Tell me that “Barkevious” doesn’t sound like a made up black person name for someone’s dog.
I just can’t take that name seriously.
Having a sister who is a teacher in elementary school let me get the scoop on the trendy names.
The fact that he is 6-4 240 probably kept him from being teased. I’m assuming he wasn’t a late bloomer and towered over his classmates.
Far more common, but still rather bizarre to me, is naming your kid Jesus or Mohamed.
I know this is often out of respect and devotion to religion, but wow - talk about lofty goals for a kid to live up to…
For awhile, it seemed like every little blond girl had a name that ended with the letter “i” - Cindi, Brandi, Bobbi, Suzi - and they would dot the “i” with a little heart.
Then there are the aristocratic families who have the tradition of giving first and/or middle, names of other family names - Martin Merriweather van Holsten, Roosevelt Sanderson Thurgood or that TV journalist, Anderson Hays Cooper. You don’t exactly find their names pre-printed on coffee cups in tourist shops either.
According to my daughter, who is in high school, you’d have to have a very unusual name indeed to be teased for it. Something that is easily mocked like “Gaylord” would certainly qualify. A name that is just an unusual spelling or “made-up”? You’d end up teasing half the class!
It’s a different world, where not everyone is named Mike or Dave or Heather or Jennifer. Even the “popular” names are not as concentrated as they were way back when.
I prefer made-up names over clever mispellings. Either way it’s embarassing to have to ask for someone to have to re-pronounce or spell their name. Creating socially uncomfortable moments should be avoided if at all possible in my world. Also, be prepared for your child to be asked whether it’s a real name. My husband has an unusual nickname, and the first thing everyone says when they hear it is “Is that his REAL name?”
However, before you name your child for god’s sake look up the social security top 100 and avoid the top 25 at least. Does the world need another Olivia or Isabella or Lily? (I have like the most common girls name ever so I’m a little bitter.) And google the name combination once you’ve landed on something. You might have a seriel killer or a junior congressperson there, and wouldn’t you at least like to know?
And I’d rather my kid not be the 4,786th John or Ann in my smallish town. I’ve grown up my whole life with a somewhat common name that is spelled uniquely. When I go online and do a vanity search, I’m thrilled to find I’m still the only one. However, my friend John Brown can never find himself ever. So, after 44 years I’ve survived and find I’d much rather encounter unique names than standard issue. Hooray for diversity!
problem is, you are not your kid. It’s a bit selfish to get all “kre8ive” or “eweneeqe” without giving any thought as to how the recipient of the name might think about it.
No, but I’ve never met anyone absolutely thrilled to be another in a throng of faceless Sues, Joes or Marys.
< shrug >
Again, my name is a normal popular one from the 60s and 70s, just a bit creatively spelled and I probably only had a handful of issues with it ever of anyone teasing me about it. Spelling it wrong? Sure. But then again, my last name is so common it’s pathetic and people still can’t get it right.
So, still sign me up for creative names. In my opinion, the old fashioned, common ones don’t cut the proverbial mustard.
I don’t care one way or another about creative names, except for a couple of issues. As a teacher every semester I get students with seriously bad attitudes on first days when I mispronounce their names, a mistake I make great pains to avoid. But if your name is not spelled using any of the phonetic conventions of any of the languages spoken in your area you need to drop the attitude and live with it. So avoid hassle and keep the creativity but avoid creative spellings.
Secondly I have a friend named X. His first name is X. Sounds kinda cool but it has been a constant hassle for him when it comes to official paperwork. On almost every interaction with government, banks, business, and employment his paperwork gets screwed up or sent back because people think he’s left off his first name or used a place holder. It is not only a significnt headache for him, but he has also suffered some serious problems with loans and medical insurance when paperwork was rejected and deadlines were missed. There is a practical use for names that can’t be ignored. They have a use beyond cuteness and creativity.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether a spelling is creative or if mom liked a name but didn’t know how to spell it. “Aleasha” for “Alicia” is a real life example from a woman I knew in the 60’s. Mom was dumb as a box of hair.
If my parents had named me “Jennifer” or “Allison”, I would have wanted to strangle them. Lovely names, both of them. But the world simply does not need another one. Seems to me that parents who pick names right off the Top 10 List are self-centered too. Just in a different way (one that dictates other acts of conformity).
Name teasing is a stupid reason to give someone a common name. Why? Because if it’s not your first name that gets mocked, it’s your last name. Or you catch shit because you’re the tallest/shortest/fattest/skinniest/clumsiness/whatever in the class. I have a “normal” name, but the kids found a way to adulterate it. And I could have been named “Mary” and I still would have gotten harrassed.
If the worse that happens growing up is someone pokes fun at your name, consider yourself lucky.
But they might just as easily resent your for the fact that they are one of the herd of “Jacob Alexander”'s or “Olivia Grace”'s running around.
Couple points: the weirdest assortment of names I’ve seen lately were all the names on the doors at my grandmother’s assisted living home, which is all white ladies in their 80s and 90s.. “Common” names change pretty rapidly, and while a few classics hang around, there has always been then big fluid pool of made-up names that is always in flux. There’s also a weird confirmation bias thing going on: famous historical people have kids named after them, and so their names stay in circulation. So, later, it seems like historical figures have these classic names. But the names are classic because of the historical figures, not the other way around.
Second, as a teacher, I’ll say that, at least by high school kids just become their names and no one thinks about it. Plenty of people have distinctive names. Names are a pretext for bullying or teasing.
That said, I do think names can be class and race signifiers, and I think the class implications do have the potential to impact how people see your kid. I work with a lady whose name is something like La’Pwecious. It’s not that her name suggests she’s black, it’s that her name suggests that her mom was 16 when she was born. I think that such a name could be a disservice to a person.
However, if you don’t want anyone to have any preconceptions about your kid whatsoever, can I suggest the name Jordan? It’s consistently popular, but not overwhelmingly common, and I gotta say, in all my years teaching, I have not encountered any other name that is so gender, race, and class neutral. I’ve had black, white, and Hispanic kids with the name, rich kids, poor kids, boys and girls. “Jordan” on a resume could literally be anyone but a first-generation Asian. The name Jasmine has a similar broadness of appeal, but it’s gendered, and there’s really no standard spelling.
I gave my son fairly common first name, but the middle name is unusual, and the nickname we make out of it (Mars), more unusual still. I am interested to see how it works out as he ages.
We have a niece like that. They named her “Angelique” but spelled it “Angelic”. I think they had only ever heard it said aloud.
But those words only meant that once, then someone turned them into a ‘name’, so while they might not have ‘made up’ a new word, they made up a ‘name’ by turning it into one. Like ‘apple’, it already had a meaning before it became a child’s name, but it’s still a ‘made up’ name, because all names are words someone decided to use for a name.
Once you go to other cultures and encounter many, many other forms of names, (with various meanings, sometimes apparent to you, some lost on you), you begin to see they are all just reapplied words. Or made up/into names.
If you want a creative name, change your own; Dda’Nnyéhl is going to hate his name every freaking day. Please, do a take a name that speaks of your culture/ancestry/country but always be aware that telling people haow to pronounce/spell your name is annoying.
My wife has a simple Italian surname which she never pronounces, only spells so she was 100% with me in the let’s-give-the-kids-common-names idea.
If you do go creative, it’s not our fault that we don’t know how to spell/pronounce it. “Creative” names are also, in Latin America, (stereo)typical of poor people: Yhonny, Sthefhanni, and Brickney live in the shantytowns. No shame in being poor.
I also agree that “celebrity” names are terrible.
Sorry, I can’t get upset about what people name their kids until I’ve finished being irked by people who say near miss when talking about two things that don’t collide.
I don’t have a problem with made up black names, because I’m not some smug white guy named Chad who thinks everyone should speak, act, and name their children they were they it was done in his Connecticut prep school, but the made up name should be something pleasant sounding. Not a fan of Quvenzhane.
Same. I once encountered twins named Addyssn and Madyssn, and a little part of me died right there.
The first time you posted thisin a thread, I laughed it off with you. Now I see you are serious. Wow. You really think that is someone’s real name. That facebook page. You think it reflects a real name.
Near miss? The objects were near each other, but they missed hitting each other. Makes sense to me.
Sometimes names result from someone reading it without knowing how it is pronounced. I work at a food pantry on the weekends, and one time a new client came in. When I asked for her first named she said something that sounded like “E Lois”, emphasis on the “E”. She said her mother named her after a book character she loved as a child. The character was “Eloise”.