“I really did like my name,” says Jala (pronounced JAY luh) Hyde, a local mom. “I still do – it’s just so unique!”
“I’ve never liked my name,” adds her sister J’Layna (jay LAY nuh) Riddles of Garland. “I like the sound of it, but from a very young age I’ve always had to explain to people how to spell my name. It’s just been frustrating, even as an adult.”
A tale of two sisters: one whose name has two capitals and a punctuation mark, and the other whose name came from a defunct paper towel brand (Gala with a “J” — “I could have been Jounty or Jiva or anything!”). One who’s embraced the unconventional origin of her name, and the other who point-blank asked her mother, “What were you thinking? Were you still drugged up?”
The moral of their story: Someone else — namely, your child — has to live with the moniker you choose.
If you’re like a lot of moms-to-be, you’ve had a dossier of potential names filed away in your brain since you were 11. But now that it’s finally time to pick The Name, you may want to consider factors other than how much you like each candidate. Here are some points to consider — and then selectively ignore — when choosing your baby’s name.
Don’t give your baby a name that’s unusual or hard to pronounce. It’s difficult to picture the black-and-white bubble on your sonogram donning a suit for his first interview, but this baby isn’t going to stay a baby forever. A real, live person has to go to kindergarten and seventh grade and college and lunch with the HR rep and acknowledge the name you give him, whether it’s Noah (currently No. 1 in the U.S.) or Xyz (actually a name).
J’Layna has been forced to answer for her name since she was old enough to struggle through learning to spell it. “When as a child someone would ask my name, I would just cringe,” she says. “Yes, two capital letters. J-apostrophe-L. ‘What does the apostrophe stand in for?’ Nothing, it’s just an apostrophe … Just call me J.” While an unusual name like J’Layna may sound good in theory, your child — not you — has to deal with the real-life ramifications.
“When your teacher pronounces the name and you have to correct them, that in your own little child’s mind feels like, ‘Oh, I did something wrong,’” says Sarah Feuerbacher, Ph.D., LCSW-S, clinic director at the Southern Methodist University Center for Family Counseling in Plano and chronic sufferer of (last) name mispronunciation. She adds that being singled out for any reason can damage a child’s confidence in those formative years, especially if the child hasn’t been taught how to respond when others butcher his name.
The pronunciation woes don’t stop after graduation: A 2012 study by professors at the University of Melbourne and New York University demonstrated that people with easy-to-pronounce names are more likely to be interviewed, hired and promoted than their counterparts with baffling monikers. “People simply aren’t aware of the subtle impact that names can have on their judgments,” says Adam Alter, Ph.D., associate professor of marketing at NYU and co-author of the study. Names that don’t require mental gymnastics make others more comfortable and subconsciously leave a positive impression. In other words, if you want your child to succeed in life, go for Max or Mary.
Don’t give your baby a common name. Not so fast. Feuerbacher says her very pronounceable first name was no refuge either. As the tallest of several Sarahs in her class, she was dubbed “Big Sarah.” “That one was hard for me,” she admits. “I wanted to be ‘Little Sarah’ or just ‘Sarah.’”
That’s exactly why Jala likes her name. “Right now I have four friends named Sarah and six Brittanys and that drives me crazy,” she says. “It’s ridiculous. They do go by their last names, and I never had to.” She’s already irritated that her 4-year-old son Jackson isn’t the only Jackson on the block. “There’s a whole slew of Jacksons in the 3–5 age range, and I don’t like it. I wish it wasn’t as common for his age group.” (Jackson rose last year to No. 16, for the record.)
And while J’Layna speaks bitterly of her name, she does admit that it “might have gotten me an email response or a phone call back for an interview just because it stood out in the stack.” Feuerbacher agrees that a name like J’Layna could make your child stand out in a good way, especially when submitting that first resume. Jackson? Not so much.
Don’t worry too much about your baby’s name. Yes, a name might make the difference between one job and another. But The Name is not the arbiter of your child’s success. “You can have a very confident child with a boring name; you can have a very unconfident child with the most wonderful name,” Feuerbacher says. She stresses that the name is but one small part of a child’s identity, and that a likable personality can override an unlikeable name.
If you choose to bless your child with an unusual name, Feuerbacher recommends role-playing potential sticky situations so that your child learns the confidence to own his name, rather than shy away ashamed when the world gets it wrong. Her 4-year-old son Taylor has a unisex name, so she goes out of her way to practice a response if people assume he’s a girl. “I’m doing my best to advocate for him, and hopefully one day he too can proudly advocate for himself because he’s seen me do it,” explains Feuerbacher.
Don’t force a name on your baby. If for some strange reason your child does not like the perfect name you’ve bestowed upon him, don’t require him to use it anyway. “The biggest thing adults could do is encourage kids to come up with something that they feel comfortable with,” Feuerbacher says. She was relieved when the nickname “Fire” caught on, rather than “Big Sarah.” “I loved it. It fit my personality; it was part of my last name,” she recalls. “But I picked it out.”
Just as Feuerbacher’s dime-a-dozen name made her uncomfortable, a bespoke name can make a child stand out more than he’d prefer. Allow your child to blend in a little if he wants. Feuerbacher advises, “Let the child when they are old enough say, ‘I want to go by Anne instead of Crystal Light.’”
Don’t let anyone else tell you how to name your baby. No matter what you name your baby, there is a potential for silly nicknames or anonymity or general confusion. So ignore all the advice from mothers-in-law, friends and baby magazines and name your baby what you want to name him. It’s your baby, after all.
Just don’t name him Xyz.
