I know several young ladies whose legal name is Kate. I mentioned earlier our Ds name is a composite and I got lucky that including the space it is 12 characters which is the common limit when you are having items personalized. Not something I even considered ahead of time.
My brother has a very common name given to boys. When he was in his 40s, he changed the spelling to something basically the equivalent of the above. This is a person who was very rebellious about the smallest of issues at home and was pathologically dramatic about any possible conceivable slight growing up. His teenage years made it hell on the other five kids in the family. The name spelling change just seemed like another jab at the parents at a time when he was wasting a lot of negative energy blaming them and our circumstances for all his problems and his failure to do anything productive with his life.
I have to wonder if this woman changed the spelling of her name in order to stand out and grab attention. Lol, maybe life with my brother has jaded me. For all I know, that is the most common spelling of Jennifer outside of the US.
My son has a Keenen, Kyler, Kian, Ian, and two Kyles on his 12-person volleyball team. It is really hard to keep them straight while cheering!
Okay, this has been brought up lots of times and lots of ways. I’d like an explanation, then, on two fronts:
- Given that there can be negative connotations of any name at all,* how can you avoid negative connotations by picking a "standard" name?
- What limiting connotations? What does that even mean? Seriously, there has been a lot of scholarly research on names and outcomes, but it's rather a conflicting lot of findings.** There are studies that have found that there are effects of names, but those effects are subject to a lot of confounds, and in the most careful stuff I've seen it seems that even if there is an effect of what name one has, it's utterly minimal.
- Example: Cheryl's a name that I think most people on this thread would be okay with/wouldn't see any likelihood of negative connotations for, but due to personal experiences, it will always be associated in my mind, at least a little bit, with "psychopathic manipulator". (Apologies to all the utterly sane Cheryls out there reading this.)
** And before anyone mentions Freakonomics, I’ll just channel an economist friend of mine: Every once in a while I see something about the economic effects of a behavior pattern and I think there might be something worth looking into there—but then I see that it was vectored by the Freakonomics folks, and that’s a relief, because then I know it has to be wrong. (Overstated? Certainly. Completely out of bounds? Not really.)
I don’t think you’re necessarily limiting your child’s future when you choose Madysin or Jaysun instead of Madison or Jason. You’re just imposing a pain in the neck on thousands of future interactions with your child for no purpose. Educated (!) people of all races do this all the time, and I confess that it drives me bananas.
There are plenty of names that connote African-American identity that have one or two standard spellings. Ditto other ethnic names. If a family of Russian descent chooses to Anglicize their son’s name as Leeianyhd instead of Leonid, I’m rolling my eyes on that one too.
““stripper names” - Desiree and Monique”
Both of these are French names, though they have taken on other connotations in some communities in the U.S.
Yes, hard to avoid negative connotations at all. A friend who named her daughter Katrina before the hurricane now doesn’t like it that her daughter’s name connotes massive destruction. But who knew at that point?
But like the Boy Named Sue, obvious negative connotations should be avoided for the child’s sake.
I named my first car Bubbles LaRue because it was a stripped down model.
"Lol, maybe life with my brother has jaded me. "
You mean jayded. Har har.
I always liked the name Peter–probably because of CS Lewis–and never heard anyone being teased about it. I couldn’t consider it for my S, though, because of H’s last name. Similarly William, another name I liked. Both had certain cultural references when combined with H’s last name. Probably esoteric to many, but it was one of those “once heard, cannot be unheard” things. I’ve always like Nathaniel a lot.
I would have been willing to hyphenate with H, but he declined. (Not wanting to share my highly unusual last name, shared at this point by only 2 people in the entire US: me and my mother? How could that be? 
) H did insist on S having my last name as his second middle name. But in practice it has been more or less dropped, because it is not something that is accommodated on forms, as others have pointed out. Too bad, because his firstname MI MI lastname or FI MI MI lastname would have a great ring to it on his byline on the front page of the New York Times some day.
I like what I consider to be old-fashioned girls names that are also dignified, such as Lydia, Julia, Amelia (NOT Millie!!!), Clara, Elizabeth, and Honor. My favorite girl’s name, though is very unusual: Angharad. It’s Welsh, and to hear it pronounced correctly watch the film of How Green Was My Valley.
Names I don’t like: Kyle, Kayla, Kimberley, Cynthia or Cindy, Susan, Debbie, Candy (although Candace is ok), most of the nicknames for Elizabeth, such as Betsy and Beth, Madison, Cuyler, Courtney, Lisa, Brittany in any spelling. Christine/Kristin in any spelling, Georgia, Kathy or Cathy, Nancy, Joanne, Valerie, Gail or even worse Gayle, “Frenchified” variants such as Rachelle for Rachel or Carole for Carol ridiculous variant spellings such as Khrystynne and Makynzeigh, cowboy fantasy male names like Dallas, Dakota, Travis, and Cody…I could go on. Not worth even citing the whole Bertha, Mildred, Wilma genre.
Eh, just because it’s come up, my legal name is Kate. I love my name. I will never request to be called anything longer. I hate when people call me Katie or try to make it into Katelyn, etc.
Sooner or later almost everyone’s name is going to end up on the “I don’t like this name” list here!
I had to chime in about the last name issue. I have a friend who had no middle name as a child. She happily used her confirmation name as her middle name. Sometime after her parents got divorced she decided that she wanted to use her mother’s maiden name, so she hyphenated her last name and added her moms last name onto it. She later got married and I think she took her husband’s last name, but not sure if it goes at the end or where it goes. I did see a website she started for a charter school she’s involved in, and she refers to herself as “Sue” name1-name2, no middle name, no married name. I think she just switches between using her hyphenated name and her married name (legal vs professional)
If you give your child a middle name and a hyphenated last name, then they get married…do you expect them to not take their husbands name? Or if a man has a hyphenated name does his wife now have to be hyphenated too (if she wants to take his name?) I think maybe it would be best just to use the two last names as a middle and last name, skipping the traditional middle name (unless you gave your child a hideous first name and plan to call him by the middle name.)
My husband’s name is fairly uncommon but not strange and is often mistaken for a similar more common name. We liked the name, but didn’t want one of our sons to have to go through people basically mishearing the name, so we gave both or ours ons the name for their middle name. I am still glad we did that. I actually would like it if they gave their sons that name as a middle name someday.
That’s true, jym. My sister and I are already on Consolation’ s list!
383 No one could possibly predict/avoid ALL potential, individual/personal negative reactions to a particular name (like your association of the name Cheryl with a person you dislike. Everyone has a few of those. . .everyone's name will be disliked by someone.)
But names can show people where you come from or what group you (your parents) belong to or aspire to. Certain names or types of names will produce a predictable reaction from most people in general (this is why people can make lists of “stripper names” or “redneck names,” “princess names” or “preppy names”. . .because most people agree on what types of names go on those lists.) Parents should avoid giving their child a name that will bring to mind known negative stereotypes that the child will then have to work against. (OTOH, maybe some parents want their daughters to be strippers?) While you can’t predict a unique personal prejudice against a name, other negative (and positive) connotations, class/cultural/regional stereotypes, etc. are well known.
Fang Jr’s imaginary younger twin sisters were going to be named Grace and Hope. I love those names, although I have to admit that probably no child of mine and no sibling of Fang Jr’s should be named Grace, considering our lack of physical gracefulness.
I share Consolation’s list of liked and disliked names, mostly. That just means I’m locating myself in my social class, I guess.
I expect them to do whatever they damn well please.
If my daughter wants to keep her name, great! If her partner wants to take her name(s), great! If my son wants to take his partner’s name, great! If he doesn’t, great! If his partner wants his name(s), great!
CF, my grandmother’s name was Grace and her middle name was Daphne Mae. She told her children she’d disown them (kidding) if they gave any of their kids any of her names. She HATED them (I don’t know why). My cousin’s middle name is Grace but she was born just after my grandmother passed away.
Grace would not have been a good fit for me. I’m still a klutz!
I junked my middle name when I married (never liked it, even though it was short and easy) and use my maiden name as middle name.
And as for consolations list, apologies to anyone, but I can’t stand the name Clara. Makes me think of Clarabelle the clown on Howdy Doody.
“Names I don’t like: Kyle, Kayla, Kimberley, Cynthia or Cindy, Susan, Debbie, Candy (although Candace is ok), most of the nicknames for Elizabeth, such as Betsy and Beth, Madison, Cuyler, Courtney, Lisa, Brittany in any spelling. Christine/Kristin in any spelling, Georgia, Kathy or Cathy, Nancy, Joanne, Valerie, Gail or even worse Gayle, “Frenchified” variants such as Rachelle for Rachel or Carole for Carol ridiculous variant spellings such as Khrystynne and Makynzeigh, cowboy fantasy male names like Dallas, Dakota, Travis, and Cody…I could go on. Not worth even citing the whole Bertha, Mildred, Wilma genre.”
Between Kimberly, Susan, Debbie, Elizabeth / its variants, Lisa, Christine / Kristin, Kathy / Cathy, Nancy, Joanne, and Gail, I think you’ve pretty much eliminated the vast majority of names held by fifty something women – that is, the majority of this board. I think the only one you missed was Jennifer!
My name has been mentioned on this discussion (I’m not sure if the person who mentioned it knew it was my name or not), but not in Consolation’s particular list. Thank god I can still hold my head up, lol.
Though I think there is a difference between not liking, say, Kathy or Nancy, and not liking Khrystynne and Makyzeigh. At most, Kathy and Nancy connote a certain age range, not a negative stereotype about the namer’s educational level.
@atomom: Right! But everyone’s lists of “stripper names” or “redneck names” or whatever are going to be different (at the margins for some, completely different for others), so there’s nowhere for the locus of the attitude to rest. That’s what I (and others) mean when we say it’s completely arbitrary—and I’d go even a bit further, saying that those are simply sets of lists developed post-hoc to justify irrational reactions to names, as an attempt to make those reactions appear rational.
Well, @Consolation, doesn’t sound like you like much of anything!