Parenting Without a Manual
with Karen Murphy
I'm Karen, the poster child for the concept that there's no one right way to be a parent. I went from stay-at-home attachment-parenting mom of four to being the non-custodial parent, working as a professional writer and channel-psychic. Let's talk about throwing away the parenting manual and exploding the myths and mystique of motherhood!
Check out Karen's Work It, Mom! profile and read her blog, Juxtapositioning.
Baby naming. It’s an art. What parent hasn’t spent hours poring over baby name books, making lists and refining them, trying to find The Perfect Name for upcoming little Junior or Juniorette, still just an oven-baking bun but nevertheless one with tiny fingers and toes that all need a name. The perfect name.
The other day I read Salon’s blog The Squirrel and was intrigued by his discussion of baby names. Apparently there are rules to naming babies. I knew this. Rules like:
- You can’t use the names of your former lovers, or even worse, your partner’s former lovers. Imagine the awkwardness. Just no.
- You can’t use a name that’s already been used by friends. This is also a no-brainer. After all, who wants to pepper the world with Jacobs or to doom one’s kid to being known as “Jacob M.”, or worse, “Jacob 3″? Plus there is the whole copycat thing. Even though you’ve been holding this name in reserve since you were 12, if a couple you know or someone at the office conceives first and uses Your Awesome Baby Name you are just SOL. You have to be unique.
But not too unique. That’s where the dance comes in. The perfect name. Not too long, not too short. Not too dorky, but just the right amount of dorky. Not too trendy, but cool enough.
I have four kids, so I got to do this four times.
A. I really, really thought Jessica was an unusual name and that I was probably the first parent ever to name a kid that. I really did, I swear. (Sorry, Jess.)
B. Kid #2, sporting the just-the-right-amount-of-uniqueness of Nathaniel, has the middle name of Orion. His initials also spell something (N.O.W.), which is sort of cool but also make me wonder if he’s more impatient because of it.
C. Kid #3 told me her name before she was born. Okay, so yeah, I make a living as a psychic. I heard “Selena” and “Serena” and had trouble naming her after a dead Latino pop star portrayed by J-Lo, so I went with the other one. You know, the scientific method.
D. Kid #4 got his name after he was born. I already knew it would start with E and came up with Ethan and Eric but had to meet him to know for sure. Eric it was. He got his middle name, Walden, from his father, and I thought it was perfect until several months later when it dawned on me that Eric’s initials now are E.W.W. Oops.
Here are my rules for baby-naming:
- Unique ways of spelling the same old name can be taken too far. Kalie, Calie, Kayley .. they’re all fine. But go to Quaylea and you’re just asking for trouble.
- My parents claim they named me Karen because it couldn’t be reduced to a nickname. I would have loved a nickname (a cool one anyway), and “Kar” doesn’t cut it. Think about the name’s derivatives. Will you call Benjamin “Ben,” for instance? Benny (please, no)? What will other people call him?
- The corollary to that is, what unfortunate words does your chosen name rhyme with? Because other kids will find them and use them.
- Avoid names that sound better on animals. Most of us instinctively avoid Rover and Mittens, but what about Max? Charlie? Lucy? Sam? They’re all great names … for dogs.
- Avoid letting the older siblings name your new baby. I know a kid who’d be known as Football now had his parents caved. And my younger daughter would have two first names: Boston Market.
- Avoid names that rhyme with body parts or naughty words.
- That great and unusual name from that movie you loved or that TV show? You won’t be the only one naming your kid that, trust me. Just look at all the Mallorys and Amelies running around. Sure, they’re both awesome names. But you’re not the only one to think that (see “Jessica,” above).
- There is such a thing as too unique. Trust me on this.
All right, so spill it. How’d you name your kids, and (even though you cannot imagine them having any other name at this point) knowing what you know now would you change anything?
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LOL! While I do love the movie, “Ameiie”, we actually named our daughter Amelie Mara after Emily. Amelie is simply the French version of that name and we thought that it was prettier and a little less usual than Emily though admittedly, I’ve never yet met another Amelie in the US - nor have I met anyone else who knows of one. Though I’m under no delusion that there aren’t many.
Mara was a twist on the Latin, Mare (of the sea).
But Amelie meets most of your rules - hard to rhyme on the playground (though kids’ll just invent words to make it work, trust me); Not so much a pet name; Doesn’t rhyme with any bits; Not too unique at all; Can be shortened to Ami (also meaning “love”) as a nickname.
And again, we didn’t choose it to be unusual. We simply liked it better than the Saxon, Emily.
Phe | August 5th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I have adopted daughters from a country where the native language isn’t English. My kids’ names follow these “rules”:
1) Derived from the name of a real-life inspirational young woman
2) In a spelling that honors their birth heritage
3) Not too long or short, easy to say and spell
4) Feminine-sounding
5) With a cool derivation / meaning
6) Sound OK with their middle names, which their birth moms gave them, and with their last name
7) Initials do not spell a stupid word
One of my daughters has a fairly common name, the other has a name that is shared by very few (partly because I spelled it my own way). People say they are pretty names, but what else are they going to say? At least I can tell my kids that I gave it some thought.
SKL | August 5th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
We had another requirement - had to have a similar version of the same name in Russian. We chose Andrei - spelled with “i” at the end.
Maria | August 5th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I wanted classic, lovely, old-fashioned names for my girls–names that would stand the test of time, and that weren’t trendy or “crazy.” Also, both my daughters have names that are family-related: my older daughter’s middle name is after my late grandma, and my younger daughter’s first name is similar/related to my maternal great-grandma’s first name.
Shannon | August 5th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I personally don’t like my name (Thelma) and my nickname for the past 4 years at work and with the new friends has been Thel - which I don’t like either. Sounds like the short word for “telephone” in spanish (I’m from Mexico).
So I decided to name my first baby Abigail (Abi) I think it’s ok. But his dad decided to add Isis as a first name. We call her Abi most of the time. The thing is that this has lead to a joke since my husband’s name is Ulises and so people joke about the great resemblance of Abi (Isis) to her dad, and often call her “Ulisis” LOL
Thelma | August 6th, 2009 at 11:28 am
E.E.W. would be far worse than the E.W.W. you have.
I would say there are exceptions to rule #2, primarily if it is a family name you still get to use it. Even if your best friend named her child Jake, you can have Jacob Smith the IV if that is traditional in your family and you want to do it.
I spent ages thinking of girls names (I had the boy name in mind, I don’t care who else has it, if I I ever have a boy, he gets it too!) and my mother was horrified at some of the ones I thought of. Bless my best friend who sat quite passively as I went through the alphabet of pretty much every known language.
Like everyone, I didn’t want one that was too common, but having some friends with REALLY unique names, I did want one that people had heard of before. I went with a classic source; Scripture. But since I’m religious and both of our extended families are VERY religious it seemed appropriate for us. Most everyone I’ve met loves the name and she actually embodies the traditional meaning of it. Is that because I named her that, or did I feel tugged to that name in the end because of her? Who knows?
Mich | August 6th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
My name is Erica. In school, I was always Erica R. because there were 5 other Erica’s in the same grade. HATED IT! My husband’s name is Jonathan and he goes by Jon. Yup, very common. So, I was set on an uncommon name for my child. We found Maslin in the boy section of a baby name book, and it means Little Thomas. Thomas was my grandfather’s middle name, and he basically was my father growing up. We tweaked the spelling, to make it girlie. Mazlyn. Also, we call her Mazzy, and there is a very great band called Mazzy Star. The only problem I can see with kids making fun of her, is Spazzy Mazzy : - ) I thought she was the only Mazlyn in the world, but there is a musician named Nigel Mazlyn Jones.
I’m preggers with #2 now. And yes, this one will have a unique name too, but it seems like its going to be harder to find one this time.
Erica | August 6th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I like nature names. I don’t like names that remind me of other people. My husband had promised his best friend growing up that he would name his first born Chris after his friend. Well, we fought about this a lot because Chris also happened to be the name of an ex-boyfriend of mine that was a complete psycho. Also happens to be my moms name but since I was having a boy it didnt remind me of my mom! So, we settled on something beautiful, unique and naturelike - Ocean. Come to find out, Ocean is a more common name than I realized here in Miami. There is another Ocean in my sons swim class, a friend of ours has a neighbor who also named their son Ocean, and I met another lady at the water park with an Ocean!
Oceans Mom | August 6th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
My husband and I decided to keep our child’s name a secret until she was born. The only people who knew were our bestest friends (just to bounce the idea off of someone) and my Dad knew the middle name because a familymemeber named their child one of the names we chose. Everyone knew it was a girl and when asked we just said we were still figuring it out and what was their Mom or Mother -in -Law’s names. Inevitably we would love the MIL’s name. The person who harassed us the most was my mom and we ended up “naming” our daughter “Fern” (which I really like actually!)
Anyway we picked Jillian for the 1st name because it was an Irish name and not too popular yet…. and the 2nd is Grace after Gracie Burns (she was funny and actually VERY smart!). But beware!! a week after our daughter was born and named we found out that “Jillian Grace” is also the playboy playmate that shares a child with David Spade.
Jennifer | August 6th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
from a story book that my father bought me when i was three. the cover of which hangs in a frame in my daughter’s bedroom.
NotCarol | August 11th, 2009 at 2:59 pm