On baby names.
While not quite a guest blog entry, this doesn’t quite qualify as one of our ‘regular’ entries either. Krisztina is what you might call a Lunapads alumni. She worked here for quite some time, leaving us for other adventures about 3 years ago, and I have her to thank for helping me get this job here. She’s still a dear friend of mine and keeps in touch with all of us at Lunapads regularly. Read on for her ruminations on choosing a name for your child…
I’ve been thinking a lot about baby names these days. You know, like that game we used to play as kids, conjuring up our top 5 names for girls and boys for when, in the distant future, we’ll have babies.
Well, the distant future has arrived and many of my friends are now with child. Which leads to discussions of names; which names are popular, which are to be avoided, which seem obscure now but might end up being overdone in a few years. Like Isabel. I know about 5 newborn Isabels, I kid you not. When my little sister Isabella was named in 1992, people would scrunch up their noses and say “Isabella? That’s my grandmother’s name!” It’s 14 years later and she’s now got one of the most popular names around.
My friend Sarah and her partner Dave just had a son, and they are keenly aware of the curses of having a popular name. Sarah swears that when she was named (in 1976) Sarah was an obscure name. Her mom picked it on a whim not knowing thousands of other mothers were doing the same thing all over the Western world.
The marker of a good name, in my opinion, is a balance of the unique and the common. A good baby name is unique enough that your child will be the only one in her class, but common enough that strangers won’t have to ask for it to be repeated when introduced. That’s it really, it’s that simple. But I hear that one of my top 5 names for a boy is becoming very popular these days, everyone tells me to forget about using Jackson, it’s too “in”. Shoot.
But how long do you hold on to your top 5 names? What if you’re not sure if you’re even going to have kids? How long do you wait before you give up and name your new cat Milo?
Krisztina K
Lunagal alumnus extraordinaire (as titled by suzanne)
November 17th, 2006 at 11:17 am
when i was little, i used to totally obsess over what my future children’s names would be. most of my top choices then would make me cringe now though, haha.
i think you have good criteria for names, but it gets tricky when families start moving to places with different cultures & languages. my name wouldn’t get so much as an eyelash batting in quebec, but once we moved west, it was a nightmare at school.
November 18th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Oh, I’ve thought about that, that’s why my name is familiar sounding, my parents didn’t want me to have an unpronouncable Hungarian name. I still get the horrible spelling mistakes though, and people who see my name and call me Katherine, or Katrina for some strange reason.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Thanks for a great post, Krisztina (btw I have always loved the spelling of your name - it just wouldn’t work for you any other way!) - it doesn’t get much more personal than a name, does it? As a parent I was torn along the lines that Krisztina describes - wanting something original that would not be permanently mangled by others. Genevieve (my daughter’s name) was actually originally chosen by my parents for my brother, who they were convinced was going to be a girl. So in a way she is named after her uncle Keith (whose real name is Richard) - how crazy is that? So I would add that having a funny little story like this one is also a good indicator that you’ve got a good name. That said, Genevieve has now become Gigi (she can say it, after all), and only time will tell if that will stick. As for that inexplicable name trendiness, if I run across one more little Jack or Chloe these days I’m going to start wondering what the heck is going on!
December 1st, 2006 at 12:40 pm
you know a good way to get a cool name that isn’t totally random? consult your family trees! we did and were pleasantly surprised to find two ottos on my husband’s side and three walters on mine. our three-month-old is otto walter. we love the names because there will likely not be any ottos in his class, there’ no diminutive nickname to grow out of, it’s a real name, and it’s easy to spell.