
I dislike my first name, use my middle name… the one my parents have always called me. Eventually I will change it, but it is hard to pick out a new middle name for yourself. One you like well enough to have, gives you decent initials, works with your first and last name, number of syllables, and yet not like enough to want to be your first name. Also since my first name ends in an A I want to be careful about vowels etc.
My daughter and I were talking about this just yesterday. We were discussing the meaning of her first name and who she is named after, and I told her that all through my pregnancy we had planned on a different first name, and only changed to the name she has today after she was born. However we kept the middle name that we’d planned on all along. The crux of the issue is that her first name and middle name don’t really flow together well, and had I to do it over, I would have given her a different middle name.
If that was confusing let me use example names to explain…we planned to name her Cora Margaret Lastname but ended up switching to Caroline Margaret Lastname. If I had it to do over I would have changed her middle name too, so she’d be Caroline Grace.
She was quite taken with the idea and says she’s never really liked Margaret, and now she wants to officially change her middle name to Grace. My answer was, ok by me if you still feel the same in January. If you do we’ll help you get it officially changed.
If she wanted to change from Caroline back to Cora I’d be bummed because I loooove her first name and it has meaning to me. But for the middle name, which I kind of prefer anyway? I’m totally on board with it.