# Should you give your baby a unique name? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 7, 2022, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017 "2022-02-07T00:36:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/141 "2022-02-10T05:37:53Z")
> [@ThatCanadianGuy](#): > > The thing is, you don’t know the child’s future. They may move to another country, speaking a different language and their name may be unusual in that country. And some people in that situation choose to go by a name that’s more familiar to the locals. I might. But I would also rather be Ms. Foreignname from Foreigncountry than Ms. WTFwasyourmomsmoking from here. Just because it’s possible your kid could end up with a similar problem to the one you’re trying to avoid, despite your efforts, doesn’t mean there’s no point in trying. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/142 "2022-02-10T06:54:28Z")
But there’s a difference between naming your daughter McPaisleighlynn and naming your daughter Magdalena (which sat at #997 in the US in 2020). Unusual doesn’t have to mean poorly spelled or random syllables pasted together. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/143 "2022-02-10T15:31:45Z")
> [@Mallard](#): > > Was his last name “Harris” and used to be a quarterback? Nope! He was a geeky white guy. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/144 "2022-02-10T15:38:14Z")
I’ve always liked the idea of naming a daughter Lizard. She’d go by “Liz”, obviously, but if anyone said, “oh, short for Elizabeth?” she could reply, “no, Lizard”. Not sure if I heard that somewhere, made it up, or both. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/145 "2022-02-10T16:17:41Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I’ve always liked the idea of naming a daughter Lizard. She’d go by “Liz”, obviously, but if anyone said, “oh, short for Elizabeth?” she could reply, “no, Lizard”. > > Not sure if I heard that somewhere, made it up, or both. - When [V:The Miniseries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(1983_miniseries)) was on, one of the plot points was a teen-age girl got pregnant from one of the aliens. My first thought was that LittleLizardBreath would be the perfect name since it was so close to Elizabeth. Guess what the baby was named. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/146 "2022-02-10T18:33:38Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I’ve always liked the idea of naming a daughter Lizard. She’d go by “Liz”, obviously, but if anyone said, “oh, short for Elizabeth?” she could reply, “no, Lizard”. > > Not sure if I heard that somewhere, made it up, or both. There was an old comic strip – family centered – where the daughter was named Elizabeth. The brother would tease her by calling her Lizardbreath. That was, like, decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/147 "2022-02-10T18:37:45Z")
For Better or For Worse It stopped publishing new strips in 2018. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/148 "2022-02-10T18:43:22Z")
Thanks! I was too lazy to google it. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/149 "2022-02-10T20:16:25Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > It stopped publishing new strips in 2018. Still shows up in my semi-local paper. Of course, so does Peanuts. – however, I think that while For Better or For Worse is also these days primarily re-runs, I think the strips are sometimes editied a bit and there may occasionally be a new one. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/150 "2022-02-11T18:35:11Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > My last name has a Polish pronunciation. We decided to go with an English pronunciation Good choice, Mr. Turkeybreast is probably pretty easy for most Americans to get right in two or three guesses. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > Thankfully, “Chasity” has fallen greatly in popularity, but is still far from unique. I wish I could believe that you just made this up. > [@suranyi](#): > > Half the kids in my son’s 6th grade class have what would once be considered strange names. The kids themselves take no special notice of them That doesn’t mean that nobody makes fun of them. Kids will make fun of any name if they can rhyme it with something, or it sounds like something slightly dirty. Think how common of a name Dick is/was in the US and that was made fun of all the time. > [@Alessan](#): > > I’m just saying that people should adapt. I’m a citizen of two countries and a speaker of two languages, and I have a different version of my name in each language. Yep, same for me, this is quite common. Why make an entire country of people have to make a guess at your name pronunciation? It’s not really all that different from having Stephen as a formal name and have your friends call you Steve, Stevie or Steve-a-rino. This is one that people always think I made up, but one of my sister’s classmates growing up was named Mona Groen. Ask me if she got any crap for that. It only got worse as she got older and kids understood the sexual element to the sound of her names. I had a friend named Rock Todd. Nobody our age had ever heard of Rock Hudson, so it was a totally unheard of first name to everyone. Got a lot if shit about dumb as a rock and other similar things. I happen to like some creative spelling, just make sure your kid has a less flamboyant middle name that they can opt to if they want to. No one should be saddled with two names that people have trouble reading, much less saying out loud. Maybe they don’t want to use their first name Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da in grades 1-12, so they can use their second name Jon. Once they are at university, maybe they will be confidant enough to embrace Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da. At least give them the choice of opting out. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/151 "2022-02-11T18:54:54Z")
> [@mordecaiB](#): > > Good choice, Mr. Turkeybreast is probably pretty easy for most Americans to get right in two or three guesses. That’s Hungarian, though. 🙂 But you are probably one of about a half dozen posters who know how to say my screen name correctly. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![eschrodinger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschrodinger/32/122_2.png) [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/152 "2022-02-11T18:58:36Z")
When I lived in Norway, my name was pronounced slightly differently – like the same name, but with an accent compared to the American pronunciation. This was by design – my mother chose names that could be easily pronounced by Norwegian speakers and US English speakers. But, I always hated my name and eventually changed it. So, no guarantees. My mother was named after her mother, so she had a diminutive nickname growing up. Her legal name is difficult for Americans to pronounce, as is her Norwegian nickname, so she uses a further variation on her nickname with English speakers. But she’s never changed her legal first name. I would be fine with some pronunciations of my name in another country, but if I were living in some countries where local pronunciation of the final consonant might make it sound like a completely different name, I would likely go to the trouble of requesting that people pronounce that consonant the way I do in my name. And maybe people would roll their eyes about “creative spelling” or snowflake foreigners or whatever. But it would be, to me, like calling me by a different name altogether, and one I dislike (for me) at that. Names are, as one might expect, extremely personal. I think everyone should be sensitive to what the person prefers, and do their best. I don’t get the resentment about people wanting their names pronounced as, well, their actual name. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/153 "2022-02-12T14:37:10Z")
> [@eschrodinger](#): > > I don’t get the resentment about people wanting their names pronounced as, well, their actual name I don’t resent it. But there are a lot of sounds i can’t hear or reproduce. And if you want me to try, i will, but you are going to be frustrated. And I’m hardly unique, so you’re going to be frustrated a lot. As a holder of a weird name, i find it better for my health and happiness to not get too excited about the usual errors and difficulties. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/154 "2022-02-12T15:05:43Z")
I don’t think anybody here has actually been complaining about people who make a reasonable attempt to pronounce the name, but can’t reproduce some of its sounds. What some of us are objecting to is the idea that the people whose names they are should as a matter of course pre-emptively change our names because some people can’t, and some others don’t want to, pronounce them. That’s a very different thing from not getting upset because of an occasional, or even a common, mispronunciation made by people who are trying to say the correct name. Yes, there are some people who find a specific alternative acceptable, and who want to offer that. That’s fine for them. It isn’t, IMO, fine for them to say that everyone else has to do so; let alone to say that people shouldn’t, for instance, pass along a family name because it’s hard to pronounce in the area that their particular branch of the family has moved to. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/155 "2022-02-12T15:30:48Z")
That’s fine. But while i support your right to tell everyone your name is something they can’t pronounce, i think both you and the people you interact with will experience less stress if you pick a “good enough” pronunciation that strangers you interact with can pronounce. Just as some recommend picking a “not too weird” name for your kids, i recommend picking a “close enough” version of your name to share. As a related example (not hard to pronounce, but hard to understand) i used to know a non-binary person who had changed their name to something along the lines of CatherineChristopher. And it drove them nuts that the receptionist would call out “Catherine”. It’s worth getting a new doctor if your doctor doesn’t respect your name, but if one of the receptionists doesn’t? And this happened to them all the time. And they were frustrated and annoyed all the time. While i think those receptionists were wrong, i also think this person was wise to change their name to Carter. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/156 "2022-02-12T15:47:03Z")
Well, that’s really different. If you take two ordinary names and smoosh them together that way, most people probably assume you made an error writing it down. And when hearing names called out I rarely hear the full name. This isn’t a case of mispronunciation but encountering a very odd way of putting one’s name together. What if they used a hypen? I’d wager the times the full name were called out would go up. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/157 "2022-02-12T15:49:54Z")
I’m not actually sure how it was spelled. I only ever heard it said aloud. I suspect they tried different ways of spelling it, as this was a major annoyance in this person’s life for quite some time. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/158 "2022-02-12T17:13:53Z")
I don’t think the name-holder owes it to people they encounter to make saying their name easier. But I do think parents should consider making their children’s lives easier by not saddling them with a name others will struggle to pronounce. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2022, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/159 "2022-02-14T16:51:39Z")
In a similar vein to “Chasity”, yesterday I saw a large sign on someone’s front lawn wishing Happy Birthday to “Cherity”. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2022, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017/160 "2022-02-15T02:30:38Z")
Guess Feith and Hopers have their birthdays later in the year? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-you-give-your-baby-a-unique-name/959017.md?page=9)