Good Parenting - Naming Your Baby
Have you ever known a person with an unfortunate name or set of initials? Please try very hard not to do this to your child.
What would he think with a name like Alan Stuart Smith? He'd better make sure he doesn't go near any holes.
Unfortunately you can't do anything about initials that mean something now but didn't when your little angel was born.
Walter or Wally for short for instance.
How about Christine Sally Irving? These examples are something you will just have to chance, relying on the law of averages.
A fair number of families have a specific name that runs through the generations.
If you are naming your first child, you may not realize the pressure, overt or subtle, that you will be put under to continue in the tradition.
This will be especially difficult if your family doesn't have this sort of generic identity but your partner's does.
Good parenting states that you, that is, you parents, should be totally happy with the name you choose for your child.
If this means defying your elderly, or even not so elderly, relatives then so be it.
If, on the other hand, you are quite happy and perhaps even willing to accommodate passing down a family name then, again, so be it.
Just make sure that it is YOUR choice and no one else's.
Your child's name is not his soul as our ancestors probably thought.
But it's not as simple as that.
People can and do associate specific names with characteristics and personality.
Psychologically, good parenting recognizes that your child could 'pick up' on this subconsciously and become like his name.
In other words a name could mould a person's personality.
Do you follow the 'celebrities'? Do you want to follow them even further by giving your baby a name one of them have used? Has someone called their baby Beelzebub? Isn't that a cute name? Do you want your child to have that name? Hey, it could be used for a girl and a boy can't it? If you'r reading this then you have access to a pc, so Google it.
Find out what it means and then decide.
Do try and do some basic research before naming your child.
That's what good parenting is all about - minimizing unforeseen circumstances by simply thinking things through and doing some simple research.
It's not hard.
Unique spellings are cute aren't they? Wouldn't it be great if you called your daughter Ema (not Emma) or Karoll instead of Carrol? Have you considered what problems she would have going through life with a none standard name.
Picture yourself back in school and try to work out if you would like a name like that.
Somehow I think you may change your mind if you did that properly.
Good parenting is not dictatorial though.
There a quite a few acceptable alternative spellings for names around now.
One of these should be acceptable.
The question is, do you want your little angel to start off a new craze for an alternative spelling? What if nobody else takes it up? It's not my intention to worry you at all with all this.
You have a partner, so try and share the decision making.
That's what good parenting is all about.
In the long run, you'll be glad you put yourself to just that little bit extra effort when you named your child.
What would he think with a name like Alan Stuart Smith? He'd better make sure he doesn't go near any holes.
Unfortunately you can't do anything about initials that mean something now but didn't when your little angel was born.
Walter or Wally for short for instance.
How about Christine Sally Irving? These examples are something you will just have to chance, relying on the law of averages.
A fair number of families have a specific name that runs through the generations.
If you are naming your first child, you may not realize the pressure, overt or subtle, that you will be put under to continue in the tradition.
This will be especially difficult if your family doesn't have this sort of generic identity but your partner's does.
Good parenting states that you, that is, you parents, should be totally happy with the name you choose for your child.
If this means defying your elderly, or even not so elderly, relatives then so be it.
If, on the other hand, you are quite happy and perhaps even willing to accommodate passing down a family name then, again, so be it.
Just make sure that it is YOUR choice and no one else's.
Your child's name is not his soul as our ancestors probably thought.
But it's not as simple as that.
People can and do associate specific names with characteristics and personality.
Psychologically, good parenting recognizes that your child could 'pick up' on this subconsciously and become like his name.
In other words a name could mould a person's personality.
Do you follow the 'celebrities'? Do you want to follow them even further by giving your baby a name one of them have used? Has someone called their baby Beelzebub? Isn't that a cute name? Do you want your child to have that name? Hey, it could be used for a girl and a boy can't it? If you'r reading this then you have access to a pc, so Google it.
Find out what it means and then decide.
Do try and do some basic research before naming your child.
That's what good parenting is all about - minimizing unforeseen circumstances by simply thinking things through and doing some simple research.
It's not hard.
Unique spellings are cute aren't they? Wouldn't it be great if you called your daughter Ema (not Emma) or Karoll instead of Carrol? Have you considered what problems she would have going through life with a none standard name.
Picture yourself back in school and try to work out if you would like a name like that.
Somehow I think you may change your mind if you did that properly.
Good parenting is not dictatorial though.
There a quite a few acceptable alternative spellings for names around now.
One of these should be acceptable.
The question is, do you want your little angel to start off a new craze for an alternative spelling? What if nobody else takes it up? It's not my intention to worry you at all with all this.
You have a partner, so try and share the decision making.
That's what good parenting is all about.
In the long run, you'll be glad you put yourself to just that little bit extra effort when you named your child.
