S/O... Do you consider their future when choosing your child's name?

[Heather in Neverland]

I taught school for 12 years and I came across some really...ummm....unusual names. I've often wondered if parents consider their child's professional future when naming them something cutesy or "unusual"?

 

For instance, will their name look mature and professional on their resume? There was a chapter in a book called "Freakanomics" that talked about employers' first impression of a candidate based on their name on a resume alone and how that sometimes eliminates candidates. I once had a student named "Malaria" and the author talks about twin boys named "la-mon-ge-lo" and "o-ron-ge-lo" except it was spelled "Lemonjello" and "Orangejello". ??????

 

And these actors and rock stars that name their kids all these weird names...what if their kid doesn't go into showbiz? With names like Apple, Zuma, and Moonfry how would they ever be taken seriously among fellow lawyers or doctors???

 

What do you think?

[Nakia]

We thought about our girls' future when picking their names. But, after working for several years on the postpartum unit, I can tell you that some people don't. :D

[Heather in Neverland]

We thought about our girls' future when picking their names. But, after working for several years on the postpartum unit, I can tell you that some people don't. :D

 

:lol:

 

My brother and his wife spent 8 weeks in the NICU with their premature baby and the nurses told them some wild stories about how babies are named! :D

[AnnetteB]

We considered how their names would suit them as adults and what their initials would spell out. Dh allowed me to be more "romantic" with the girls' names. The boys' names are pretty traditional except for Elijah and dh still thinks that won't be a great adult name:glare: I imagine that he will shorten it to Eli someday and do alright.

[Chelle in MO]

I taught school for 12 years and I came across some really...ummm....unusual names. I've often wondered if parents consider their child's professional future when naming them something cutesy or "unusual"?

 

For instance, will their name look mature and professional on their resume? There was a chapter in a book called "Freakanomics" that talked about employers' first impression of a candidate based on their name on a resume alone and how that sometimes eliminates candidates. I once had a student named "Malaria" and the author talks about twin boys named "la-mon-ge-lo" and "o-ron-ge-lo" except it was spelled "Lemonjello" and "Orangejello". ??????

 

And these actors and rock stars that name their kids all these weird names...what if their kid doesn't go into showbiz? With names like Apple, Zuma, and Moonfry how would they ever be taken seriously among fellow lawyers or doctors???

 

What do you think?

We did. We're just too conservative to have done otherwise! There is a car dealer in Missouri whose parents surely didn't consider his future *at all*, though. His name is Richard Head. Really. :001_huh:

 

Chelle

[swellmomma]

I did, when thinking of their names I pictured how it would sound with an official title in front of it, or on the gold placard ont he door kwim. I once worked with a girl named Barbie, She found it very hard to have people take her seriously as a result. Her parents gave her a stripper name instead of something either feminine or strong. Over the years that I have spent with my babies in the NICU's of various hospitals, and online parenting groups it is amazing what kinds of names are chosen. Ceilidh is my only strangely named one, the name is normal the spelling is not, but the rest are normal, strong names for the boys, and pretty for the girls.

[Tap]

Yes. My daughters name is a long feminine name so we gave her a more neutral middle name that she could use if she found her first name was too 'soft' for her career.

 

Ds14 had a first name that was an uncommon biblical name when we named him, so we gave him a strong, common middle name. His first name is now Very common with the kids about 5-10 years younger. Ironically we now know more kids now with his 'unusual' first name than his 'common' middle name.

 

 

Our two year old was given a made up name by her birth mother, and they hyphenated her last name. Her name is always an issue. We are in the process of legally changing it.

[sleepy]

Of course I do! What kind of mom do you think I am? :D

[dragons in the flower bed]

The boys' names are pretty traditional except for Elijah and dh still thinks that won't be a great adult name:glare: I imagine that he will shorten it to Eli someday and do alright.

 

When your son is an adult, one in thirty men his age will be named Elijah. I don't think it will be a problem.

[dragons in the flower bed]

Ceilidh is my only strangely named one, the name is normal the spelling is not, but the rest are normal, strong names for the boys, and pretty for the girls.

 

Maybe it's because I know a lot of Pagans, but I know two other little girls with the same name and spelling (and an infinite number of Kaylees and variations thereon). I wonder if it's like Aidan, weird now but poised to become more common.

[MomOfOneFunOne]

I thought of my daughter's spiritual future. I wanted her to have a patron saint to depend upon and seek guidance from. I also wanted her to have an undeniably Catholic name and a name that is beautiful.

 

Her name is Mary Grace. We call her Mary Grace, not Mayy, not Grace.

 

We did consider implications of the name. We didn't find out if she'd be a girl or boy but I knew all along the girl name. The boy name, though, we agonized over. We liked this or that name but asked ourselves if it were Godly, had a silly nickname, generated a feeling of honor or silliness or was it too cute, et c. Even all the way up to the birth we hadn't chosen a boy name b/c I wanted Christian Alexander but I just knew ppl would shorten it to Chris and I wanted Christian.

 

Now I look back and think all that agonizing was silly but I know I go through all the same stuff again. I would definately consider my child's future when choosing his/her name.

 

My dad knew some brothers named Guesswho and Guessyouknow Brown. They were young black boys in the days and in the place where a saucy answer from a black man could get him killed so I really don't know what their parents were thinking.:confused:

 

I think a name is one of the most important things a parent will give her child and to squander such a gift on something silly seems so . . . :confused:

[dragons in the flower bed]

My children were doomed from conception because their last name is Native American, something like Birdflower (but not that). There is no name you can put with it to make it sound respectable. Even John Birdflower makes people imagine either a hippie or an American Indian stuffed uncomfortably into a suit.

 

That said, I gave the children three names each so they could use whichever suited them and turn the rest into initials. They each have a Hebrew name (eg, Lev, but not that), a literary & family name that sounds very traditional (like Edgar), and a nature name (like Forest). I figure at worst, they'll have to choose between L.F. Edgar Birdflower or Lev F. E. Birdflower or Forest E. L. Birdflower.

 

The oddest child's name I have ever heard was Zimmering. Zimmering's parents were Deadheads, stoners and hippies who lived in a bus and traveled from show to show. His name was admittedly not any odder than the other ones in that community.

Edited February 21, 2009 by dragons in the flower bed

[Heather in Neverland]

Even all the way up to the birth we hadn't chosen a boy name b/c I wanted Christian Alexander but I just knew ppl would shorten it to Chris and I wanted Christian.

 

 

 

I wanted to name our first son Christian too and did not for the same reason.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Ds's name is not unusual but as soon as he was born a politician with his first name had to go and do something dumb. We got a lot of jokes about his name at that time. But now that politician is gone and forgotten. Ds has been adamant that he be called his full first name and not a nickname. Some people have a problem with that for some reason.

 

Dd's first name is unusual but it is my mother's name and I don't care if it is old-fashioned (and it's not one of the currently popular "old-fashioned" names). But we always planned to call her by her middle name anyway so it's only an issue at the doctor's office.

[RoughCollie]

We thought carefully about the kids' names -- potential nicknames, how they sounded with our last name, what their initials spelled with last initial at the end or in the middle, and so forth.

 

We took into account the number of syllables in the names and the sound of the names with our last name, which has one syllable and a hard consonant at the beginning.

 

We also considered whether the average person could spell and pronounce the kids' names. Unfortunately, we missed the boat with Stephen -- he will forever be asked whether his name is spelled with a "v" or a "ph".

 

Some of my favorite names didn't make the cut either because DH refused to take my maiden name as our last name or because DH is a white bread kind of guy. The kids are grateful because most of them have inherited the white bread gene. I love Moon Unit Zappa's name, while the mere thought of it horrifies DH.

Edited February 21, 2009 by RoughCollie

[Jeannie in NJ]

My dc have very traditional names spelled the traditional way. DD used to know 2 girls one named Unique and the other one Taytay. I really dilike made up names

[Jean in Newcastle]

Some of that can be cultural. Filipino families often merge the mother's name with the father's name to make up a totally new name. We knew a Rainalynn (Rainer plus Lynn). My husband's name is very unusual here (he's Filipino) - we always have to tell people "it's like ________ but with a "B" in front". We purposefully did not merge our names for our kids!

[Elisabeth in IL]

I have all boys so we stuck with Biblical, but not terrible unusual, first names; family middle names; and a pretty basic two syllable last name. My name is Elisabeth with an "s" and I always have to point that out to people, so I stuck with traditional spellings of all the names. I think the boys have strong names that will carry them into whatever occupation they decide to have.

[kokotg]

My kids' names are sorta quirky, but I can definitely envision them all as adult names. In fact, judging from the SSA name popularity charts, August and Milo are best suited for 130 year old men ;). And Ari can grow up to be a press secretary or an NPR reporter. They also all have super common middle names--all except one in the top 10 (Daniel, Joseph, and David), so if they don't like quirky when they grow up, they can go with those.

[elegantlion]

We did think of the future. Our son is named directly for my dh's father, who has been deceased for many years. We opted to attach the II to end of his name. It sounds very professional all put together. But his first name has a few nicknames to choose from.

[Danestress]

I do think that how names "sound" to us changes over time so it's hard to predict what names will sound like in 25 years to people my childrens' own age. I have all boys, and I think people tend to be less daring with boy names anyway - mine have pretty classic names. But with girls, what sounds really beautiful and classy can take on a more pedestrian sound over time. Was it Freakanomics that discussed this? How names tend to move through social economic classes so that over time, a name that sounded very classy will start to become more and more popular and then eventually falls out of favor.

 

In the opposite direction, when I was a child, I remember that my mother saying how ridiculous it would be when nursing homes are filled with old ladies named Heather or Melissa or Michelle - all big names when I was a kid. She thought they sounded like a little girl name. Well, I would say that a poll of most people in my generation would say that Heather, Melissa and Michelle are all lovely names that would sound fine on a woman of any age. I can't think of why an old woman wouldn't sound good with those names, but they just weren't what she was used to hearing old women called. Why she then chose "Dana" is just beyond me. What I would give for a prettier, more feminine name!

[joannqn]

I consider everything...the name, it's meaning (Biblical), how it sounds together, and their initials (to an extent).

 

One of our thoughts for a middle name for my daughter was Kay but our last name starts with K and her first name has a K in it. The triple K was too noticeable so it was dropped.

 

I did goof the initials some. My middle child's initials are SIK. My youngest child's initials are JAK. LOL I've tried talking the family into calling the youngest Jack instead of Joshua but they won't go for it.

[Heather in Neverland]

In the opposite direction, when I was a child, I remember that my mother saying how ridiculous it would be when nursing homes are filled with old ladies named Heather or Melissa or Michelle - all big names when I was a kid. She thought they sounded like a little girl name. Well, I would say that a poll of most people in my generation would say that Heather, Melissa and Michelle are all lovely names that would sound fine on a woman of any age. I can't think of why an old woman wouldn't sound good with those names, but they just weren't what she was used to hearing old women called. Why she then chose "Dana" is just beyond me. What I would give for a prettier, more feminine name!

 

I do not care for my name as an adult. Depending on your outlook it is either a little girls' name or a stripper name. I would love something more sophisticated like Elizabeth or Sarah.

[Stacia]

Since my kids are dual-citizens, we chose names that would work well in both countries.

[dangermom]

Yep. I get irritated with names that sound cute on a 4yo, but aren't going to work well for a 50yo. My personal criterion is that it ought to sound good with the words "Supreme Court Justice" in front of it--that is, it ought to be a reasonably dignified name for an adult to have. And for us, it had to not clash horribly with our odd, slightly goofy-sounding last name, which disqualified some of my favorites.

 

My husband wouldn't consider Rose because he thought people would think we named her after the Titanic girl, but nobody thinks of Titanic now, so I don't agree with the objection.

[*Inna*]

Since my kids are dual-citizens, we chose names that would work well in both countries.

 

Same here, but we had to make sure they sound good in 3 languages/countries.

 

My husband wanted an unusual name for each of our girls, probably because they all in his family have very traditional and very common names. I, however, have an unusual name and people misspell and mispronounce it quite a bit. So, we found a middle ground in the end.

[nmoira]

Yes. We gave them distinctive first names -- not unique or jarring, just rare -- and common, traditional middle names. This gives the option of using a common name should they feel the need ing choosing a professional moniker.

[Audrey]

Yes, we did. But, after doing so, we realised that it seems almost impossible to have a name that doesn't annoy or disappoint or anger someone, no matter if you chose it, it was given to you, or you married it.

 

As someone else pointed out, names are your first impression, and when applying for jobs, it says more about you than you might think. Employers do weed out weird names -- sometimes consciously, sometimes sub-consciously. People do form an impression of you having only heard or read your name before meeting you.

 

I have a standard, boring, reliable name. My maiden name was also standard, boring and reliable. Now, I have a pretty, French, last name, and people make all kinds of assumptions based on that, too.

 

People will read my name and automatically assume that I'm francophone. I speak French, yes. But, I'm not a francophone, which is woefully obvious when they hear my terribly anglo-accented French. For some people, it's disappointing. Some even take it as an affront, believe it or not.

 

Our son has a very traditional English first name and middle name -- although, if you changed the spellings, they could be pronounced and used as French. They are, however, truly meant to be English names and are spelled the very traditional English way. Some people in our community think that I made some kind of political anti-French statement by doing that. They think that I did his francophone father some kind of slight by giving him English names. Whatever. :001_rolleyes: It's not like dh had nothing to do with naming him. On the contrary, he had said he wanted traditional names, but not French names.

 

Neither of us like the supposed "unique" names (because, let's face it -- those names aren't unique. There are dozens of other with that name, just maybe not in this tiny town). Ds's first name was just a name that we both really liked. His middle name (and here is where I'd actually said there was no room for compromise) is the masculine form of my mother's name. I'd said that, no matter what, our child's middle name would be after my mother, who passed away many years before I'd ever even married.

 

My family thinks ds's name sounds great -- or as my brother put it -- "that's a good strong name. A go-somewhere-do something kind of name." A couple of members of dh's family insist on pronouncing ds's name in the French way. Ds will always correct them, which is probably a wee bit rude, but I don't stop him because I think it's rude to call someone by a name that isn't their's when you know darn good and well what their name actually IS.

Edited February 21, 2009 by Audrey

[Jenny in Atl]

Only thing I thought about was having first names that were strong enough to balance-out their awful (harsh sounding) last name. :lol:

 

I think I did well...

[Danestress]

I think it's a nice name and it makes me think of Scotland, not strippers!

[muffinmom]

I wanted to (a) like the name (b) be sure it wasn't too common nor too unusual © but most of all I wanted the meanings of the name to be significant. I know our culture doesn't put much stock in the meaning of names like other and past cultures have, but I still couldn't bring myself to name my kid something that meant, for example, "child of darkness", even if I liked the way it sounded. :D I felt I would be shaping his destiny in a bad way!

[tabrizia]

Yep. I get irritated with names that sound cute on a 4yo, but aren't going to work well for a 50yo. My personal criterion is that it ought to sound good with the words "Supreme Court Justice" in front of it--that is, it ought to be a reasonably dignified name for an adult to have. And for us, it had to not clash horribly with our odd, slightly goofy-sounding last name, which disqualified some of my favorites.

 

 

 

This exactly for my naming criteria. It also has to be slightly less popular, since both DH and I have top 10 names for the years we were born and they haven't dropped much if at all since then.

 

We also are careful to make sure that there middle names are pronounceable by those in the US, because we use Hindi middle names since DH is half Indian. So we have the added bonus of trying to find a first name that sounds good with a foreign middle and last name, though the last name sounds exactly like an English word, which can lead to lots of fun puns.

 

It can be tough to narrow it down, but I figure if they really hate their names, we tried our best and they can always change them when they get older.

[hornblower]

Yes, absolutely.

We specifically picked a name for my dd which can be shortened to a gender neutral name (like Sam for Samantha, for ex.)

For ds, we picked a name which can be shortened or softened but which also stands on its own.

Both their names are spelled "normally" & both are traditional names that have versions of that name in other languages (important for us as we're a multicultural family), but not so old that they sound stuffy (like Bertha for ex.)

 

And as a total fluke, my dd shares her name with my godfather's wife (she goes by a very different short name so I didn't connect it). My ds's name was the second name of both dh's grandfathers and a couple great grandfathers..... but we didn't know that when we named him. Clearly, genealogy is not a hobby here LOL.

 

I do know someone called River Light and I have to say I like her and her name a lot :-)

 

I think I'd like to give the kids silly PG Wodehouse-like nicknames like Pongo or Tuppy or Barmy.....:D

[Laura Corin]

We thought hard about this, and would have been especially careful with girls. I remember when ambassador April Glasby was being criticised for her actions; I was aware at the time of my automatic distrust of her because her first name did not seem ambassadorial.

 

Laura

[BamaTanya]

I taught school for many years, too. I developed a theory (kidding, of course) that many children have trouble learning to read because the first, most important thing they learn, THEIR NAMES, make no phonetic sense. At all. I taught children whose names had more syllables than vowels, for instance. And someone should have told some parents that doubled consonants follow SHORT vowels. And that, no matter how exotic it sounds, a name of a disease is still an unpleasant thing to tack onto a child. Etc.

 

In addition, I hated my name as a child, for two reasons. One, people mispronounce it regularly. Two, people misspell it regularly. Seriously.

 

Dh didn't like his given name because there were four boys in his kindergarten by the same name.

 

When we named our dc, I determined to use names that clearly identified the child's gender. (I know, many lovely and popular names do not, but I didn't want my dc to have to deal with any confusion.) I selected names with ONE standard spelling. On purpose. All of our dc's names are Biblical, but we didn't use any that people would have trouble pronouncing. Most of the names are not that popular now, but they have been in history (babynamewizard.com) and, in my opinion, could work as well for supreme court justices or custodians, babies or the elderly. We don't do "silly" or "cute" with given names. I'm not overly fond of nicknames, but I know they'll pass. We just didn't give our children names that were nicknames for something longer or more formal.

 

In addition, I realized that the unusual, less popular factor

could theoretically bother our dc. We also gave them more common, more simple middle names. They could switch to going by those if they'd like and it wouldn't bother me at all.

 

It wasn't easy! I had tons of suggestions and dh instituted veto power on a few of my favorites. He's the one who threw in the "biblical" requirement, so I'll have to use some of my other choices for characters in my books, lol!

 

Overall, I think we selected names that are lovely, meaningful, and hopefully, never embarrassing or troublesome for our dc.

[Heidi @ Mt Hope]

Absolutely. I put a huge amount of thought into my kids names. Would they be easy to write for a Ker? Would they be able to use their middle name if they didn't like their first. Are they strong names? (I have all boys.) Would they be appropriate in various circles (professional, etc.)? Would they be teased? What associations would people come up with? What can I tell my children when they ask why I chose their name... what did it mean to me? What would it mean to them?

[orangearrow]

We thought about it. A lot. My own name is very unusual - dh's name is very normal. So, for our girls, we tried to find a happy middle ground. lol The girls both have two middle names, so they will have something to choose from when they're adults if they find that their first name does not suit their career. ;)

 

I didn't want to get too imaginative with the boy's name. I guess, growing up as a girl with a "weird" name never seemed to bother me - but I imagined it would be harder for a boy. So - our son is a wild and wacky "JAMES". With the wild and wacky middle name of "Matthew". :p So, we definitely were traditional for his.

 

My 2nd daughter has what I call a "fairy" name. Lots of meaning behind each of her names, but two of the names are definitely unusual (but not "weird' imho). One of her middle names (after her g-g grandma Florence) is Flora - that's about as "normal" as she'll have. But, it's something. :)

[Mom-ninja.]

there's a mom at the co-op we go to and she has three girls. They are named Julian, Chance, and Gabriel. The mom said she gave them boy names so that they won't be discriminated against for being female. This way they have male names on a resume and will get the job.

 

I figure that they might get an interview, and if the potential employer really has a problem hiring women, then they simply won't hire a woman when they see the the person with a male name is really female. I didn't mention that to her though.

 

I don't agree with her at all. I don't feel that women should have to pretend to be men (even on paper) to succeed.

[Ria]

there's a mom at the co-op we go to and she has three girls. They are named Julian, Chance, and Gabriel. The mom said she gave them boy names so that they won't be discriminated against for being female. This way they have male names on a resume and will get the job.

 

I figure that they might get an interview, and if the potential employer really has a problem hiring women, then they simply won't hire a woman when they see the the person with a male name is really female. I didn't mention that to her though.

 

I don't agree with her at all. I don't feel that women should have to pretend to be men (even on paper) to succeed.

 

That's got to be some of the strangest reasoning I've ever heard. Those poor girls...it's almost as if the mom is ashamed that they are girls. And didn't it ever occur to her that the interviewer will notice that they are women? Poor kids. Imagine walking into an office and saying, "Hello, I'm Julian X," and having the interviewer's mouth hang open. Nope. Not good.

 

Are you sure this woman didn't really want boys? Sheesh.

 

Ria

[abbeyej]

...Poor kids. Imagine walking into an office and saying, "Hello, I'm Julian X," and having the interviewer's mouth hang open. Nope. Not good.

 

Are you sure this woman didn't really want boys? Sheesh. ...

 

I'm just thinking at least Julian and Gabriel can be Julie/Julia or Gabrielle/Gabriella some day if they want to be. What can poor "Chance" do?!?

[Peela]

I think its probably got to the point that so many people have unusual names, its less of an issue that it would have been years ago.

Still, yes, there are some wierd ones out there, for sure.

Of course I considered how the names we gave our children would impact on them. But perhaps many people are living in a bubble and dont really see the bigger picture, or think it wont matter- I am sure they do actually have teh best intentions.

[Mandy in TN]

Even all the way up to the birth we hadn't chosen a boy name b/c I wanted Christian Alexander but I just knew ppl would shorten it to Chris and I wanted Christian.

 

I wanted to name our first son Christian too and did not for the same reason.

 

My oldest ds goes by his middle name- Christian. He has never been a Chris. Noone calls him Chris.

 

So, if you like the name and happen to have another child, I just wanted to encourage you to go ahead and use it.:D

Mandy

[Mandy in TN]

All 3 of my boys have middle names that are two syllables and end with shwa-n. If I were to have had a little girl her middle name would have been Megann. M.E.G. are my maiden initials and Ann is my mother's middle name. It also meets the two syllable shwa-n requirement.

 

My boys all have first names that are Biblical and easily shortened to one syllable. My youngest ds's name had the most requirements. It had to be Biblical, Muslim, easily shortened to one syllable, and recognized as a name in both Iran and the US. It was a short list.:D

 

Mandy

[TN Mama]

We did. We're just too conservative to have done otherwise! There is a car dealer in Missouri whose parents surely didn't consider his future *at all*, though. His name is Richard Head. Really. :001_huh:

 

Chelle

 

I went to school with a guy named Richard Butts and he didn't go by Richard...

[nmoira]

 

Imagine walking into an office and saying, "Hello, I'm Julian X," and having the interviewer's mouth hang open. Nope. Not good.

I'm not sure that's likely to happen. Look at all the traditional boy names that have shifted to girls over the last hundred years or so. It's a trend I'm confident will continue: While I've never met a girl Richard, William, etc., I know female Jacks and Gabriels, a Lijah (like Elijah) and an Isaiah (though not spelled this way).

[Jen in PA]

My dd has a very uncommon first name (although it's Biblical, it is rarely used), and a long Hawaiian middle name. Right now it is not an issue, but I envision it being an issue down the line. DS has an Irish first name and a Biblical middle name, and I anticipate no issues there. We were juggling the need for a Hebrew name with Dh's requirement to have all names work in Hawaiian, for his mother's side (seriously, I had almost no consonants to choose from!), and to sound ok in Spanish, for his Puerto Rican side.... Ds's middle name does have a "D" in it, which breaks the rule about working in Hawaiian, but I think we did ok aside from that. DH burned our baby name book after ds was born, so I guess he got sick of the name game!

[Jen in PA]

And I almost forgot.... the most jaw-dropping name I came across as a ps teacher was Umajesty:D I kid you not.

[Mandy in TN]

We did. We're just too conservative to have done otherwise! There is a car dealer in Missouri whose parents surely didn't consider his future *at all*, though. His name is Richard Head.

 

There is a dermatologist in Memphis, TN- Dr. Whitehead. There is a urologist in Jackson, MS- Dr. P. Daily.

 

Do you think their parents encouraged them to go into those specializations?

Mandy

[Brenda in FL]

Yes, we considered naming our third child Toby. But we wondered how he'd feel about being called Toby when he was 40 years old!! Instead we decided on Tobias for his middle name and we frequently call him Toby as a nickname!

[Storm Bay]

We deliberated a great deal over all the names. The name dh and I agreed on for our first can be a full name or a nickname, but there's nothing you can do with it, so we gave her a long, classic middle name that she can do many things with. She likes neither.

 

For our second, I wanted Agatha (I know a very pretty, highly intelligent, whitty, vivicious woman with this name--Irish woman, so that was my association), but dh nixed it. She has a very pretty, but very user-friendly name.

 

Ds was the hardest, because dh wanted an ethnic name. But before he decided that, we ruled out Oliver because of the nickname "Ollie." Ds has a great name, and in Canada it would be no problem, but it is tough in the States because it's not phonetic (but honestly shouldn't as hard as it famous people have had this name.) No, it's not French. His middle name isn't much better for a resume because even though it's a man's name, and I've never heard of a woman with that name, it looks similar to a relatively common woman's name--it's also ethnic. However, given ds's interests, personality as well as his academic strong-suits, I think that the name will be fine. He's not likely to become a businessman or a politician, but a pilot or an aeronautical engineer (more likely the latter--this has been his passion for several years) or some other science oriented field.

 

But as for some of those other examples--Barbie can be shortened to Barb, or an initial B, and same with many of the others. Also, people can legally change their names.

 

Still, some names are very, very poor choices. Here's a real one that a court ruled a child was able to change:

TaluladoesthehulafromHawaii If not, that's close--it was a magazine my dd's had (nonfiction.) It was in a recent Owl magazine (that's what my 13 yo says.)