We had some requirements to name our son:
-It has to be somewhat unique (not too common like John, Scott, etc.)
-It has to have 2 syllables (to go with our 1 syllable last name)
-It has to be easy to pronounce (so my non-american family can’t butcher it)
After careful consideration, we were happy with the name - BUT turned out it also means “black boy” in my native tongue (DH is white). I had no idea until after the fact lol. Now it’s a constant joke on my family side.
Where I live, Stacey, Lynn, Lee and Jess are all common names for men.
And every time I see this thread update, I come to make sure everything is okay. We are Romani’s virtual fussing grandma club
@nhatrang Oh yes easy to pronounce and easy to spell were on our list too!
I will cross off one name (with this particular spelling at least… ?) that has been listed: Rae. I actually love this name for a girl. It’s also my bio grandma’s middle name (I didn’t know this until recently) and she all but forbid me from using it. She asked me if I knew what it meant in Hebrew, and I didn’t, and she said “Sheep! My parents gave me the middle name of sheep!” and that kind of killed that ?
Rae was my SisIL’s name. Never knew it was Hebrew for sheep. Who knew?
I have to warn you that no matter how awesome you think the name, or how easy to spell/pronounce, people will find a way to butcher it, and your child will go through a period where they hate it ; )
I have a super, super common, easy last name and I can’t tell you how many times people screw it up. (Think as common as Smith).
Our D’s name is also straight forward, albeit not that common, and somehow it gets completely butchered. So much so that it’s become a family joke and we’ll tease her with the mispronunciation (which is a veggie, because yeah, we would have named our kid the name of a vegetable).
Thankfully she now appreciates her name but for a long while she complained that we should have given her the back up name which was much more common.
We, as parents, can never win ; )
@momofsenior1 oh trust me I know.
I have a super simple, super common name. Four letters. One dominant spelling. It still gets butchered occasionally. AndI had a lot of “what’s your REAL name?” growing up because it’s more often a nickname than a full name. Like think my name is Sue and people assume it’s Susan or Suzanne or something.
Can never completely win lol.
Consider the initials too, first and last, first and middle, and first, middle, and last. I have a friend with a pretty name but initials are BM.
Funny memory about what doesn’t go with an O’Irish last name: A friend whose last name is O’Brien is Italian on his mom’s side and wanted his kids to have first names that reflected that heritage. He really wanted to name his sons Santino and Mario.
Fortunately for the boys, their mom intervened and they have very basic first names. Sounds like your 1-syllable selection won’t conflict, either.
I work with constantly changing groups of young kids. Spelling is always a challenge.
Is that Finn, Fin, Finley, Finlee, or Finlay?
Layla, Leila, or Lailah?
Maya or Maia. Mia, is that pronounced with a long a or a long e?
Aaliyah, Alia, Aleah, Lia, Leah, or Lea?
Thomas, Tomas, Tom or Thom?
Jackson, Jaxson, Jaxon, or would you rather be called Jack or Jax?
Quinn, Quin, Quinne, Quint.
Ryan, Rian, Ryanne, Rhianne.
Rowan and Rohan often sound the same with a w sound in the middle but other times it’s an h.
Isabel, Isabelle, Isabela, Isabella, Izabel, or maybe Isy, Izzy, Izzie, Bel, Belle, Bela or Bella?
Sophia, Sofia, Sophie, Sofie, Fia?
Ana, Anna, Annah, or do you want me to call you Annie? I haven’t had an Ann or Anne in years.
You get my drift. Those are just a few of the names and variations I’ve seen.
With some less common names it’s great fun to have to ask a lisping 3 year old how to pronounce a seemingly arbitrary string of letters.
No judgement, just something that makes the job interesting. Luckily it rarely matters if I know if they’re boys or girls.
I was BM until I married, when I became BS! Not sure which is worst, although as a child, BM was not fun!
@snowball - my childhood initials were also BM. Definitely not fun!
@rhododendron Mr R, my SIL, and a BIL all work with kids of different ages. Mr R used to work in a toddler room and he came home with some doozies with spelling.
There’s only one way I can think of that would be a misspelling of our child’s name. There is an identical sounding name that’s fairly common in England but has an extra letter.
My initials are KO and KOC (we don’t use middle initials because of the O’Irish last name). I know all about having unfortunately initials. Kids figured out what my initials sounded like in middle school and that was fun… ?. Luckily it was a super short lived thing and just kind of became a running joke.
My childhood last name was a slang for female genitals. It was humorous for everyone but me.
Yes, baby naming guides should include the real and slang names for genitals, poop, and pee, for all languages, so we can avoid them!
So no one names their child Fanny and then sends her to a British boarding school…
PS Romani - avoid the name Bonk, lol.
Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode. 
My D (well D & S both) go by their short, one-syllable middle names. When D went to Korea to teach, she was told her middle name was a bad word in Korean, so she had to use her first name, which the Koreans had trouble pronouncing. She got a new nickname from her time abroad.
Sheep in Hebrew is keves (KE-ves).
Sorry - it’s specifically female sheep. Rae = “ewe”
I don’t speak/read/know Hebrew so I had to look it up. My grandma just said sheep. (She’s fluent in Hebrew but apparently didn’t think the female part was important to convey.)
Raquel/Rachel is ewe in Biblical Hebrew. I guess you can extend it to the nickname Rae.
My daughter (23) is very literal about names–you tell her what your name is, whether Mandarin, Cantonese, Swahili, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish or just the whim of your parents, then that’s your name. I like to think it’s universal and not just the product of a very multicultural NYC upbringing.