The job naming a baby usually is the responsibility of the parents. Sometimes parents choose names that are popular or common at the time the child is born. Others may give a family name to their newest offspring. Some parents decide to be cute or give unusual names to their children. Yet, childrens names label them for the rest of their lives, or at least until old enough to change the names legally, or names causes confusion, maybe allowing children to be ridiculed. Parents need to examine names and make decisions on what to name babies based on the effect of the child in years to come.

Lets examine the use of popular/common names first. When a child attends day care or school with several other children, he loses his uniqueness, his felling of being an individual. Many times he becomes confused because others give him a nickname or extension of his name to keep the different Johnnies apart. If three Janes are on the same team, the coach and other players have to be able to distinguish which Jane is being addressed. Often the child becomes his or her last name. One of my grandsons became his first and last initial, which isnt a bad compromise for a boy. However, avoiding a common or popular name can be a good choice for the child.

Sometimes family names can be awkward for a child, so parents should consider what she would face in later life. If Gertrude was great-grandmas name and the parents want to honor her, perhaps they could use her middle name, Emily, as the baby girls first or middle name. Although, Gertrude at one time was actually popular, now it gives other children a way to ridicule a girl so named. Parents need to look past a childs early life to the years to come.

A name which might seem cute or cutely unusual can cause a child to feel and seem odd. One father thought Character was funny, as other did when they heard it. His son a few years later and throughout his school years, did not. School mates and team mates laughed. He was the bunt of many jokes. When he was eighteen, he went to court and had his name changed. A movie star named her daughter Apple. What does that little girl face when she enters life outside her mothers world?

As parents, we need to consider not only today, but the days to come, when we name our children. Perhaps we might consider how we would feel if we had to carry those names around as our identities.

Vivian Gilbert Zabel

After a career in the business world and then twenty-five years teaching, Vivian Gilbert Zabel retired to devote her time to writing. A wife for over forty-four years, a mother of three living children, a grandmother of ten, and a great-grandmother of two and another on the way, she uses family and life experiences in her writing.