Would you want your baby’s name?

Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz just had their baby, Bronx Mowgli Wentz.  Perhaps the name has some significance in their lives – but if it was chosen just to be different or unique, that is truly unfortunate.  Choosing a name for your child is one of the most profound things you will do to affect their psyche and self-identification. Names are important – they can instantly communicate to others the unspoken history of your family, your lineage, even your culture. Your name is more than a word that is associated with you – it is your identity.

Traditional or Modern?  Classic or Trendy?
Some names are old-fashioned, some carry so much negative connotation they become utterly unspeakable. Some names are classic, other are unique. A person could be named after a cherished relative, or their name may have been pulled out of thin air by their parents.

Fight the urge to go with “trendy” or “artsy” names.  Literature or spirituality may be important elements in your life, but your child might feel differently growing up in modern times with a name like Summer, Rainbow, Ophelia or Desdemona.  The best rule of thumb is always to treat others the way you would want to be treated yourself – ask yourself if you would honestly want to be addressed with the name you are considering for your child.

Does the name affect day-to-day life?
Take the time to think about how your child will bear their name.  What are the possible combinations and nick names the child may encounter.  A child with a name like Dylan for example is going to run across many references to pickles, dill pickles, etc.  That isn’t a big deal, but some names are truly unfortunate.

What happens when your surname name is Dover and you choose Benjamin for your son’s name (Ben Dover)? Richard Cox (Dick Cox)?  A name may be a name, but people have to live with them, and kids are very cruel.

Avoiding Parental Tunnel Vision

Remember that kid back in grade school whose parents made them bring their little sister every time they came out to play?  The big kids would have to accommodate the sister who wasn’t able to ride her bike as quickly or play the same sports.  What happened to that kid?  Eventually we stopped playing with them.  Yes, looking back we can see how cruel it was, but when you are in the thick of it you don’t want to carry around someone else’s baggage.

The so call “parental tunnel vision” is the grown up equivalent of the tag-along sibling.  As parents there is a tendency to focus our entire world onto our children, so when we talk to other people all we can think to discuss is our child’s recent dinner table disaster, their successes and failures in the walking arena, and their babbling sounds.  For our grown-up friends, especially those without children, child’s developmental milestones are not as much of a paradigm shift as they are for us.  If we dominate most of the conversation talking about baby stuff, our friends will end up bored, guaranteed.  If they start to see us as nothing more but an extension of our children (which we are, in a lot of ways) we will start to find ourselves excluded from “grown-up” activities – whether our kids come along or not!

So how do you function as a social adult when your world has been taken over by your children?  First, put yourself in your friends’ shoes.  If you were in their position would you want to be hearing about children all the time?  I don’t mean status updates and major milestones – would you want to spent hours talking about teething developments?  Or would you be thinking “Ok, your kid is normal.  Why are we talking about this?”

Naturally all bets are off when you’re talking to other parents, especially ones whose children are roughly the same age as yours.  Be careful! All those stories and comparisons can turn into a competition, so always be supportive and keep the conversation affirming and friendly.