That name, that name you have been carrying around your entire long life, the name about which you may have often wondered, “Why God why?!?” – as it turns out, it has your parents, the very same parents who gave you that ridiculous name in the first place, wondering the exact same thing.
According to what I am sure was a scientifically meticulous study done by the hard working people at YourBabyDomainName.com, two out of every twenty-five parents have baby name remorse, an increase of three percent since the studies of previous years. Can you say “first world problems” three times fast, Anakin and Leia, Jacob and Bella?
We all sit and wait for the celebrities we love to hate to finally admit they feel like idiots for choosing names like Apple, Pilot Inspektor, Audio Science, Moon Unit and Diva Thin Muffin. Seriously. Unfortunately, it seems to be simply poor schmucks who named their kid Ottoline and ended up calling her Sparkle who get saddled with all the regret. What is the world coming to, people?
I myself am a near victim of name regret. My parents were, in fact, going to name me Melissa. Fortunately for me, they were lucky enough to meet another Melissa with me in utero and realized that they would have to destroy me and start all over again if anyone ever dared to call their daughter by this other Melissa’s nickname, Missy. I shudder at the thought. There are absolutely no nicknames for Melissa that rhyme with ‘sex.’ I don’t know what I would have done with myself!
Since the study showed that half of respondents felt they were swayed by stupid media and fashion trends, and another third thought their name was original when they picked it but later discovered that other people had the same “unique” idea, one can’t be faulted for wondering aloud if the remaining 17% of folks are just ridiculously indecisive about something that you’re not really allowed to be indecisive about in the real world. After all, a toddler who gets her name changed every year for her birthday is going to be pretty high maintenance, not to mention identity confused!
Pamela Redmond Satran of baby name website nameberry.com told the Daily Mail, “We also see baby name regret in parents who listen too much to the advice of others, who cave in to family pressure to name the baby after grandpa, for instance, or who give up on a name they love because the in-laws make fun of it. They often wish they had listened to their own hearts.”
There are a lot of things I might let my in-laws have their fair say in, like world politics and economics, what we’re having for Christmas dinner, or whose car we should take on our next cross-border shopping spree. What I intend to name my next child? Not one of those things.
Do you have baby name regret? If you feel stupid for the name your baby ended up with after the dust and placenta settled, we want to hear your story!