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Increasingly These Days Parents Are Choosing To Give Their Babies Unusual Names. What Are The Disadvantages?

Synka | Aug 14, 2009 | 0 comments

Apart from life itself, perhaps the most important gift you will give your baby is a name. So take time to choose one which he or she will be proud of in later life. The first question you need to consider is whether to choose a traditional name, or maybe a ‘normal’ name but with different spelling; or do you go overboard and opt for a made up, unique name?

You may decide that an unusual baby name will result in your child being ‘different’: he or she won’t need an initial after the first name because someone else in the class has the same name, and your child will stand out from the crowd and not be confused with anyone else. However, in later life the only people who will be able to spell your child’s name will be you and his or her spouse! And kids can be very cruel. Teasing and bullying can have a deep effect on a child and it will just be a matter of time before someone in the playground seizes on the weird name you chose and will use it as a weapon against your child.

Dr Albert Mehrabian, well known author of books like the Name Game and The Baby Report Card, is one of several to publish studies that show that people don’t react very well to anything different or unusual, including people’s names.

Dr Mehrabian has spent the last 10 years studying how a person’s name affects them. Compared to a traditional name, unusual names are rated dramatically lower in all categories: a person’s morality, cheerfulness, and success. A lot of people think they are being creative. They think they’re making their kids individual. Blue hair is individual, but is it desirable?

Mehrabian says he has counselled many adults who were ridiculed by their co-workers because of their names, and finds that the more unusual the name the harder it is to adjust.

The idea put forward in Johnny Cash’s song ‘A Boy Named Sue’ that this would toughen up the kid is poppycock. I knew a man whose middle name was Mary. His parents were catholic and wanted a saint’s name; it’s a pity they couldn’t find a male saint. He was ashamed of his name and kept it very secret.

Maybe there is a middle course? Avoid the really weird. Don’t go down the road followed by Frank Zappa who named his kids Moon Unit and Dweezil – one is a boy, the other a girl; no idea which is which! Or Gwyneth Paltrow who named her daughter Apple. Just imagine what kids in the playground would do with those names. Perhaps as more and more parents choose unusual names the problems will diminish as the unusual itself becomes the norm.

You don’t need to give your baby a unique name for your baby to be unique, she or he already is. And think ahead: baby is going to grow into an adult, so make sure the name you choose will suit a grown up.

If you do decide on an unusual baby name and need a personalised gift for a baby, we can help; visit our store.