This was originally posted on February 24, 2012
Someone’s name is a huge part of their identity, including the first thing you usually reveal about yourself to strangers. So it’s not surprising that parents take such care over choosing a name for their child. Now, studies show that a baby’s name can actually affect their personalities and behaviour later in life! So with this added pressure, what are the names to avoid and the ones to ensure your child’s future happiness?
Well, there’s not really an easy answer, but the best piece of advice is to go with your heart. Secondly, think about how your chosen name may affect your child during those critical school years, where someone’s personality is often shaped.
For example, in a recent British study it was said that people who are given names more popular within lower income households may not do as well in school thanks to other people’s lower expectations of them. However, I would not see this as a reason to avoid a name you love just because of other people’s opinions or expectations as it is them who are in the wrong, not the name!
Another interesting outcome of the study was the evidence of a link between those who didn’t like their given name and low self esteem. This could be because a name is such a large part of someone’s identity. Also, despite the recent trend to change a well-known name into something more individual by changing the spelling, research show that this could be a bad idea! Children with a deviant spelling of a well known name can suffer confidence crisis’s by the constant questions of ‘how do you spell your name again?’ and ‘are you sure it’s spelt this way?’ Evidence suggests a link between those with an oddly spelt name and future problems with spelling.
As well as this, experts advise against naming your boy a girly sounding name and vice versa as it could lead to others treating them differently or even teasing. However, this research seems to me to be the result of self-fulfilling prophecies rather than how your child perceives his or her name.
As long as your child likes his or her name, which would be impossible to determine whilst you are pregnant, then they will most likely not fall prey to any of the above trends. A nice way of subsiding your worries over what to name your child is to give them a contrasting middle name, for example if you want to name your child something unusual then give them a more ‘normal’ middle name so that they feel a sense of fitting in as well as being unique.
