What do you think about what we call our kids?

I have a very unusual name. I've been spelling it, explaining it, etc. all my life. I probably should have changed it; don't really know why I didn't. But my own three children were given very recognizable, common names which they don't have to keep explaining.

My grandkids have commonplace, ordinary names also, but my great-granddaughter is named Reese! Outside of Reese Witherspoon, I've never heard of another one.
 
Remy said:
I want to add, if someone hates their name, they can and should change it. But I don't think a lot of people consider that. Or may be afraid of pushback from relatives if they do.

I'd like to go back to the last name on my birth certificate. I can't as long as my stepfather is alive and at my age, I don't know if it would be worth it but I literally cannot stand my name.
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I hate my name, and tried to change it when I was in high school However my family never called me by the preferred name so my DH calls me that. So I gave up.
 
My daughter has an unusual, but lovely and venerable name.

When she started high school, away from all her friends from elementary school and junior high, she decided she'd make a change and use her middle name (which was only slightly less unusual).

We were OK with her decision, but my husband had a problem with remembering what she was called now. He'd answer the phone, listen and say, "Sorry, you have the wrong number," especially when her friends would use the shortened version of her name.

After she graduated from high school, she went back to her first name.
 
I thought of another one: long ago, a couple said they gave their children unusual names because their own names were average. One of their kids was named Ian- but they said they pronounced it EYE-an instead of the usual EE-an. They said that's the Welsh pronunciation. I figured he'd encounter a lot of confusion when he started school!
 
JaniceM said:
I thought of another one: long ago, a couple said they gave their children unusual names because their own names were average. One of their kids was named Ian- but they said they pronounced it EYE-an instead of the usual EE-an. They said that's the Welsh pronunciation. I figured he'd encounter a lot of confusion when he started school!
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Many years ago, at a few gatherings I'd see an acquaintance of an acquaintance who named her son Damien (standard spelling) a few years after the extremely popular Omen movies were released. I never saw those film or had any interest in them, but it was nearly impossible not to know the main character, Damien, was the antichrist/devil's spawn.

She was apparently accustomed to explaining her naming choice (single mother) and explained her son's name was pronounced Dame-ee-YUN, with the accent on the last syllable, as the French do. I thought to myself, you're an American mother with an American kid who's about to start American public school with a name everyone already knows how to pronounce in English? Good luck with that French pronunciation sticking.

Outwardly I shrugged. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I've always held a hope that the kid had a reasonable middle name he could adopt, at least during school years.
 

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