I recently read an article about baby names caught my eye: 22 Baby Naming Rules Worth Following.
The “rules” were submitted by parents who were surveyed, and most make sense to me. See: No yooneek spellings. Name your son (or daughter) Peyton or even Payton. But not Peighton, Patyn, or Paitynne.
Rule #3 is the one I broke when we chose the names Julian and Scarlett just because we liked them: A first name should ideally embody some kind of meaning. That might be family or ethnic significance, literal meaning, or even that you’ve loved it since you were seven. A name with meaning is going to have more staying power than one you choose simply because it’s attractive.
Here’s another good one: Don’t let anyone pressure you into or out of a name. It’s the Number 1 reason behind baby name regret.
And this one I may have followed subconsciously, but I never actually did the math: Ideally, first, middle, and last names will be unequal numbers of syllables. So 3-1-2 tends to work better than 2-2-2. (My son is 3-1-3 and my daughter is 2-1-3, while I am 2-4-1. I think those of you who have one-syllable last name probably were more aware of this.)
I want to play baby name math!
me: 2-1-1
Holden: 2-4-1
Milo: 2-3-1
Sawyer: 2-2-1
#nerd
My daughter’s name isn’t necessarily unique or weird…if you’re German. If you’re Mexican, however, people tend to freak out a little bit when they see the name Meike for a girl (pronounced MY-kah). I fell in love with it the first time I heard it, it means Mary which allowed me to name my daughter after my grandmother without making her Maria Sanchez AND, again, I LOVE IT. Everyone hated it but no one fought me on it and now it fits her perfectly.
@Elizabeth, I guess you followed the rule of sticking with the name you love and not regretting it! I had a friend growing up named Maika (Japanese), which I always loved. I think it’s a hard one to argue about which version is a yoonique spelling!
Do you realize how…there are so many different words, not sure which one is best…how idiotic and close minded and whatever else this sounds in this day and age. There are 40 million Americans who were born outside the U.S. and a lot of them and their 2nd / 3rd generations do or might name their children an ethnic name because of obvious reasons – which if you cannot comprehend, it’s not worth having this conversation with you. To call their names stupid (rule #1) is downright offensive. BTW here is a link if you are interested in getting out of your bubble: http://www.census.gov/how/infographics/foreign_born.html
P.S. I normally don’t use this kind of crass language and normally don’t even post on blogs etc but felt the need to make a pointed comment since whoever is writing this stuff and then others who are propagating the article (yes, you) maybe are the ones who are “stupid”. Anyways, point made.
Hmm. @Moe, It was meant to be funny, as “stupid” is completely subjective and I couldn’t possibly come up with an example of a name that is actually stupid. It’s a bit hypothetical.
@Whitney, I see how it could and I guess was meant to be light hearted… It’s that someone’s name being called stupid just didn’t sit well with me but you can’t please everyone. I get it. Thanks for posting my previous comment (as opposed to deleting / not approving it) and for the response…
I don’t think anyone was saying that a name from a culture other than your own is stupid. I can’t see a sentiment even resembling that in this article.
I can come up with a few stupid names for children though:
Bookshelf
Zombie
Facebook
AT&TPark
Poopie
@Wendy, Ok, I know I am about to get a little too philosophical here for a discussion that was intended to be fun and pleasant but nonetheless…
Given your easy to say/spell name I wouldn’t necessarily expect you to understand how the sentiment I was talking about earlier could be evoked from this article for me and perhaps millions of above mentioned Americans. Obviously our experiences in life are a big part of what makes who we are. The difference is that the experiences you might have gone through based on how people have acted / reacted towards you in your daily life might be very different than mine…And I’m primarily talking about the experiences that were based on my looks/name etc – btw, my full name is Mohit. And I won’t get into those good or bad experiences here but my point is that I can very easily derive that sentiment from this article whereas you might not.
Just trying to get a few folks here to maybe pause for a second and look at it from a different perspective. That’s all…
BTW, I do get your perspective about Bookshelf, Facebook etc which honestly didn’t even occur to me. So thanks for sharing.
Anyways, will try to keep it light-hearted from here on…since this probably not the right forum for this type of discussion…
I think Stupid would be a Stupid name for a child. Or also the more interesting spelling, Stoopid.
@Whitney, I don’t think either is exactly unique. Maika is Japanese, Micah is a boy’s name and I think it’s biblical, and Meike is German/Dutch. They all just happen to be pronounced the same 🙂
@Heather Our math is like this 🙂
Me (maiden name): 4-3
Eddy: 4-3
Gabi: 4-2
Meike: 2-3-2
Ooh the syllable thing is interesting!
Ours are:
Jay (which is not his given name): 2-2-4-4
Me: 2-2-4
Brooklyn: 2-2-4
Landis: 2-2-3-4
Never ever considered how similar our patterns are in our family with all of us starting with 2-2 (and 2 of us having an extra name in there:)