You’re not going to spell her name right, so you might as well just call her, “the baby.”
Confession: We gave our daughter a weird name.
It’s not, like, celebrity weird. It is not a cardinal direction or a common fruit. But it’s just quirky enough that she will never, ever, find her name on a gas station keychain.
The name could have been relatively normal, but we spelled it wrong different. On purpose.
When I posted it on Facebook, I could almost feel the judgment behind all of the likes. But you know what? We had a reason, one that means a lot to us. And I bet you do, too. Whether you turned Haley into Hailee, pulled Archibald out of the vault, or named your twins Lemonjello and Orangejello.
I may be new to parenting, but I have 31 years of experience with weird names.
Hi, my name is Daci, and I’m positive you just pronounced that wrong in your head (you’re not alone). I’m used to being called Darcy, Dawson, even Dynasty that one time. But you know what? I’m over it. I would even go so far as to say that it made me a more interesting and easy-going individual.
So, if you’ve got a Padraig, a Camryn, or a Lightbulb in your family, and you’re feeling judged, here are a few thoughts from someone who has stopped telling Starbucks baristas her real name – and resigned her daughter to the same fate.
- A unique name is a built-in conversation-starter. Congratulations! You’ve saved your child from that awkward silence that comes after “nice to meet you.” From now until eternity, she will spend the first few minutes of every conversation explaining her name. Some people choose to look at this as a bad thing. I say, it’s helped me with my people skills.
- The grass is always greener. Nearly every Jennifer, Megan, and Sarah I’ve ever met has told me they were jealous of my unique name. Which is funny because on the first day of school every year, as I waited for the teacher to mispronounce my name, I would shrink down into my desk and pray that my name would suddenly change to Jennifer. My point: you’re not necessarily making your kid happier by forgoing the unique name.
- A name can tell a story. My daughter is the child of an immigrant, but on first impression nothing about her tells that story, except her name. In the assimilated society we live in, a unique name can be a badge of pride. If that’s something you’re considering, one day that will mean more to your kid than a personalized keychain. (Although, I’m going to imagine finding your name on one of those racks of keychains is the equivalent of being handed a litter of puppies and a winning lottery ticket by Oprah).
- A normal name doesn’t exclude you from bullying. Internet moms like to claim that if you give your kid an unusual name, they’ll get teased. Here’s the sad truth – every kid gets teased for something, at some point. This one episode of Full House that I saw approximately 20 years ago always spoke to me: The kids at Stephanie’s school were making fun of her [extremely normal] name, calling her Step On Me. She wanted to change her name to Dawn. Danny Tanner, in his infinite wisdom, calmly tells her that if her name were Dawn, the kids would think of something else to call her, like “Dawn”-ald Duck. Cue the realization that Stephanie is perfectly okay, along with comforting music in the background. The hug. And Comet’s wagging tail. No name is untouchable. I learned a life lesson. And I hope you did, too.
Original post published April 2016
44 comments
My name is Kylene and I was just discussing names with my mom and grandma the other day. On the topic of liking our names I told them I hated it when I was younger but I love it now. They asked me why, and my reason is the same for both- I hated it when I was younger because it was so unique and now I love it because it is so unique!
I have a lovely daughter named Yasmin. Roughly 90% of the population think her name is (or should be) jasmine. I love that Y with all my heart. ❤️
We named our daughter a very classic, normal name…Lily, spelled liked the flower, but people always want to add an extra “L” to it. Common or not, you can’t win, so you might as well just pick something you love! With my name being Megan, I didn’t want her to have a common name, but I loved “Lily” too much to choose anything else. It fits her so well too!
Awesome! HELLO…my name is Jaquel (you would not believe how I’ve heard it pronounced). I can beyond relate to this! I named my oldest daughter, Avalahna and my youngest, Jorja. An entire family of names to mispronounce. Cheers to all the people who live life being called by the wrong name (at times)! 🙂
I totally understand why you aren’t sharing her name, so don’t think I’m trying to bully you. But I actually only read the article because I was curious what her name was. Ha! It’s kinda like you told a joke, but you aren’t telling the punch line. 🙂 We have an long and uncommon last name that we have to spell for everyone, so we gave our kids easy first names. Emma, Julia, Andrew… We also have Molly and Isabel. Didn’t think we would have issues with their names, but we get a lot of Mollie spellings and Isabella. 🙂 Even Julia is mistaken for Julie sometimes, so even easy names get messed up too!
Our daughter is Hyla 🙂 I love unique names, and do believe it will teach her to speak up in life.
Hi
I think this is a great post , but their is a flip side to certain names that people choose because they are trendy and not necessarily long term implications .
I wish you would share her name – it would make the post mean so much more .
We have an Ansley – but people always want to say it with an Ai sound .
I never liked my name growing up .
We named our youngest Declan, my manager was like why would you do that to your child? Do you know how much he is going to get teased…..I do not know how that man lived! Declan’s or dec dec-he’s only two- name is said wrong alot when we go to dr offices, And spelled wrong when we tell it to someone and they write it down. Sad thing is it is in the top 10 for this year in baby names……our oldest name is Colton, slim chances on personalized items for either of them. Since frozen came out my name has suddenly changed too. From anna to ahna……im like uh no. My coworkers tell me to just let it go…….
I love this I didn’t want my daughters to have common names although 2 of them did. I hated and still don’t care for my name I always wanted something unique. So I gave my daughters more unique names.
Samara most people just call her Sam cause they can’t pronounce her name.
Kadence most people mess her name up also
Isabelle Arianna it’s more common but everyone wants to say Isabela. And then the most common name husbands fault lol
Hailey
@ Daci i hear you about not sharing your daughter’s name. My son has an extremely unique name (like probably less than 100 people have ever been named it) and I never share it in public forums.