baby name rank

[oceanchild]

The issue for us, as some of you have mentioned, is that our last name is rare and easily mispronounced, is to pick a first name that isn't too popular/not too out there/has a nickname and blends well with our last name. We shall see how this goes!

We have the opposite problem. Our last name is so common that basically everything has been done before. And somebody with the same full name could become famous any minute, which is basically what happened to my FIL.

Those who don't know the actual ranks, you can find them here: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/ I am irrationally fascinated with that website.

[diggitydot]

Our last name is rarely pronounced correctly by anyone who doesn't know the family. It looks one way and sounds another. It was plucked out of the bible by illiterate Native Americans who were being Christianized back in the 1800s. They misspelled it and the misspelling should have changed the pronunciation, but didn't. The only stranger to every get it right was a grocery store checker who was also a seminary student. He recognized it right away.

We kind of made sure that the kids had easy first names to counter-balance the whackadoodle last name.

[ides]

Dh's last name is very ethnic Irish so its butchered all.the.time. We have actually started using the butchered version since the only people who can pronounce it right & with ease are Irish or Indian. After 13 years I've given up correcting people & saying it over & over again.

[Chrisada]

Our last names looks exactly like it sounds and is still butchered ALL the time. Our boys are named Richard and Pierce. Traditional enough that people know them, but not extremely popular names. I've never met another Pierce and all the Richards are old men.

My girl name was Madison before it was popular. DH hated it and named our cat Madison so that I couldn't use it for our child. Isabella was my other girl name and then Twilight came out. I love Arabella as an alternative.

[SuzySunshine]

I don't understand how our last name is butchered so much either. Its M.I. not M.U. - is that so hard?

My maiden name was butchered ALL.THE.TIME. but I was used to it, I'm not sure why my married name being butchered bugs me so much.

[alison]

My husband's name is 9 letters long and 2 syllables. That's German efficiency for you right there! It's got an umlaut in it that turns into two vowels in English "ue," and so the part "ueh" throws people off. I kept my name, and if we have another child, I think s/he'll get my last name. Screw tradition.

[Phoebe]

I am not a fan of nicknames. I hate being called Jenny, but don't correct people if they assume I go by that. We named DD, Tyler and she is called Taylor constantly (I don't correct anyone). It was ranked 723 the year she was born and has since fallen out of the top 1000. It was more popular in the 90s.

Avery was ranked 152nd the year she was born. We knew no one who had that name. Now it is ranked 23rd and Averys are everywhere around us. Ella was ranked 44th when we named her and is now in the top 20. We like unisex names and were considering Spencer Margaret for awhile but that fell by the way side. Other names we are considering are ranked 13th and 250ish for a variation of one of them. DD1 is pushing hard for Audrey or Aubree which we like somewhat.

[MarissaNicole]

Sequoia screams "tree" to me but I grew up on the East Coast. I can also see how mean playground kids could take it to mean "big", etc. Also, I have a feeling that you'd constantly be explaining the spelling to people - not necessarily a deterrent but something to consider. I actually had to make sure my spelling was correct just now.

My one name tip (from personal experience/pain): do not name your child something where you HATE a ridiculously common nickname for it. This is an open forum so I will use an example instead of my own name. My parents picked a common name that is well known the world over, akin to "Matthew" but HATE the name Matt. They used to make me correct people if they heard people say it. It was mortifying to correct people, especially in middle school. And to make matters worse, they changed the spelling so that the nickname wasn't it the name - as if they named me "Mathew" and then said "You can't call [him] Matt because that's not how his name is spelled". NEWSFLASH parents, you don't introduce yourself to people by spelling your name so no one can tell whether they can use the nickname or not. So obnoxious. Ok, going back to my hole.

When you say "changed" do you mean selected your spelling before your were born, or literally changed the way they spelled it after you were born?

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

When you say "changed" do you mean selected your spelling before your were born, or literally changed the way they spelled it after you were born?

Selected the spelling before I was born. Resulting in a very, very common name spelled in a way that no one in the US spells it.

[MarissaNicole]

It has stood out to me because that is how my cousins' Grandmother (born and raised in Hungary) spells it.

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[MarissaNicole]

DH's full name is a nickname so we constantly get mail addressed wrong, even old friends assume. DH gets mad when I tease that he only has half a name.
I love pet/nicknames and really can't come up with many for DH. Picking names is hard to agree on because he seems to like the one syllable names and I want a multisyllable name that I can also use a nickname!

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[TulipsAndSunscreen]

It has stood out to me because that is how my cousins' Grandmother (born and raised in Hungary) spells it.

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Yes, some Europeans spell it that way. Most people in the US are completely unfamiliar with it though and I have met 2 other people with that spelling that do use the common nickname even though their names aren't spelled that way. I asked them about it and they just said it was easier. No kidding!

[Pollyanna]

In their infinite wisdom my ILs named dh a letter. Yep, just a letter, no period, no nothing. It's a huge PITA for him.

[v-girl]

If we have another girl, Elizabeth will be high on our list, but we probably won't call her Beth.


Laurie

Eliza. Maggie's friend's little sister is Eliza. I love her name!



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[diggitydot]

In their infinite wisdom my ILs named dh a letter. Yep, just a letter, no period, no nothing. It's a huge PITA for him.

DH's middle name is just the letter "g". That's it. Everyone always asks me what the "g" stands for and it doesn't stand for anything. His parents were stoned out of their gourds in the 70s. His mom came out of her ganja-induced fog just long enough to realize that she wasn't really feeling the middle name DH's dad had picked. Apparently, "Gilmer" is where she draws the line. FIL really wanted his son to have his same initials, hence G as a middle name.

It makes filling out forms interesting. I've had more people "remind" me that the form asks for full middle name, not just middle initial. They all think I'm the one who is high when I reiterate that his his middle name IS only a single letter. Thanks, damn hippies.