Posted on 06/15/2018 5:05:19 AM PDT by Simon Green
Naomi Tomky was still laid out on the operating table after an emergency C-section when the earliest pangs of regret kicked in.
The baby was being lifted over my head, the 34-year-old freelance writer remembers, and the anesthesiologist was like, whats her name? I started explaining and was like, oh God, what have I done?
Tomkys now 8-month-old daughter is Tove (pronounced TOH-vah), a Swedish moniker thats typically said like TOO-vah, but in this case, the expectant parents from Seattle changed the pronunciation for a twist.
My husband has Swedish heritage and then Tova, or Tovah, is a common Hebrew name, which I liked because Im Jewish, says the mother of two, laughing. When I was pregnant, we loved the idea of combining them. Now we know we doomed her to a life of spelling it for other people.
Would-be adventurous parents, take note: The name that calls out like a sirens song from the page of a baby book might turn strident upon repetition. Baby name shame is real, and with unusual appellations such as Kairo and Zayd (for boys) and Oaklynn and Paisleigh (for girls) on the rise per the Social Security Administrations most recent fastest-growing baby names report, released in May its likely to become an increasingly common phenomenon.
People are working a lot harder to come up with a name that is really distinctive and has a lot of personal meaning, says Pamela Redmond Satran, co-founder and CEO of baby naming site Nameberry.com.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
My buddy Rory got posted for a year to a gig in Hong Kong. Nobody there could pronounce his name, so they called him ‘Lolly’.
When he got back, the nickname stuck.
Poor Lolly. :-)
And that is why satire and parody are impossible.
People with names like Quantavious, Linoleum, Urethra and LaTrina are, well...
My boys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego might beg to differ.
It was my husband, Nebuchadnezzar’s idea! ;)
I know two Shadrachs. Father and son. Wonderful family.
This year, I was a substitute teacher, and I had a fun time with names. The stranger the name, the worse the behavior from the child. I subbed in some classes more than a few times, so I learned the students names and faces and learned how to deal with some attitudes. Parents are clueless about how their wild hair name choices affect their children.
We altered the spelling of a normal name for our oldest. If we had to do over again, we wouldnt.
Two other considerations:
1) Thanks to the ‘creative’ names given to many, if not most, blacks, it’s easy for employers to ‘sift’ them out when reviewing resume’s, should they want to. So not only does that work against blacks, if others (i.e., whites) have similar names, they’ll end up being ‘sifted’ too.
2) If you are lucky enough to have a common last name, and then you couple it with a common first name for your kid, it will be MUCH HARDER for others to do a public web search for background information on that kid.
And to take it further, if your kid is given a name that is also the name of a famous person, like “James Carter” (for lack of a better name), any search results will be dominated by the more famous person.
All things to think about.
She had a twin brother, so my somewhat obnoxiously Irish father insisted on naming them Seamus and Siobhan. When I came along they went with the slightly less annoying Deidre. Made that whole “I before E except after C” think in grade school a little confusing.
Now, its a man’s name.
Can’t believe Barack and Michelle aren’t on the list!
So...my granddaughters Petunia and Eglantine have no shot at greatness? :)
“How about Klamidea? Herpies? Ann-Gina? Will da Beast? Di-Rhea?”.
People should start naming their kids after medications.
“Valsarten, meet Diclonafec”
I like how the Russians do it - the child’s middle name, female or male, is always a derivation of the father’s name. So that’s why you always see Ivan Ivanovich or Natalia Ivanova. And, in polite conversation, they are called by both names - “Good Morning, Sergei Ivanovich!”
A lovely Irish name.
Anyone called buddy has a real name that he just hate. His was "Grover".
Ive consulted at dozens of companies and worked with 100s of C-Level execs. All colors, both genders, gay, straight, and otherwise. Lots of Johns and Steves and Bobs and Marys and Sarahs.
No Bondis. Also, while were on the topic, no LaDashas or DeQuons.
Why anyone would saddle their kid with a creative (read: lousy) name, and start them off with two strikes against them is beyond me.
Bondi is a great beach. Went there 30-ish years ago. Did I mention its topless, or was?
As a kids name? No thanks.
Almost as bad as...
Parents should think about how their child’s name would look on a business letterhead, a sign on the entrance to a factory, on a product label, or preceded by the words “the honorable”.
Names may make a huge difference years down the pike. Stay away from cute, silly, joke, or blatantly ethnic names, like the kid I went to school with whose actual first name was “Coke”.
Speak the name, listen to how it sounds. Do the words sound good together? Do they convey an impression of respectability or not?
Hint: The "dash" don't be silent.
Crystal Methvin was arrested for crystal meth. I kid you not.
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