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I find the stats that the Social Security Administration (SSA) releases on baby name trends to be fascinating. I love looking at the names that were popular in the 1980’s (the decade God decided I should grace the world with my presence) compared to the present day. I vividly remember having a lot of little girl friends who were named “Crystal” in elementary school. We lived in Grand Forks, North Dakota at the time so maybe a lot of the mothers having little girls were fans of the TV soap Dynasty but whatever it was I have never known so many Crystal’s as I did when we lived there. Curious about this insignificant detail I decided to look at the top names the SSA has recorded for 1980 – 1989. Crystal is listed as number 20 which is based on the number of Social Security cards that were registered with that name; in case you were wondering 140, 989 little girls were named Crystal during the 80’s.
Now let’s look again at Crystal but this time look at the spelling – you have Crystal, Crystel, Krystle, Krystal, etc. There are so many different ways to spell a baby’s name. When we decided to name our daughter, “Kendall,” my husband and I had a long discussion on how we would spell her name. I, always wanting to be different (I mean really, I do go by the name “Bert” even though my given name is Elizabeth), wanted to spell her name “Kendyl” while my husband liked the traditional spelling “Kendall.” He said that my spelling of the name reminded him of a pickle. No one’s going to argue with the imagery of a pickle now are they? I think not thank you very much. We also named our oldest boy, Brennan; that could have been spelled “Brennen.” So my question, does the spelling of the name change the “personality” that’s associated with the person who has the name? No, a rose, if by another name would still be as sweet; Shakespeare was right about that one.
My given name, “Elizabeth,” has such a formal, classy persona attached to it; people see my given name and place me into a category. I don’t consider myself to be formal or classy which is why “Bert” seems to fit better than my given name. My mom hates this; she calls me “Beth” and had always wanted a little girl named “Beth.” Thinking about this always makes me feel a little guilty. I mean how would I feel if my daughter chose to go by another name? I’ve had her name picked out since I was 13 years old. Would a rose still smell as sweet?
Whether we choose to use an obscure spelling of a traditional name (ahem, like Khloe) or a popular name (anyone know a ton of Jessica’s like I do?), our children will have the final say in what they are called. We can choose a name but the name doesn’t make the person after all, a rose if called by any other name would still smell as sweet, don’t you think?
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I hear ya on the Beth thing. It’s not really awesome. Haha I tried to tack on my middle name to make it a little less . . . blah, but nothing. By the time I decided that I hated my name, it was already too late. I was 21, and everyone already refered to me as “just Beth” and thought Beth Ann was just a phase.
My mother also really loved the name, and it sort of breaks my heart. I named my little girl Jocelyn. Not too common, yet still spelled traditionally correct, and we gave her the nickname Josie. This way she can choose, but still be what I want.
If she goes with Jojo or some crazy junk, I’m going to be such an annoyed mommy!! Haha
I actually shoot for names that don’t have easy or standard nick names. Helps ensure they will be called by there name which I prefer. I also agree with your husband on trying to stay traditional on the spelling. Having to spell your name to everyone, including just putting your name in for food, gets really old. Having people with issues pronouncing your name, same thing. I prefer not to put a child through that if possible.
I like traditional names for the most part. Growing up in the 80s/90s, there were a TON of other Ashleys, which was kind of a bummer. However, I don’t think you can let your name define you. If anything, your personality, friendship, ideas and everything else about you can help REDEFINE a name for others! My daughter is Emily (a popular name spelled traditionally), but I don’t think she’ll mind someday that I didn’t name her something “unique” with an alternate spelling . . . Who she is makes her special, not her name . . . the name Emily never gave me warm fuzzies until she was born and now it does!
picking a name for my daughter was the hardest thing about being pregnant lol. i wanted a name that wasnt weird but not super common. I also didnt want to take a regular name and butcher the spelling bc then ppl would misspell her name for the rest of her life. I was super picky and in the end there was only one name that fit everything i wanted
i was so happy to finally have a name! and i had several boy names that i like but only that one girl name lol
I love to try to think of baby names but agreeing on one with my hubby may not be easy….he likes names like Sarah and I like names like Sofianna….slight difference;)
Spelling definitely changes the personality of a name. Many (most?) of the spelling variations people do to be creative or different really just look tacky and garish.
I have a little girl named Brennan.
It’s a great name, Jill!!!!
I am a huge fan of classic names and I have a hard time with common names that are spelled uncommonly. The book Freakanomics had an interesting chapter about why there was such a rise in unusual spelling of common names which boiled down to socio-economic statuses and the desire to have their children stand out. I would feel bad to give my child a name that would always be mis-spelled or confused.
lol, this made me smile because i always feel for those kids with funky spellings. teachers having to second guess or muck up pronounciation, and getting tons of written documents with your given name spelled wrong. doesn’t seem worth the attempt at uniqueness, but everyone gets to choose for themselves!
It never matters anyway. I’ve lived my whole life with a name that isn’t all that strange and am still called all sorts of things and so many people can’t spell it. I like to stick to names that are “normal” but just aren’t “in” at the moment. Sort of the best of both worlds I think.
My kids’ names are Kevin and Heidi. I aim for traditional names that are common enough that people will recognize them, but I avoid the ones that are too popular. I also don’t like the trendy names. And I go with the traditional spelling. My mom chose my name because it was unique, and I like it, but it is kind of a pain to always tell people how to spell it and how to pronounce it.
My name is quite unique, and can be shortened well. Growing up the different pronunciations of people trying to figure out my name by feel instead of phonetics was tiring. I really enjoy the uniqueness now. Only about 3 times in my life has anyone guess correctly that it’s in the bible.
I have to say that I’m RELIEVED at what seems to be a return to more traditional (or conventional?) names after what seemed like a decade of made up names and intentional misspellings. When our niece was born several years ago we learned her name via my BIL’s facebook post. I called my DH and said “Don’t write out the card yet! I’m pretty sure your brother made a typo from his blackberry and put in an extra ‘r’.” I was wrong…….
I have to spell my name for everyone, even though it is not terribly unusual…. I don’t ever plan on naming my child something that they will have to spell for everyone for the rest of their life!
I went for a really traditional name with my son. William…can’t think of any obscure ways I could have spelled it. Willyum? We still haven’t decided on a nickname, though I’ve been calling him Willsums.
We chose a pretty unique name for our son, Kieran. There are multiple ways of spelling it too, but since its already unique we went with the traditional spelling. We shall see what he thinks of it when he’s older and if he still for a nickname instead.
Our dd is Amathea – I knew if I ever had a daughter that’s what her name would be (of course I changed the spelling a little because of comments people made when I was pregnant). I’ve known this since I was around 13!
It took me almost 20 years but I finally got my girl! LOL My MIL calls her Amy but we always call her Amathea. She says she likes it better than Amy anyway so I’m glad we didn’t take up the nickname!
I always wished my name was Crystal when I was younger, but I never tried to change it. I got called various things throughout the years, though. Chrissy, Christy, Chrissy-Ann, Chris…. none of them by MY choosing, either. It’s whatever people wanted to call me. You can tell how long someone has known me by what they call me. Still, I find it annoying, as none of the nicknames (save “chris”, maybe) suit me. I always introduce myself as “christine”, and try to get people to call me “christine”. I gladly will go by “chris” before any other nickname listed above, though I frequently was known as “kit” (short for ‘kitsune’ which means ‘fox’ in japanese…. totally my favorite animal and I was going through a big anime phase at the time!) in my mid-teens.
That all being said, I prefer unique names that aren’t weird or spelled funky (does that make sense?). This has become frustrating for my husband as we have had children since I want nothing popular, but nothing weird, either. I like things that are not in the top 500 on the U.S. social security name database. I also watch the trends of names to make sure the name I like (if it isn’t in the top 500) isn’t rapidly climbing (for example: Adele/Adelle was not in the top thousand a few years back, 2 years ago it was in the 800s, then it was nearly 500 last year). I like “classically popular” names. Names that were once really popular but nowhere to really be seen in the last few decades… like Felicity/Felicia (which my hubby hated), Edith, Arlene, etc.
Common Nicknames can be hard enough for teachers to keep up with, but then there are always kids with family names who go by a middle (or completely random variation) name!
I was born in ’81 & was named Crystal! I think it’s a simple spelling but people in my family still mispell it, LOL!
As a substitute teacher, giving a traditional spelling is always great. I always feel bad for the kid that already knows he needs to fix the pronunciation before I have even said their name…
I love my name, Bethany. It drives me crazy to see other spellings! Its not a hard name to spell, but because so many people try to use weird spellings of names, I get, Bethanie, Bethanne, and many others. Its not hard, its very traditional. But that’s what happens when people start spelling names all weird.
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