OT: MGoParents, why did you give your kids an unusual name?
In the thread about Daxx Garman below, someone wondered why a parent would burden their son with the name "Daxx."
It got me thinking back to the naming rules my wife and I followed when our kids were born 13.5 and 11 years ago...
1. Must be the most common spelling of the name. In other words, Kelly is "Kelly," not "Kelleigh."
2. Must be able to discern the sex of the child from the name. Eliminated Jordan, Taylor, Dylan, Avery, etc.
3. Must be an actual name. So Keyden and all of these other newer names were eliminated. As was Marvcus and Plaxico.
4. Must look professional on a resume or a nameplate.
Not going to give the specific names that we ended up with, as it would make me too identifiable to anyone on here knows me, but our daughter's name has been in the top 20 for at least a few decades...and our son's name is less common and slightly Jewishly-ethnic, but still would be recognizable to everyone. There might even be a character on "Entourage" who has the same name.
So, my question to you, MGoParents, is why did you select an odd name or unusual spelling for your children? Did you have any naming rules? Years later, do you regret giving your child a less-common name?
I've wanted to ask people these questions in person, but obviously you would risk offending them...so I thought the anonymous nature of this forum would cause more people to provide explanations.
I do realize that the nature of this post creates a large opening for snark and smart-assery. Hoping it'll be kept to a minimum.
EDIT (five hours or so after OP): Just had my first opportunity to read thru some of the comments here. While the vast majority of you are participating in the discussion as I intended, it appears as though a few of you (MaizeJacket, BornSinner, DanWillhor) were offended by the post and/or thought it was elitist and/or racist. While I think you may be reading more in to the post than is there, I'd like to nonetheless sincerely apologize for upsetting anyone. It was not my intention to do so.
EDIT (six hours or so after OP): I just found this posting by MICHGOBLUE. He/she more eloquently summarizes the point of my OP.
"At first I saw the same thing, but if you read his message, he isn't singling out names that are traditionally "ethnic," but rather made-up names. For example, Esteban is a typically Hispanic name and Shaquille is a typically African-American name. Based upon the OP's post, I don't think that he would have a problem with either, as the names are traditional (in each of their respective cultures), discernible by gender and spelled in the traditional manner. What I took the OP as having a problem with was simply stringing together a slew of letters and calling it a name or taking an existing name and just mis-spelling it to be unique.
One other point: on the issue of being "professional" sounding, as much as people should be hired based purely upon merit, it is a reality that people end up being discriminated against for just about anything in the hiring process, and a name - being one of the first things that a prospective employer sees - could create a negative first impression. Note that this is not limited to "ethnic" or "racial" sounding names. How well do you think Spike, Bruiser, Mercury or Venus would do interviewing for a major investment bank or law firm? Not everything is about race."
Seriously. Most babies are uglier than hell for at least the first few weeks before they start looking human, but only a monster would tell new parents that their newborn looks like an alien.
It's funny when parents ask who the new baby looks like. It was just born 30 minutes ago, it looks like a potato.
— Not Will Ferrell (@itsWillyFerrell) November 8, 2012
I guess that means my wife and I are monsters, because we both agree that in the first few minutes after our daughter was born—after a 36-hour labor and difficult birth—she looked like E.T. because her skull had been so laterally compressed during delivery. Seriously, when she first appeared I was petrified because I was convinced her brains had been squished to a pulp based on how her skull was shaped.
The delivery room nurses assured me that her skull would "round up" quite quickly, and they were right. Nature is amazing.
My son has an unusual name, but he's a toddler and everybody at daycare calls him a nickname anyway.
So, I'll give you my experiences with my own unique name (it's so unique that I have only heard of, never met anyone else with my first name). It's an ethnic name, but most people wouldn't be sure about the country of origin.
I definately had issues as a kid growing up. Substitute teachers sometimes wouldn't even attempt to say my name. People had difficulty with it ntil about High School. I think by then, ethnic names were more popular and people actually cared about saying a name correctly instead of trying to give me an "Americanized" version of my name.
Anyway, I don't think I've had any resume trouble or career problems because of my first name. I think it's nice not to be in the Top 20 lists and am happy that people think about being sensitive to others with different names, whose parents were born somehwere else.
I think that's why I wanted my son to have a unique name that hints as to where his grandparents are from, but is relatively easy to say. Nobody in my family has ever been named anything like John, Rob, Dave... and I wanted to keep it that way.
My children have Japanese first names as their mom is Japanese, and they have my last name, which is Irish. One's middle name is a continuation of a family name, the other is from a UM faculty member.
My feeling is that names should have meaning, not simply be given because of the way they sound or current popularity. Meaning could come from family usage or the actual root meaning of the name itself. My sons have the traditional titles for the first and second sons in a Japanese family (they are originally titles, as common names were different). Guess what they are and you win the prize (hint: I had no objection as Kurosawa is one of my favorite directors).
I can't understand naming your child based on the popularity of the name - witness all the little girls named "Madison" or "Olivia" lately.
My parents decided to do something creative with the spelling of each of our names. Mine is like taking a popular name, but adding an extra vowel. I am constantly correcting people, fixing it on forms (like mortgage paperwork, etc.). If my parents had said "It's unusual because it is a family name, from our heritage", I would be honored. But they did it out of creativity and just trying to be different. I like the idea of names that have some meaning.
Oh man, people are waaaaay too comfortable telling you their opinions of the names you're planning for your kids. My wife and I abandoned one name we were considering because her family kept going on about how terrible it is and how we shouldn't do it. So after literally the first name, we immediately clammed up about any other ideas. The funny part was that they continued to harass us about "what name are you thinking, give us a hint, etc," seemingly not realizing why we refused to tell them ahead of time.
A-men.
and we stuck to names with family reference, standard spelling, relevant to some ethnic/cultural background (your everyday african-irish names....). We found boys names much easier to come up with, which is good since there are 5 of them. the girls names were tougher but we figured those out too. in fact, we still have some more on the list if we are ever blessed with any more girls .
Are you trying to get a show on TLC?
We all know those always have happy endings.
i can tell you that on the whole, they are far more likely to turn out well than most other alternatives.
I was referring to shows on TLC.
no TV service, so no knowledge other than vague generalities about what is on TLC.
plain and simple. don't care how they get to our house, what color or gender they are, we will find a place for them.
EDIT: funky placement - should be reply to jblaze's comment a couple above this one.
To a certain extent, I seem to have lived this battle my entire life - I never thought of "Lorne" as unusual, but the incredible amount of difficulty people have with the "e" being silent, never mind anything else, still amazes me.
As for my kids, Astrid Celeste and McLaren Elliott. My daughter's name was actually my idea as Astrid comes from an old Germanic word for "unusual strength", and my son's is a variation of the family name - "Elliott" is my middle name, and rather than make my son the fourth Lorne in the line, we changed it to the Scottish surname which essentially means "son of Lorne".
Still, I cringe especially when people persistently call my daughter "Ashley" because apparently "Astrid" does not compute.
People call you "Lorn-ey"? Wow... you'd think native English speakers would know how to speak English.
Must have been a living hell.
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Having a normal name is a great idea. Until you're trying to sell your house and at the last minute you realize the Recorder of Deeds is too stupid to differentiate between the 25 different John Smiths living in your state and you end up with liens for 2 or 3 different deadbeats preventing the sale. Calling the creditors is a pleasure. The creditors blame the Recorders Office. The Recorders Office blames the creditors. Its a fucking mess.
I'm all for making sure your kid's name is phonetically logical and makes sure nobody will roll their eyes every time they hear it - but yeesh, your rules have a sort of puritanical air to them that is just ugly. It sounds like you would not name your kids "Denard" or "Jabrill" because those are "not real names", even though they are. Yeesh.
Son is Maxwell Loreaux - Maxwell we just liked, and Loreaux is now a tradition for firstborn sons going back three generations.
I actually really really liked Jethro, which is biblical, but I got vetoed on that.
I think Soda is a great name for a girl. Or a boy.
My wife and I have just have the 1 daughter. I was in complete agreement with the OP rule #1, had to be a common spelling. Other than that, it was my wife's choice. She got to name the kid if it was a girl, I got to name the kid if it was a boy. Well my wife ended up being in complete disagreement with the OP rule #2. She loves boys names that sound cool for a girl (Taylor, Cameron, Blake, etc). We ended up choosing Cameron. We were also careful to make sure it wasn't a name that was easily made fun of, and we made sure the initials didn't look stupid.
I have a rather unusual name, with a reason behind it. My legal first name is just the letter "A," though luckily my parents were kind enough to make "Jay" my middle name-- so I go by A Jay in all circumstances.
The backstory: before I was born, my parents had a girl named Sarah Anne who died at 8 months due to congenital heart failure. Wanting to give me part of her name but not wanting to saddle their male child with "Sarah" or "Anne," I got her middle initial asmy first name. Actually pretty clever.
Outside of being occasionally confusing early on in life on official forms (I consider my first name to be A Jay, the government thinks of me as "A",) I can't say having a slightly odd moniker has been detrimental to my life at all.
I've seen similar to that before, though I don't remember the circumstances. The given name of the famously virginal Laker forward A.C. Green is literally the letters 'A' and 'C' - they don't stand for anything.
(Also, condolences on your deceased sister)
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My wife and I were looking primarily at older names that had fallen out of fashion, but had a nice classic ring to them. That way it was something that was unique, but not crazy, too unusual, or difficult.
The trick was navigating that "classic" vs. "100% grandma" line (we were ok with like 40-60% grandma).
Those classic names have a way of coming around again in popularity. We gave our oldest a classic name but 5-10 years later it started becoming popular again.
Yeah, my wife is really worried about that happening.
I went analytical with this and consulted the Social Security name database, which blows all those commercial sites out of the water in functionality.
1. Wanted a Biblical name if possible but not one that is super popular (Daniel, Michael, Stephen, Jacob, Joshua). This was harder for the girls, and only one has a Biblical name.
2. Wanted one that was not a Top 20 or even Top 200.
My son's name (born 2003) was ranked #399 that year. It's risen to #119 in 2014. So it bothers me quite a bit. Except that when I hear a younger child with that name and comment to the parents that my 12 year old has that name too, their face drops a bit as they realize they are late to the party. :)
My daughters are similar, though the oldest is named after my grandmother (ranks out of the top 1000 back when she was born and still today). Yet EVERYONE knows the name very very well. My youngest has an awesome name (ranks around top 500) but a very popular one (top 10 for a decade, a couple times been #1) is close to it in sound, so she gets called that name a lot.
Ah, yes. The Social Security Database. We definitely poked around in there; I don't remember where the name we settled on was ranked, but some of those baby name outlets did have it listed as a name that might make a come back - hence my wife's concern.
Fingers crossed.
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I once met Anita Moorehead.
Jalen is an awesome name that everyone would assume I used because of Jalen Rose, so I probably wouldn't use it.
Another I wouldn't use, but I like and is/was unique: Meadow.
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sweet jesus, bijou? Lemme guess, because it means jewelry in French? Tell her to quit reading so much US Weekly...
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He will be swimming at UM next year. The useless stuff you learn on MGoBlog....
sitting at my desk. Halol
I always crack up when Jerry holds the mug and says "Mug Constanza."
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