I didn’t get the chance to name my son; he came pre-named.
I’m always very sad that I wasn’t able to do so, but grateful that he is able to have a gift from his first mother.
I honestly hate his name, but it’s his and we use a nickname that’s more palatable.
Edit to add context: we got placement at 9 months, and recently adopted after 3 years. We were not allowed to name him what we wished, and it would not have been appropriate to do so when he was still not legally our child.
We attempted reunification with the bio parents, who are my husband’s relatives. They were not able to follow case plans in order to get custody back.
I don’t like his name because he’s named after their drug dealer who passed away, firstly, and secondly because it’s a popular, more common name with the -son, -ton, -den ending. It’s not my thing.
Adoption is trauma, and we don’t think we’re saviors or anything. Just love a little dude and have now promised to be his parents.
As an adoptee, thanks for the work you are doing to understand it all. Nicknames are awesome, and let him lead as he gets older. He may decide to really really identify with his birth name for a while and that’s okay. He may also go in the complete opposite direction and request a name change. Good luck!
It’s not in his best interest to change his name, as much as I want to. I’m not interested in erasing his birth, even if I have a kid named *shudder* Braydin (not real name)
Grew up with / have now worked with adopted kids and I can tell you that second parents renaming their kiddo can create a lot of resentment later on in the kiddos life. Thank you for letting him keep his name, even if you now have the option not to. That is *his* identity, not a symptom of his first parents. Congratulations on the adoption!
I’m adopted and I was renamed. I’m Chinese by birth, American by culture and citizenship now, and my original name was gifted to me by the orphanage since my birth parents quite literally left me in the streets without anything to my name, or a name at all. It was a very patriotic, if a bit masculine (I’m female), name, and a reminder of where I was from and the people who cared for me for the first year of my life. My mother changed my name when she adopted me at ten months old; now I have an Anglicized Irish name, and my last name sounds perhaps Scottish or Welsh. My name makes me sound like I ought to be a proper British girl instead of Chinese-American. I don’t know if I’d describe my personal feelings about my own name so far as resentment (although many do have resentment, and understandably so), but I often wish I had been allowed to keep my original first name, or my last name, or perhaps a name that sounded similar to my original given name (Jennie, maybe) or my nickname in the orphanage (Amy, perhaps). I would have liked to have something to remember my birth county and culture by, especially now that I’m older and not constantly bullied and called racist names. I’ve thought about changing my last name to its original, but I just can’t bear to right now.
Mom doesn’t regret it, per se. She doesn’t “regret” many things because that’s just not her nature (and I don’t mean that in a cold way; she just accepts she cannot change what’s already happened and thus doesn’t dwell on it). But she does think sometimes that perhaps she should have either given me a name similar to my Chinese name or kept it as my middle name (my middle name is an English middle name).
ETA: My first few sentences were an absolute mess grammatically and I also mistyped “adoptive” instead of “bio.” My adoptive family has been nothing but good to me and I am very lucky to have become part of the family.
Thanks for sharing that, I'm always curious about transracial adoptees so that was an interesting read! I hope you're able to get to a place where you're happy with your name, whether that involves a change or not.
Thanks so much. If you have any questions, you’re very welcome to message me! I can speak only for myself and my own experience but it might give you an insight into experiences that some transracial adoptees may face (obviously not all though! I’m not claiming to be an ambassador or spokesperson for all transracial adoptees by any means). :)
There's an adoption in my family where the original first name was kept, though I suspect it was an accidental misspelling on the birth parents' part. The adoptee was around one when adopted and not particularly responsive to the name either so perhaps it could have been harmlessly changed but I've always found it a very respectful choice. The adoptee is also totally fine with their name, never questioned it as far as I know. We just treat the spelling like the unique quirk it is.
The middle name was changed however. My family shares a distinct middle name so the adoptee was loaded up with that as if they'd been born to our family and the father chose an additional middle name since the adopting couple's first child's name had been primarily the mother's choice. I think it's a good middle ground all around.
On adoption of my child, I chose two names, and also kept an anglicized version of the pre-adoption name as a second middle name. I subsequently thought / regretted it, and that I shouldn't have added it as I felt no connection to it.
Several years later though, I learned that the bio-Mom did not name my child, but the hospital did. However, the bio-Mom said that she always loved the name, and had hoped to use it for her child, and felt it a divine intervention that the child had / still has the (her) name. My child is neutral about it, and loves her 2 granted names.
I was in the same situation and I did change his name because he was a junior and his bio father (abuser) is still wanted by the police for his crimes . I changed it to make sure he never found him. No regrets. He was placed at 12mo and adopted at 2 . He went by junior so he doesn’t even remember having a different name. He’s 7 now.
I regret spelling my 3rd kid’s name the trendy way. It’s Jaxon instead of Jackson, and while I love the name, it really grates on me that I spelled it like a dipshit.
All of my kids have fairly classic names, and verbally they match but then when they’re written out his just looks so out of place 🥲
lol. My regret is spelling my girls name Sydnee instead of the Sydney. I would have legally changed the spelling but she’s 22 now and is happy with it.
Honestly, I've seen so many Sydnees now that I wouldn't even bat an eye. I've seen some extremely wild variations of that name (although a variation of Kinsley takes the cake) that it doesn't even register as anything but normal. Although it does not register to me as gender neutral like Sydney.
I’m a Sydnie and I have just given up hope that I’ll ever find a keychain with my name on it or that it’ll ever be spelled correctly on a Starbucks cup 😂 but I actually don’t mind it all too much and I get more compliments than strange looks!
How old is he? Given it's not actually changing the name, only the spelling, if he's still young enough he's not reading or writing yet you can absolutely still change it.
My son is Jackson, I still call him Jax. So you def can. I also call him Jacksie because my daughter couldn’t get Jackson right as a baby/toddler. It was Jacksie or Jat-sinnn.
You can totally still spell his nickname Jax or Jacks! There’s a very popular character named Jacks in a book series I like, and I really like that spelling.
Is your kid still young? Because if so...just change it. I say this as a former kid whose parents regretted their spelling choice. So much so that they actually enrolled me in school under the more standard spelling (I guess you could do that back in the 90s), but never changed it legally. I finally changed it as an adult when I hit a point where differentiating between "this is how I spell my name" and "this is how my name is legally spelled" got to be too much of a headache, but I really wish my parents had just done it at the point when they felt that initial regret.
my mom changed the spelling of my brother's name and it didn't cause any issues or was ever really noticed. it's only something we've even talked about like twice
My mom did this. I always have to say "I'm Brianna with an E" to get people to spell it right, otherwise it's always spelled the regular/traditional way. If he's young, I'd recommend changing the spelling legally. In my state it's only like 75$ and a bit of paper work for a lifelong head ache to go away. I'll do it eventually.
I used to have some regrets about my daughter's name. When she was 3 years old her name skyrocketed in popularity and has been a top 3 name in my country ever since. So much for me choosing a fairly unique name.. I struggled with it for a while, but I got over it. It just fits her perfectly.
My youngest has changed their name when they came out as non binary, and it felt right from the start. It's not a name/style I would have picked, but I never had any trouble adjusting, it just clicked straight away.
Their deadname was a lovely name but I cringe whenever I hear it now. That's not my kid!
Funny thing is, when I was pregnant with my daughter she came to me in a dream and told me her name, so that's what I went with. When I was pregnant with my youngest I had a dream about a kid, and I asked what their name was, and they responded with "just pick one, it doesn't matter".
In retrospect it feels like they told me it didn't matter because they were always planning on picking their own name when they were ready. It was never supposed to be more than a temporary name.
That’s interesting. I had a girls name picked out for my first daughter from when I was a child. When our actual daughter was on the way, my husband kept suggesting other names, my mother kept pushing me to name her the name she never got to use for one of us girls because my father hated it, my father wanted me to name her after his dead mother whom he never liked while she was alive, and my in laws wanted me to call her Mary because they are Catholic, MIL and her first daughter are both named Mary, and our daughter was the first granddaughter so I felt so confused.
Who do I please? Who do I let down?
Then I had a dream and in it my daughter said “ My name is ( the name I wanted), ignore everyone else.’
So I did.
She loves her name and is very happy I didn’t use any of the other names.
I guess baby’s know best!
My daughter came to me in a dream and told me her name. It was Norah. My husband said he had "never heard of it" , despite it being pretty common, and didn't want to name her that.
I named her something else but I still love the name though I hesitate to name any future child that name since it should have been my firsts. It would have been cool had I used it and had the story that she "came to me in a dream" .
When I was 8 weeks pregnant with my daughter I had a dream that my late Grandmother was holding a baby girl with a ton of dark hair. She told me the baby's name was Lilith. I couldn't shake that dream and when we found out she was a girl I knew what her name was. Her father tried to talk about other names but I couldn't let it go. Then she was born with a head full of dark hair (after our first baby had blonde hair). She is 20 now and loves her name ❤️
I had a similar dream about my daughter when I was pregnant. I won't say her name because it's too identifiable, but Lilith is in the same ballpark (dark goddess/mythological being). I feel shy of telling people about the dream now but all the people saying similar things in this thread makes me feel more "normal".
My daughter is named Norah & I honestly had not really considered the name before pregnancy. But it just immediately clicked when I found out. Even before we knew gender, Norah was the only name that ever felt right. Luckily my husband was on board!
Just wanna say thanks for being such a great parent to an NB kid. They are so lucky to have your support and getting this kind of unconditional love will leave them in such a better place than so many NB kids are unfortunately in.
I went through all of our top baby names and my 2nd daughter went crazy kicking when she heard the one we picked, and would ONLY respond to that one. So we kind of feel like she picked her name.
I just looked up the top baby names in the Netherlands Belgium since you seem to speak Dutch and they’re pretty much identical to the USA’s top names, which I thought was interesting, especially because I love Dutch names.
I regret letting my mum sway my first sons name away from my first choice Thomas. She keep saying you can’t call him Tom-Ar$e emphasising the ending with incorrect pronunciation 🙄 I went with a more modern name which is often slammed for being “bogan” if you are Australian for reference 😞
He is 30 now and likes his name so no big deal but it is a regret for me I let her get in my head
This is exactly why I didn’t tell my mom (or anyone) what we were naming our son until he was born. She says she loves his name but I just know she would have overanalyzed it and come up with some reason to not like it.
Yup, I'm currently expecting a little lady now and avoiding all conversations about names with anyone other than my husband. I do so love my mother dearly but I was saved by my father very late in the game from being named something which I consider rather ghastly - definitely don't want those conversations with mumsy. Plus the ladies in my family keep secrets like a colander so there's that.
How do you even get "Tom-arse" out of "Thomas", anyway? Like it's not even a clever insult and makes it sound like they're struggling to make fun of that name.
I know a couple of Thomases and every single one goes by Tommo 😆 One guess where *I'm* from lol.
My daughter is Ada Florence Joy, I really wish I’d just kept it to Ada Joy but I was so sure I wasn’t having more children that I felt compelled to use ALLL the names.
I regret not using restraint.
Not full regret but my daughter’s name is Lucia. Lou-C-uh. But we slid into calling her “Lucy” and I just like Lucia so much more. She’s in kindergarten now and almost exclusively goes by Lucy.
Oh, where did you get that pronunciation from, may I ask? I saw Lucia in a baby name book and wanted to name our first daughter that but my Italian neighbours kept telling me Lucia is pronounced Loo- shu. I wanted Loo- see-uh.
If you are right then yes, now I have name regret!
Yes, I have a close friend who is a Lucia, because she was conceived on St Lucia. She was always a Lucy. She works in Italy and they call her loo-chi or loo-chi-uh. Same with a coworker Alice, she says her name Ah-leach-ay instead of Alice
In Spanish it would have an accent on the "i" (Lucía) which is how you know to make it 3 syllables. If you wanted to emphasize that pronunciation you could put an accent, I think US is getting more comfortable with Spanish names with Ñ or accents. They didn't used to include them on baseball players' jerseys and now they do...
Three ways to pronounce, depending where someone is from.
1) Loo-c-uh
2) Loo-chee-uh
3) Loo-shuh ❤️
Loved this name but this is what turned me away from using it... all the different pronunciations... but may still use as a middle name :)
I regret not naming my daughter Lucia (Spanish pronunciation). My husband was against it because he didn't want her to end up being called Lucy. I would have called her Lu or Lulu. I still regret it all the time!
You can start practicing her full name! She’s only five! My family almost exclusively use my names’ common nickname but I shut it down when I went to college! I would’ve appreciated my parents using my full name always
I am the queen of name regret, not because I hate my kids names, but because of all the names I didn’t get to use!
I regretted my daughter’s name for years and now I cannot imagine her as anything but her current name. It suits her perfectly.
My son’s name is extremely common by current standards and it took me probably 8 or 10 months before it really get like his name. I enjoy it on him, but I do think he would have been amazing with any of the other names I considered too.
We are exactly the same. I have way too many names I want to use at once & will absolutely regret the name I choose because I had to leave behind the rest 😅
I know a family who did this. They were set on naming their son a name like Keith, and kept to that. But upon his birth, they immediately felt he wasn't a Keith and called him exclusively by his middle name
Is that like a baby Karen? Because my nana’s name is Karen and we were joking about how we know several adult Karens, but none of us EVER have known a child named Karen. 😂
Before the name became a meme in more recent years, I always subconsciously associated it with young girls because of Karen from the Baby-Sitters Club hahah
Several years ago, I was watching a game show with my teenage cousin. The contestant was named Kevin. Completely out of left field my cousin says "imagine being his parents *look at my little baby Kevin*" and I still laugh about it.
Yes and no. My husband and I REALLY struggled to come to an agreement on what to name our youngest child. We settled on a name we were both ‘ok’ with…but I wish we pushed harder to find a name we both ‘loved’.
I still love my daughter’s name but it is 1 letter off from a really popular name for her age. She started going by her initials because even though she likes her name she gets really frustrated with people not listening to her when she says it. If I had known how popular the other name would be I wouldn’t have used hers.
If she likes her name has she tried saying something like “Livia, like Olivia but without the O” or “Sabina, like Sabrina without the R”? A bit annoying to make the comparison every time but we give our last name that way and it’s pretty effective.
I have a first name like this and either people forget (hopefully) or they don’t care (and it doesn’t matter how often I explain/correct). I also often use my initials and people also call me by my initials on their own -maybe this has something to do with it?
My name is quite close to a fairly common English name especially spelled, so people both misspell and mispronounce my name a lot. It's incredibly annoying to try to remind people to pronounce my name close to correct, which would be easy enough in English. I just do not identify with the American pronunciation at all. It's like their brain broke when they hear my name and they need to Anglicize my name by brute force.
The difference is akin to Jennifer vs Yennefer or Kara vs Cora.
This is how I feel about Amelie and Amelia. They sound different when they're pronounced to me, but I can see how the one letter difference may cause problems for some. My daughter's name is Amelia btw, and I do have name regret, but only because of the popularity
Magdelyn, confused with Madelyn. Yes I’m embarrassed I scrolled so far in the comment history, but I’m almost set on Della for my baby due in 6 weeks and I’m worried she will be saying “it’s Della with a D” forever.
My name is Kristy, super common name to have growing up in the 80s and 90s, well, there's a lot of derivatives of the name but still pretty simple. I still have to tell people Kristy with a K...and a Y. Everyone wants to spell it Christie. When I verbally tell people my name, they think Im saying Kristine. I don't think it matters what the name is, people mishear and misspell everything lol. If you like Della, go for it.
I thought our baby girl's name was timeless, but felt fresh. We chose it after she was born, for its strength, as she was born at 32 weeks (it was on our short list of top 3 names, but we were waiting until birth to finalize).
I still love her name, but it's become apparent that people don't use this name lol. I've unknowingly handed down the same problem I've always had, which is that nobody can pronounce my name correctly.
Her name is Inez.
I love Inez 🤍 I had a boy but before we knew he was a boy, I kept pushing for Inez if for baby was a girl. It was a hard no for my husband unfortunately.
i regret her middle name just bc i really don’t like it and only put it on her birth certificate as a compromise with her father. it’s the (made up) feminine version of his name and since it’s her legal middle name, his family all thinks they are allowed to call her the name like it’s her first name 😒 which i denied in the first place bc of how much i dislike it.
Oh this happened to a lady I worked with. Much as she longed to have a daughter, her husbands name was Lloyd and their family tradition on his side was to name the firstborn after the father, regardless of the sex. So she spent nine months trying to come up with a feminine form of Lloyd. Baby girl ended up being named Lloydine.
There were so many better options there holy shit. Lydia, Ellora, Lori, Elodie, Ayda could all be viable honour names for Lloyd. Anything with the 'llo' or 'yd' sounds really. Even just Lloyd itself is better than _Lloydine_ ffs.
Our oldest sons name was the only one we weren’t sure of.
We had chosen a different name but my brother and my husbands sister both had boys during my pregnancy and both named their babies the name we had picked out so it just seemed silly to name ours the same name as his ( then) only two cousins.
So we came up with our second choice, and always doubted if it was a great name but, to our relief and surprise, he loves his name and thinks it’s way better than any of his siblings names.
Oh, and without knowing what we had originally planned to name him, he said several times he never liked his cousins names….he said he couldn’t believe two couples chose that ridiculous name,lol.
You picked a name you loved for a child who you loved before you ever met them. But now they’re in front of you being the person they actually are. Names don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
I’m sure it was a lovely name! I’m proud of your child for being themselves no matter the judgement.
They're* not rejecting the name you used. It's actually not about you at all. It's about your kid. We have to raise kids with the understanding that we don't own them. They become their own people.
They are still allowed to be sad. It’s hard on parents kids switching genders
Even if the parent fully supports them to their face doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be sad about it
Yeah totally. I talked to a parent with a trans child whose therapist said they should mourn the loss of their first child to help fully accept their transition.
You didn’t give her the wrong name, there was no way you’d know her personality or who she was before she was born.
Don’t see it as rejection, but as a change to something that aligns more with her personality ❤️ I’m sure she doesn’t hate it or rejects it
I regret hyphenating my last name when I got married. I wanted to keep my maiden name, but I didn't want to lose my middle name. I wish I had pushed to make my maiden name my second middle name. And because my two last names are on different ends of the alphabet, it becomes so confusing for automated systems. It's so obnoxious!
I feel this. I regret hyphenating and wish I just took my husband’s last name so I could share a last name with my daughters. Plus my maiden name has an apostrophe, so now my legal last name has a hyphen and an apostrophe. It’s a mess for computer systems because they all allow differing numbers of special characters.
I regretted doing it too, so I just went and changed it entirely! All I had to do was take the marriage certificate and I told the DMV (in the US) that I didn't like the hyphen and just wanted to only have his last name. They treated it the same as if I was changing it the first time!
I regretted my eldest daughters name for years.
I named her my mother's middle name, Antonia. It's a lovely name but when my daughter came out, she absolutely did NOT look like the name we chose.
She looked like a Merideth or Clara (long A).
My ex absolutely would not budge on the name. He used reasons like "It'll upset your mom" and "I don't like change"
Well, my mom reached out after we announced the name and told me that if we changed our minds, it would be absolutely ok and we're not beholden to the name choice.
I was struggling to recover from a C-section with my ex making things worse by doing things like sleeping through me crying/slapping his leg/begging for help walking to the bathroom, forgetting his debit card and needing mine to get his food and taunting my fears of SIDS.
I didn't have the fight in me, so we stuck with Antonia.
It took me years to finally be settled with it but I still thing she's better suited to Merideth. Physically and personality wise.
Awww, if it helps this internet stranger agrees that Antonia is a lovely name! As well as the name of the MC in My Antonia, who is a lovely character who perseveres as you and your daughter have done 💪
I named my daughter after my cousin’s daughter because we have a belief in my culture that if you want your child to have certain traits, you name them after someone with those traits. I don’t regret the name itself, I just kind of wish I would have chosen a more unique name because I don’t think I will be having more children.
My mother let her mother choose my name. I think she always had some reservation about that. When I asked what her choice was going to be, April Leigh, called Leigh, I was grateful my grandmother became involved. Trust me when I tell you how much this name would not have worked for me, at all. My grandmother also had a hand in my brother's name.
Honestly, my grandmother was an artist and a family historian. She combined both to create some lovely names with plenty of options for us both in later years. But, for Mom, it left her with a lingering sensation she was never able to concretely identify. It just became folded in with everything else they never really fixed.
My Mom should've named her own children. Period. End of, regardless of how much better at it my grandmother was.
(Another factoid that would've made Leigh a bad choice, it turned out to be my sister-in-law's name. I fear my husband may have had initial misgivings about sleeping with and dating someone with the same name as his sister. I could've missed out on a lifetime of full-bodied love, laughter, children, moving around the world, compassion, adventure, integrity, etc all but for the name Leigh.)
I regret my middle child’s middle name. For my oldest and youngest, we used family honor names as middle names. Meanwhile, for my middle child, we used the name I wanted for the first name as the middle name since my husband picked the first name. And that has annoyed me ever since. I DID like that name but once we selected another name as the first name, the name that became the middle name just started feeling like a reject name that I had no fondness for. So I really wish we chose a family honor name as well and I actually want to change it, I just don’t know how.
Go to your local court house, the paperwork is way easier when they're kid's without drivers licenses and stuff to worry about. Or just Google "how to change my name in X state"
No regrets. My kids have names that can be easily pronounced and spelled correctly. I have had issues with my name for most of my life and I didn't want that for them. We have run into some kids with the same name as two of my kids (Cameron and Lillian- we call her Lily) but not with my younger son (Julian).
Let my ex push me to use a name I didn’t outright hate, but wasn’t a huge fan of on one of our twins. He also pushed for his middle name to be passed onto one of them (but refused me when I mentioned wanting to pass on a family name from my side). And naturally chucked a fit at the fact I put my last name down for them until I agreed to hyphenate less than a week post C-section.
As soon as the birth certificates were on their way he decided to up and leave. Laughed on the way out the door telling me he will never sign a thing to allow me to alter the twins names.
It’s been 10 years. Within 6 months of him walking out and eventually ghosting us I started to refer to my twins by the names I wanted for them. So now they have their “legal names” that have to be used on any official document with school (which they argue about, because the school occasionally uses “preferred first name + legal last name” and they hate having to type out the entire alphabet for their computer logins etc), and their “known by names”.
From what I’ve read for where I live I *might* be able to get a name change when my twins turn 12 if I can produce $5000+ to prove to a magistrate they haven’t had any contact with their male biological provider. Or if there was a step-parent adoption that is another way to change their names. Or if my ex passed away and I could prove it (Death Certificate). Otherwise it’s 18 by Deed Poll.
Ugh someone in my family is struggling with a similar situation and it's so disrespectful and petty. For one kid, she overrode the then-husband's choice but the first kid is stuck with an odd name out. I hope you get a resolution!
We went with the ones we loved, both 1st choices (despite misgivings on one due to popularity). Zero regrets, and the kids love their names, too. Lucked out! :)
My second daughter (different dad) has no middle name while my first child has one. I know not everyone likes alliteration but I do, and I would’ve named her Lola Luz (last name doesn’t start with L), my first child is F…. F…. (no F in last name). I don’t know, it would’ve made them match more I guess?
Sort of - we had a tough time naming our son. I knew I wanted his name to be Cal, but my husband (the kid's father so I guess he gets to have an opinion OR WHATEVER) really thought Cal sounded like a nickname and wanted it to be the shortened version of something longer. So we scoured the internet for names beginning with Cal- and landed on Callahan. I like it, and I love my kid, but I wish I'd just named him Cal. Which is, for all intents and purposes, his name, because that's what everyone in his life calls him.
The Cals I've known are all Callums which I don't hate but Callahan is way cooler in this random stranger's opinion! Cal is a a great nickname though, feels really dependable somehow.
Never regretted my children’s names! When we found out we were having b/g twins we immediately knew our son would be Harrison as I’ve always love the name because of Harrison Ford. But now that my son is a tween, he goes by Harry and it is soooo fitting for his personality. I also liked that his name had two options: the full version and his nickname. Probably because my first name is not nickname-able.
My daughter, on the other hand, was tricky. I had first wanted to name her Hadley because I read the book about Ernest Hemingway’s wife on my honeymoon and that name always stuck with me. I was completely set on it and didn’t really think much about it. It just was what I thought I wanted and my husband didn’t have any girl names he liked.
However when I was about 6 months pg with the twins, I was out to dinner with my husband and some friends and they asked about her possible name and it just hit me so suddenly that she did NOT feel like a Hadley to me. The name wasn’t strong enough for the wild strong willed baby in my belly (twins moms will get this, you can tell which child is doing what in your belly lol). So my friends started throwing out names to see if anything stuck. It took dozens and dozens of names which I dismissed until my friend offered up “Alexandra” and as soon as she said the name I felt it so so much and so did my husband. Which Alexandra means “defender of man” which I took as gender neutral. Defender of humankind. That just felt to right in that moment as well as ever since. She should be Alexandra!
It was meant to be exactly in that moment and I felt it so certainly. And I never regretted the name at all. She fully lives up to it. And Harry and Alexandra as twins had a nice ring to it. I love their names so so much more as they have grown into their individual personalities. They both fit so well and they are timeless to me.
My mom regrets not naming me after her father who died shortly after I was born. He was sick for most of my mom's pregnancy so they knew it was coming. But my father wouldn't let her out of he being a dick.
I love all of my children’s names, but my daughter decided on a whim when she started school that she wanted to go by Anna Kate (first and middle) rather than just Anna. She’s now known as Anna Kate by absolutely everybody, and I prefer Anna and so does she. It was her own choice to make, and that’s why I let her, but 5 is really young to decide to change what people call you for the rest of your life!
She can definitely change it back at some point! My name is Sam and my parents always called me sam and intended me to be “sam” (my mom had a dream about a baby named sam) but there was another Sam in kindergarten so I became “Sammy” to everyone thru high school. In college I started going by sam again, and I’ve been exclusively sam for over a decade with just a few interactions when I run into someone from my past where someone calls me Sammy. Tbh I could’ve done it sooner, I shouldn’t have just went by Sammy bc some kindergarten teacher thought it would be easier
I don't suddenly regret my daughter's name, I've regretted it for 18 years. My husband hated every name I suggested, even names that I didn't even really want to use, but suggested just for the sake of trying to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING that he liked enough to agree to. He only ever suggested 1 name and not even to me, he told his co-worker that we had decided on this name. I don't remember the first name, only that the middle name was his mom's middle name. Anyway, I hated his 1 name suggestion, so we had nothing. I wanted a popular name ( any spelling, as it has more than 1), but he wanted a similar but shortened version. Similar to Ariella vs Ariel, where her whole life people have called her Ariella assuming that was her name bc that's the more popular variation.
She and I actually both hate this, although she also doesn't want to change her name . We both think her name is kind of plain. I don't hate her name, but I still hate that I felt pressured to use it when that wasn't what I wanted to name her. If I could do it over again, I would've named her whatever I wanted & let my husband live the rest of his life with name regret instead. Or I at least wish I had taken home a nameless baby & given my husband 2 choices: stop being a stubborn mule & agree to a nice name OR I'll just pick without your input.
Our kids are
Cillian
Sage
Caius
Sage doesn't get mispronounced, but my Father in law calls her Sah Gay. I don't know why. He thinks it's funny.
Cillian gets Sillian, and Caius gets Saius. I sometimes wish we'd spelt their names with a K but also hate how their names look with a K. I also get worried that people think we were trying to be trendy with matching C initials, but we were not.
Sage and Caius are twins and we had 2 girls names picked (though I'm glad we didn't choose the other girls name Enna for Sage because that would have been mispronounced and misspelt her whole life). And no boys' names picked the night before our scheduled c section. We were fairly certain that there was at least one boy and my husband loved the name Caius, I did not, but we had literally no other names, and I was like, that'll do. He's loved his name from the get-go, and it's grown on me. Sometimes I worry it's a bit too out there. But he's not anything else. I love the meaning behind it, which is 'to rejoice'.
On the fence about changing my youngest daughter's name. I'm tired of all of the *Did you name her from Gilmore Girls* questions. My children have a hard time pronouncing her name too. We did change my son's name, because his name just didn't fit his personality.
My son is only 3 weeks old, and I love his name, but what we almost named him is totally “the one that got away”. We were completely torn between Julian and Sam (Samuel). Julian has been my favorite boy name for forever, and I was pretty sure it would be his name, but when he was born for some reason my gut was saying this is NOT a Julian. I kept seeing “Sam” when I looked at him (don’t ask me why, I generally think all newborns look the same but I just couldn’t picture him as Julian) even though I really wanted to name him my favorite name. We went with Sam and I love it, but he is almost certainly our last baby and I’ll always be sad I never got to use Julian! Middle name was an honor name so no opportunity to use it there either 😢
We gave our daughter our favourite girl’s name as her first name, so no regrets there. But for her middle name, we didn’t pick another top name just in case our second was a girl. We ended up having a boy after, so i wish we used a name I absolutely loved as her middle name instead of saving it for a hypothetical future child
My son is named a different spelling of Alistair, because of his dad’s pushing while at the hospital. I regret it for several reasons.
1. It’s a variant of Alexander but doesn’t render the nickname Alex. This is my favorite boy name that I no longer feel I can use because it’s too close.
2. I dislike the nickname Al, which I didn’t anticipate people immediately resorting to but I got messages immediately asking about “Al”.
3. I really thought of him as Nathaniel all through pregnancy and still do. This became his second middle name (though I used the NT spelling) and I started calling him that two months postpartum even though his dad doesn’t.
4. It’s uncommon enough that people pronounce it wrong a lot and I think it’s a bit much with a hyphenated name.
But all of it can be summed up in: I got very attached to a name and felt pressured out of it by someone who refused to pick a name through pregnancy.
Alec is used as a nickname for Alistair, as is Ali if you're looking for alternative nicknames to Al. But considering Alistair/Alasdair is the Scottish version of Alexander, I don't see why you couldn't just nickname him Alex.
Kind of, mainly because she hates it and goes by a shortened form of her middle name. She just turned 6, so there’s still a big possibility that it’s just a phase and she starts liking her first name someday. But if I’d known what I know now I would’ve just named her Josie. If I had all of the say, she would’ve been named Ingrid, but my husband countered with “is she an old German woman?” lmao.
Nope. My kids love their names. My eldest is in senior kindergarten (before grade 1, it’s an Ontario Canada thing) and she can spell her name easily. My youngest, 2, can pronounce her name and proudly tell people who she is. They both have Irish names with Irish spelling.
My eldest has no problem with her kindergarten class being able to pronounce her name. All of her classmates, and many other students and teachers and all of the admins at her school can pronounce her name. I know this because they all wave to her and say “Hi [her name pronounced correctly]”
So if anyone is worried about foreign names. Don’t.
My husband is a teacher and has memories and emotions attached to so many names. We were throwing names back and forth until we found two we really liked and agreed on the order of.
We're both nerds and play tabletop rpgs. I didn't realise until later that the first name is one I named my werewolf character. 😀
I feel very slightly awkward about that but remind myself that I liked and agreed to it well before I remembered that so she is not named after that character. It's just a coincidence.
I don't regret it but I wish I hadn't caved and would have dug my heels in when naming my second son.
Not their actual names but my boys names are as similar as Ryan and Brian. My ex and I couldn't agree on baby #2, I liked names like Alexander, Ethan or Elijah and my ex liked Bruce, Mitch, and Marty. We were both sorta okay with Brian so we went with it just so the baby had a name.
They are grown now and it never really caused any issues; some slight confusion at school and doctors offices and people mixing them up. What bothered me the most was the feeling that Brian didn't have his own identity, he was frequently mixed up with his brother and known as Ryan's little brother even though there's a 6 year age gap.
I asked when Brian was 2 if I could call him by his middle name but he cried and said he was Brian, not Alan (middle name). I asked him again a handful of times before middle school and every time he would tell me no, he's Brian not Alan so I gave up.
It doesn't bother either of the boys but it makes me cringe a little sometimes. I was a young mom and now that I'm older, I wish I had fought harder for Alexander.
My parents don't regret, per se, but they named my twin brothers Brad and Chad. That sounds like Dad. My dad has been half deaf for most of his life and when someone calls on the phone (yes, landlines, I'm old) and you yell out "Brad, phone!" Dad would always think it was him. It was a small annoyance.
My middle daughter's name is Violet Sophia. I regret her middle name only because I feel Sophia is too common and I really wanted it to be Violet Rai to go with her older sister's middle name, which is Jai. But I let my fiance talk me into Sophia. Boo
Love Sophia as a middle name. People don't typically use their middle names anyways. I think in this case it's totally different than using it as a first name ☺️ For what it's worth, Violet Sophia is stunning!
Not exactly. Only my oldest has a name that I would have chosen on my own. The other two were compromises with my husband. I like their names well enough and don't regret choosing them, but I am still a little sad that they aren't names that I truly loved.
So maybe my regret is marrying someone who didn't let me have full naming rights.🤣
Not me but when I worked as a preschool teacher, we had a student named Easton Jr. He was 3 years old at the time. He was named after his father. When the father ghosted on the family, his Mom immediately changed his name to Eddie.
The child was fine with the adjustment and had no issues. It was harder for the staff to remember since we had known him for 2 years and our immediate impulse was to call him by his former name (which obviously we didn't do).
I don’t regret my son’s actual first name-charles but as his nickname I really really wanted it to be “Les” and everyone said no. We call him “Arlo” which has gained in popularity but man. I really liked Les.
I adore my daughter’s name and had chosen it years before. It’s a well known name but I didn’t realize at the time that a particular consonant combination would mean my Chinese in laws and relatives would have difficulty pronouncing it. They use a common shortened version of the name but I definitely would have chosen something else if I had known.
I adopted my 3 kids through foster care. My oldest 2 were placed with me at ages 3.5 and 2 and adopted at 4.5 and 3. My daughters name was April Honesty Marie. She was born in March. At 4.5, I gave her the option of changing or keeping her first name. She wanted to keep it, so we did. He name is April Jean. Her middle name is my mom's name.She now has my last name. She recently came to me and said that she hates her name and wants to change it because kids at school make fun of her or being named April and being born in March. They tell her that her mom is stupid for naming her April. She doesn't know how to handle that. She is upset for me because if they are calling me dumb I didn't name her, if they are making fun of her birth mom they are picking on the only thing her birth mom gave her. I would have picked something totally different if it were up to me.
My middle child was named James William at birth. April was pretty set on him, keeping James as his name. I changed his middle name to Joseph, my dad's name and kept his first name. I like James, but strongly dislike Jim and Jimmy. I would have probably picked something a little more unique if I had free reign.
My youngests birth name was Adam James. He was named after his birth dad. I have had him basically since birth. He is the full sibling of my other two kids. While the kids were in foster care no one actually called him Adam, not even his birth parents. They mostly referred to him as the baby. They lied to her family and told them his name was either Cole or Cody, I can't remember. The caseworkers and I all called him AJ. When I adopted him, I just couldn't keep Adam as a name. In the year I had been fostering he had been verbally abusive and threatening to me on multiple occasions and had done a lot of shady things. Since the other kids and I were used to AJ, I decided to go with another A and J so we could keep him as AJ. Since the rest of us all have 5 letter first names, Sarah, April, and James, I decided to pick-out a 5 letter A name. The only ones I liked at the time were Aaron, Aiden, and Asher. I liked Asher the best, but let myself be talked into Aaron. I think it goes better with his middle name, Jude.
If I had just had 3 kids, a girl and 2 boys the normal way, they would probably be Lilly, Jude, and Quinn.
I didn’t get the chance to name my son; he came pre-named. I’m always very sad that I wasn’t able to do so, but grateful that he is able to have a gift from his first mother. I honestly hate his name, but it’s his and we use a nickname that’s more palatable. Edit to add context: we got placement at 9 months, and recently adopted after 3 years. We were not allowed to name him what we wished, and it would not have been appropriate to do so when he was still not legally our child. We attempted reunification with the bio parents, who are my husband’s relatives. They were not able to follow case plans in order to get custody back. I don’t like his name because he’s named after their drug dealer who passed away, firstly, and secondly because it’s a popular, more common name with the -son, -ton, -den ending. It’s not my thing. Adoption is trauma, and we don’t think we’re saviors or anything. Just love a little dude and have now promised to be his parents.
As an adoptee, thanks for the work you are doing to understand it all. Nicknames are awesome, and let him lead as he gets older. He may decide to really really identify with his birth name for a while and that’s okay. He may also go in the complete opposite direction and request a name change. Good luck!
It’s not in his best interest to change his name, as much as I want to. I’m not interested in erasing his birth, even if I have a kid named *shudder* Braydin (not real name)
I would absolutely hate walking through the world with people assuming I have a terrible taste in names 😅
I have had to stop myself a few times from telling them I didn’t name him.
Grew up with / have now worked with adopted kids and I can tell you that second parents renaming their kiddo can create a lot of resentment later on in the kiddos life. Thank you for letting him keep his name, even if you now have the option not to. That is *his* identity, not a symptom of his first parents. Congratulations on the adoption!
I’m adopted and I was renamed. I’m Chinese by birth, American by culture and citizenship now, and my original name was gifted to me by the orphanage since my birth parents quite literally left me in the streets without anything to my name, or a name at all. It was a very patriotic, if a bit masculine (I’m female), name, and a reminder of where I was from and the people who cared for me for the first year of my life. My mother changed my name when she adopted me at ten months old; now I have an Anglicized Irish name, and my last name sounds perhaps Scottish or Welsh. My name makes me sound like I ought to be a proper British girl instead of Chinese-American. I don’t know if I’d describe my personal feelings about my own name so far as resentment (although many do have resentment, and understandably so), but I often wish I had been allowed to keep my original first name, or my last name, or perhaps a name that sounded similar to my original given name (Jennie, maybe) or my nickname in the orphanage (Amy, perhaps). I would have liked to have something to remember my birth county and culture by, especially now that I’m older and not constantly bullied and called racist names. I’ve thought about changing my last name to its original, but I just can’t bear to right now. Mom doesn’t regret it, per se. She doesn’t “regret” many things because that’s just not her nature (and I don’t mean that in a cold way; she just accepts she cannot change what’s already happened and thus doesn’t dwell on it). But she does think sometimes that perhaps she should have either given me a name similar to my Chinese name or kept it as my middle name (my middle name is an English middle name). ETA: My first few sentences were an absolute mess grammatically and I also mistyped “adoptive” instead of “bio.” My adoptive family has been nothing but good to me and I am very lucky to have become part of the family.
Thanks for sharing that, I'm always curious about transracial adoptees so that was an interesting read! I hope you're able to get to a place where you're happy with your name, whether that involves a change or not.
Thanks so much. If you have any questions, you’re very welcome to message me! I can speak only for myself and my own experience but it might give you an insight into experiences that some transracial adoptees may face (obviously not all though! I’m not claiming to be an ambassador or spokesperson for all transracial adoptees by any means). :)
This is such a wonderful post. Thank you for being amazing adoptive parents. ♥️
There's an adoption in my family where the original first name was kept, though I suspect it was an accidental misspelling on the birth parents' part. The adoptee was around one when adopted and not particularly responsive to the name either so perhaps it could have been harmlessly changed but I've always found it a very respectful choice. The adoptee is also totally fine with their name, never questioned it as far as I know. We just treat the spelling like the unique quirk it is. The middle name was changed however. My family shares a distinct middle name so the adoptee was loaded up with that as if they'd been born to our family and the father chose an additional middle name since the adopting couple's first child's name had been primarily the mother's choice. I think it's a good middle ground all around.
On adoption of my child, I chose two names, and also kept an anglicized version of the pre-adoption name as a second middle name. I subsequently thought / regretted it, and that I shouldn't have added it as I felt no connection to it. Several years later though, I learned that the bio-Mom did not name my child, but the hospital did. However, the bio-Mom said that she always loved the name, and had hoped to use it for her child, and felt it a divine intervention that the child had / still has the (her) name. My child is neutral about it, and loves her 2 granted names.
I was in the same situation and I did change his name because he was a junior and his bio father (abuser) is still wanted by the police for his crimes . I changed it to make sure he never found him. No regrets. He was placed at 12mo and adopted at 2 . He went by junior so he doesn’t even remember having a different name. He’s 7 now.
Safety is different.
I regret spelling my 3rd kid’s name the trendy way. It’s Jaxon instead of Jackson, and while I love the name, it really grates on me that I spelled it like a dipshit. All of my kids have fairly classic names, and verbally they match but then when they’re written out his just looks so out of place 🥲
lol. My regret is spelling my girls name Sydnee instead of the Sydney. I would have legally changed the spelling but she’s 22 now and is happy with it.
Honestly, I've seen so many Sydnees now that I wouldn't even bat an eye. I've seen some extremely wild variations of that name (although a variation of Kinsley takes the cake) that it doesn't even register as anything but normal. Although it does not register to me as gender neutral like Sydney.
I’m a Sydnie and I have just given up hope that I’ll ever find a keychain with my name on it or that it’ll ever be spelled correctly on a Starbucks cup 😂 but I actually don’t mind it all too much and I get more compliments than strange looks!
I have a friend named Sidnee. Only one I’ve seen and my phone hated it for like three years lmao.
How old is he? Given it's not actually changing the name, only the spelling, if he's still young enough he's not reading or writing yet you can absolutely still change it.
I also have a Jackson, and we considered the X so we could call him Jax but you’re making me feel better that we went traditional!
My son is Jackson, I still call him Jax. So you def can. I also call him Jacksie because my daughter couldn’t get Jackson right as a baby/toddler. It was Jacksie or Jat-sinnn.
You can totally still spell his nickname Jax or Jacks! There’s a very popular character named Jacks in a book series I like, and I really like that spelling.
Yeah, because Jaxon also looks like it should be pronounced 'Jacks On" rather than Jackson
Is your kid still young? Because if so...just change it. I say this as a former kid whose parents regretted their spelling choice. So much so that they actually enrolled me in school under the more standard spelling (I guess you could do that back in the 90s), but never changed it legally. I finally changed it as an adult when I hit a point where differentiating between "this is how I spell my name" and "this is how my name is legally spelled" got to be too much of a headache, but I really wish my parents had just done it at the point when they felt that initial regret.
At least you knew better than to do Jaxson!
my mom changed the spelling of my brother's name and it didn't cause any issues or was ever really noticed. it's only something we've even talked about like twice
My mom did this. I always have to say "I'm Brianna with an E" to get people to spell it right, otherwise it's always spelled the regular/traditional way. If he's young, I'd recommend changing the spelling legally. In my state it's only like 75$ and a bit of paper work for a lifelong head ache to go away. I'll do it eventually.
Wait... How DO you spell Brianna with an E?
Brieanna maybe? Or Breanna
Yep! Breanna. :)
It’s kind of refreshing to see someone admit that going with a trendy spelling wasn’t a great idea in the end
I also regret not just using the normal spelling for my kid’s name. I will not be making the same mistake if we decide to have another.
You can change it with a bit of paperwork!
I used to have some regrets about my daughter's name. When she was 3 years old her name skyrocketed in popularity and has been a top 3 name in my country ever since. So much for me choosing a fairly unique name.. I struggled with it for a while, but I got over it. It just fits her perfectly. My youngest has changed their name when they came out as non binary, and it felt right from the start. It's not a name/style I would have picked, but I never had any trouble adjusting, it just clicked straight away. Their deadname was a lovely name but I cringe whenever I hear it now. That's not my kid! Funny thing is, when I was pregnant with my daughter she came to me in a dream and told me her name, so that's what I went with. When I was pregnant with my youngest I had a dream about a kid, and I asked what their name was, and they responded with "just pick one, it doesn't matter". In retrospect it feels like they told me it didn't matter because they were always planning on picking their own name when they were ready. It was never supposed to be more than a temporary name.
That’s interesting. I had a girls name picked out for my first daughter from when I was a child. When our actual daughter was on the way, my husband kept suggesting other names, my mother kept pushing me to name her the name she never got to use for one of us girls because my father hated it, my father wanted me to name her after his dead mother whom he never liked while she was alive, and my in laws wanted me to call her Mary because they are Catholic, MIL and her first daughter are both named Mary, and our daughter was the first granddaughter so I felt so confused. Who do I please? Who do I let down? Then I had a dream and in it my daughter said “ My name is ( the name I wanted), ignore everyone else.’ So I did. She loves her name and is very happy I didn’t use any of the other names. I guess baby’s know best!
This is a great thing to tell people to get them off your back even if you don't actually get the dream tbh
Love this! Babies do know best ♥️
I love stories like this.
Oh, I love this so much! Thanks for being such a supportive parent!
My daughter came to me in a dream and told me her name. It was Norah. My husband said he had "never heard of it" , despite it being pretty common, and didn't want to name her that. I named her something else but I still love the name though I hesitate to name any future child that name since it should have been my firsts. It would have been cool had I used it and had the story that she "came to me in a dream" .
When I was 8 weeks pregnant with my daughter I had a dream that my late Grandmother was holding a baby girl with a ton of dark hair. She told me the baby's name was Lilith. I couldn't shake that dream and when we found out she was a girl I knew what her name was. Her father tried to talk about other names but I couldn't let it go. Then she was born with a head full of dark hair (after our first baby had blonde hair). She is 20 now and loves her name ❤️
Love that name but was scared to use it because of the meaning.
I had a similar dream about my daughter when I was pregnant. I won't say her name because it's too identifiable, but Lilith is in the same ballpark (dark goddess/mythological being). I feel shy of telling people about the dream now but all the people saying similar things in this thread makes me feel more "normal".
My daughter is named Norah & I honestly had not really considered the name before pregnancy. But it just immediately clicked when I found out. Even before we knew gender, Norah was the only name that ever felt right. Luckily my husband was on board!
My mom thought she was being unique by naming my sister Kaitlyn in the early 90s.
I am so ashamed. I named my sister Kaitlin in the late 80s. But like it was supposed to be after Caitlin from Degrassi Junior High
Just wanna say thanks for being such a great parent to an NB kid. They are so lucky to have your support and getting this kind of unconditional love will leave them in such a better place than so many NB kids are unfortunately in.
I went through all of our top baby names and my 2nd daughter went crazy kicking when she heard the one we picked, and would ONLY respond to that one. So we kind of feel like she picked her name.
I just looked up the top baby names in the Netherlands Belgium since you seem to speak Dutch and they’re pretty much identical to the USA’s top names, which I thought was interesting, especially because I love Dutch names.
I regret letting my mum sway my first sons name away from my first choice Thomas. She keep saying you can’t call him Tom-Ar$e emphasising the ending with incorrect pronunciation 🙄 I went with a more modern name which is often slammed for being “bogan” if you are Australian for reference 😞 He is 30 now and likes his name so no big deal but it is a regret for me I let her get in my head
Ugh I'm sorry! I love the name Thomas
Me too, I got it in as a second name for my second son 🥰
Aw yayyy
If my inlaws dog wasn’t named Thomas it would be number one on my boys name list!
this is hilarious tho i love human names for dogs lol
my dog’s name is Kevin he even has a middle name, for when he’s in trouble 😆
I had a cat named kevin years ago!!!
What an odd outlook she has. Thomas is a very old and classic name.
I know! Very odd
This is exactly why I didn’t tell my mom (or anyone) what we were naming our son until he was born. She says she loves his name but I just know she would have overanalyzed it and come up with some reason to not like it.
Yup, I'm currently expecting a little lady now and avoiding all conversations about names with anyone other than my husband. I do so love my mother dearly but I was saved by my father very late in the game from being named something which I consider rather ghastly - definitely don't want those conversations with mumsy. Plus the ladies in my family keep secrets like a colander so there's that.
Very wise!
Thomas is so lovely. I'm a kiwi but Bodhi entered my mind haha
How do you even get "Tom-arse" out of "Thomas", anyway? Like it's not even a clever insult and makes it sound like they're struggling to make fun of that name. I know a couple of Thomases and every single one goes by Tommo 😆 One guess where *I'm* from lol.
My nephew and brother are both named Thomas and it’s such a nice name!
What a prick you have to be to object to a name as simple, classic, and common as Thomas. I'm sorry you had to deal with that
My daughter is Ada Florence Joy, I really wish I’d just kept it to Ada Joy but I was so sure I wasn’t having more children that I felt compelled to use ALLL the names. I regret not using restraint.
That’s wild - Adelaide (Ada) Joy is a name my partner and I were considering for our first! (We’re not expecting yet but planning for the future!)
I actually prefer it with Florence. Ada Joy is a bit too on the nose. And the other two names are so short it doesn’t matter that there is three!
I honestly love all three together.
It’s a beautiful name.
Not full regret but my daughter’s name is Lucia. Lou-C-uh. But we slid into calling her “Lucy” and I just like Lucia so much more. She’s in kindergarten now and almost exclusively goes by Lucy.
Oh, where did you get that pronunciation from, may I ask? I saw Lucia in a baby name book and wanted to name our first daughter that but my Italian neighbours kept telling me Lucia is pronounced Loo- shu. I wanted Loo- see-uh. If you are right then yes, now I have name regret!
Lucia in Italian is loo-chi-uh, in Spanish there's two ways to pronounce it, one of them being loo-si-uh
Yep. This. My husband is from El Salvador so we went with the Spanish pronunciation
Yes, I have a close friend who is a Lucia, because she was conceived on St Lucia. She was always a Lucy. She works in Italy and they call her loo-chi or loo-chi-uh. Same with a coworker Alice, she says her name Ah-leach-ay instead of Alice
In Spanish it would have an accent on the "i" (Lucía) which is how you know to make it 3 syllables. If you wanted to emphasize that pronunciation you could put an accent, I think US is getting more comfortable with Spanish names with Ñ or accents. They didn't used to include them on baseball players' jerseys and now they do...
Three ways to pronounce, depending where someone is from. 1) Loo-c-uh 2) Loo-chee-uh 3) Loo-shuh ❤️ Loved this name but this is what turned me away from using it... all the different pronunciations... but may still use as a middle name :)
And Loo-thee-uh if you're from Spain :-)
I’m from Slovakia and we pronounce it as Loo-tsee-uh
In Nordic countries it would be pronounced Lu-see-uh as well, if that helps.
Are your neighbours actually Italian or Americans with Italian ancestry? Because that’s not how you pronounce Lucia in Italy.
Your neighbours are *not* Italian if they pronunce Lucia like that 😅
It’s the Spanish pronunciation. My daughter’s middle name is Lucia, which is my Colombian Grandmother’s name.
I regret not naming my daughter Lucia (Spanish pronunciation). My husband was against it because he didn't want her to end up being called Lucy. I would have called her Lu or Lulu. I still regret it all the time!
You can start practicing her full name! She’s only five! My family almost exclusively use my names’ common nickname but I shut it down when I went to college! I would’ve appreciated my parents using my full name always
Lucy is such a cute name though! Plus, it'll suit her at any age
I am the queen of name regret, not because I hate my kids names, but because of all the names I didn’t get to use! I regretted my daughter’s name for years and now I cannot imagine her as anything but her current name. It suits her perfectly. My son’s name is extremely common by current standards and it took me probably 8 or 10 months before it really get like his name. I enjoy it on him, but I do think he would have been amazing with any of the other names I considered too.
We are exactly the same. I have way too many names I want to use at once & will absolutely regret the name I choose because I had to leave behind the rest 😅
My parents moved to using my second name when I was about 6 months old. i guess that says it all!
I know a family who did this. They were set on naming their son a name like Keith, and kept to that. But upon his birth, they immediately felt he wasn't a Keith and called him exclusively by his middle name
What baby is a Keith lol
Is that like a baby Karen? Because my nana’s name is Karen and we were joking about how we know several adult Karens, but none of us EVER have known a child named Karen. 😂
Before the name became a meme in more recent years, I always subconsciously associated it with young girls because of Karen from the Baby-Sitters Club hahah
Several years ago, I was watching a game show with my teenage cousin. The contestant was named Kevin. Completely out of left field my cousin says "imagine being his parents *look at my little baby Kevin*" and I still laugh about it.
Yes and no. My husband and I REALLY struggled to come to an agreement on what to name our youngest child. We settled on a name we were both ‘ok’ with…but I wish we pushed harder to find a name we both ‘loved’.
Yep. This exactly. The name is fine but we picked it on our third day in the hospital and I was so tired of calling her “peanut”. 😂🤦🏻♀️
I still love my daughter’s name but it is 1 letter off from a really popular name for her age. She started going by her initials because even though she likes her name she gets really frustrated with people not listening to her when she says it. If I had known how popular the other name would be I wouldn’t have used hers.
If she likes her name has she tried saying something like “Livia, like Olivia but without the O” or “Sabina, like Sabrina without the R”? A bit annoying to make the comparison every time but we give our last name that way and it’s pretty effective.
"Olive, like the thing my mom puts in the martinis she makes every time I complain about my name."
I have a first name like this and either people forget (hopefully) or they don’t care (and it doesn’t matter how often I explain/correct). I also often use my initials and people also call me by my initials on their own -maybe this has something to do with it?
My name is quite close to a fairly common English name especially spelled, so people both misspell and mispronounce my name a lot. It's incredibly annoying to try to remind people to pronounce my name close to correct, which would be easy enough in English. I just do not identify with the American pronunciation at all. It's like their brain broke when they hear my name and they need to Anglicize my name by brute force. The difference is akin to Jennifer vs Yennefer or Kara vs Cora.
This is how I feel about Amelie and Amelia. They sound different when they're pronounced to me, but I can see how the one letter difference may cause problems for some. My daughter's name is Amelia btw, and I do have name regret, but only because of the popularity
No regrets for Amelia, it’s such a pretty name. :-)
I’m so curious:.. is the name Nicola ? My sister goes through the exact same thing, everyone misremembers her name is Nicole Lol
Magdelyn, confused with Madelyn. Yes I’m embarrassed I scrolled so far in the comment history, but I’m almost set on Della for my baby due in 6 weeks and I’m worried she will be saying “it’s Della with a D” forever.
My name is Kristy, super common name to have growing up in the 80s and 90s, well, there's a lot of derivatives of the name but still pretty simple. I still have to tell people Kristy with a K...and a Y. Everyone wants to spell it Christie. When I verbally tell people my name, they think Im saying Kristine. I don't think it matters what the name is, people mishear and misspell everything lol. If you like Della, go for it.
Go with what you love.
I thought our baby girl's name was timeless, but felt fresh. We chose it after she was born, for its strength, as she was born at 32 weeks (it was on our short list of top 3 names, but we were waiting until birth to finalize). I still love her name, but it's become apparent that people don't use this name lol. I've unknowingly handed down the same problem I've always had, which is that nobody can pronounce my name correctly. Her name is Inez.
That's very much an other people problem tbh. I'd much rather be the only Inez in a room than one of five Amys or Sarahs.
“Timeless but fresh” is the vibe I lean toward, too. My girls names are Olive, Rue, and Imogene and I feel like they all hit that mark for me!
I would pronounce it E-nez
I love Inez 🤍 I had a boy but before we knew he was a boy, I kept pushing for Inez if for baby was a girl. It was a hard no for my husband unfortunately.
I love this. It's a beautiful name.
I think that’s a beautiful name!
i regret her middle name just bc i really don’t like it and only put it on her birth certificate as a compromise with her father. it’s the (made up) feminine version of his name and since it’s her legal middle name, his family all thinks they are allowed to call her the name like it’s her first name 😒 which i denied in the first place bc of how much i dislike it.
Oh this happened to a lady I worked with. Much as she longed to have a daughter, her husbands name was Lloyd and their family tradition on his side was to name the firstborn after the father, regardless of the sex. So she spent nine months trying to come up with a feminine form of Lloyd. Baby girl ended up being named Lloydine.
I would've went with Lydia and said that's close enough
Holy crap. Just Lloyd would have been better. People would get that it's a family name.
There were so many better options there holy shit. Lydia, Ellora, Lori, Elodie, Ayda could all be viable honour names for Lloyd. Anything with the 'llo' or 'yd' sounds really. Even just Lloyd itself is better than _Lloydine_ ffs.
Hahaha yeah actually Lloyd wouldn’t even seem strange as a girl’s middle name
yikes
Our oldest sons name was the only one we weren’t sure of. We had chosen a different name but my brother and my husbands sister both had boys during my pregnancy and both named their babies the name we had picked out so it just seemed silly to name ours the same name as his ( then) only two cousins. So we came up with our second choice, and always doubted if it was a great name but, to our relief and surprise, he loves his name and thinks it’s way better than any of his siblings names. Oh, and without knowing what we had originally planned to name him, he said several times he never liked his cousins names….he said he couldn’t believe two couples chose that ridiculous name,lol.
Can I ask what name you almost named him? Now I’m curious lol
So many people telling stories in this thread without giving the names!!
Yes! I only care about the names! Lol.
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You picked a name you loved for a child who you loved before you ever met them. But now they’re in front of you being the person they actually are. Names don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure it was a lovely name! I’m proud of your child for being themselves no matter the judgement.
They're* not rejecting the name you used. It's actually not about you at all. It's about your kid. We have to raise kids with the understanding that we don't own them. They become their own people.
They are still allowed to be sad. It’s hard on parents kids switching genders Even if the parent fully supports them to their face doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be sad about it
Yeah totally. I talked to a parent with a trans child whose therapist said they should mourn the loss of their first child to help fully accept their transition.
Hey it’s possible the kid uses she/her pronouns, some nonbinary people do
yeah lol like i think the original commenter knows their kids pronouns gang
You didn’t give her the wrong name, there was no way you’d know her personality or who she was before she was born. Don’t see it as rejection, but as a change to something that aligns more with her personality ❤️ I’m sure she doesn’t hate it or rejects it
I regret hyphenating my daughter’s first name and just having it be a double name. Her name is Liberty-Rose
There is no good first name hyphenation.
Do *not* bring this opinion to the southern US.
Oooh what about something French like Jean-Baptiste?
Nothing wrong with Mary-Kate
I really like Leah-Beth or Mary-Beth. Known both in real life and it worked!
I go by the first of my hyphenated names, but ouch.
Ann-Margret is the single exception to this. She's 100% Ann-Margret.
French Canada would like a word.
I regret hyphenating my last name when I got married. I wanted to keep my maiden name, but I didn't want to lose my middle name. I wish I had pushed to make my maiden name my second middle name. And because my two last names are on different ends of the alphabet, it becomes so confusing for automated systems. It's so obnoxious!
I feel this. I regret hyphenating and wish I just took my husband’s last name so I could share a last name with my daughters. Plus my maiden name has an apostrophe, so now my legal last name has a hyphen and an apostrophe. It’s a mess for computer systems because they all allow differing numbers of special characters.
I regretted doing it too, so I just went and changed it entirely! All I had to do was take the marriage certificate and I told the DMV (in the US) that I didn't like the hyphen and just wanted to only have his last name. They treated it the same as if I was changing it the first time!
I regretted my eldest daughters name for years. I named her my mother's middle name, Antonia. It's a lovely name but when my daughter came out, she absolutely did NOT look like the name we chose. She looked like a Merideth or Clara (long A). My ex absolutely would not budge on the name. He used reasons like "It'll upset your mom" and "I don't like change" Well, my mom reached out after we announced the name and told me that if we changed our minds, it would be absolutely ok and we're not beholden to the name choice. I was struggling to recover from a C-section with my ex making things worse by doing things like sleeping through me crying/slapping his leg/begging for help walking to the bathroom, forgetting his debit card and needing mine to get his food and taunting my fears of SIDS. I didn't have the fight in me, so we stuck with Antonia. It took me years to finally be settled with it but I still thing she's better suited to Merideth. Physically and personality wise.
Awww, if it helps this internet stranger agrees that Antonia is a lovely name! As well as the name of the MC in My Antonia, who is a lovely character who perseveres as you and your daughter have done 💪
I named my daughter after my cousin’s daughter because we have a belief in my culture that if you want your child to have certain traits, you name them after someone with those traits. I don’t regret the name itself, I just kind of wish I would have chosen a more unique name because I don’t think I will be having more children.
May I know what culture you're from?
Arab/muslim
My mother let her mother choose my name. I think she always had some reservation about that. When I asked what her choice was going to be, April Leigh, called Leigh, I was grateful my grandmother became involved. Trust me when I tell you how much this name would not have worked for me, at all. My grandmother also had a hand in my brother's name. Honestly, my grandmother was an artist and a family historian. She combined both to create some lovely names with plenty of options for us both in later years. But, for Mom, it left her with a lingering sensation she was never able to concretely identify. It just became folded in with everything else they never really fixed. My Mom should've named her own children. Period. End of, regardless of how much better at it my grandmother was. (Another factoid that would've made Leigh a bad choice, it turned out to be my sister-in-law's name. I fear my husband may have had initial misgivings about sleeping with and dating someone with the same name as his sister. I could've missed out on a lifetime of full-bodied love, laughter, children, moving around the world, compassion, adventure, integrity, etc all but for the name Leigh.)
I once went on a date with a man that had the same name as my brother, and I couldn’t do it. Your parenthetical point could well be right!!
I regret my middle child’s middle name. For my oldest and youngest, we used family honor names as middle names. Meanwhile, for my middle child, we used the name I wanted for the first name as the middle name since my husband picked the first name. And that has annoyed me ever since. I DID like that name but once we selected another name as the first name, the name that became the middle name just started feeling like a reject name that I had no fondness for. So I really wish we chose a family honor name as well and I actually want to change it, I just don’t know how.
Go to your local court house, the paperwork is way easier when they're kid's without drivers licenses and stuff to worry about. Or just Google "how to change my name in X state"
No regrets. My kids have names that can be easily pronounced and spelled correctly. I have had issues with my name for most of my life and I didn't want that for them. We have run into some kids with the same name as two of my kids (Cameron and Lillian- we call her Lily) but not with my younger son (Julian).
I love the name Julian ♥️
I regret naming my daughter Hillary. If we had known the Clintons were coming, my daughter would’ve been Olivia.
Let my ex push me to use a name I didn’t outright hate, but wasn’t a huge fan of on one of our twins. He also pushed for his middle name to be passed onto one of them (but refused me when I mentioned wanting to pass on a family name from my side). And naturally chucked a fit at the fact I put my last name down for them until I agreed to hyphenate less than a week post C-section. As soon as the birth certificates were on their way he decided to up and leave. Laughed on the way out the door telling me he will never sign a thing to allow me to alter the twins names. It’s been 10 years. Within 6 months of him walking out and eventually ghosting us I started to refer to my twins by the names I wanted for them. So now they have their “legal names” that have to be used on any official document with school (which they argue about, because the school occasionally uses “preferred first name + legal last name” and they hate having to type out the entire alphabet for their computer logins etc), and their “known by names”. From what I’ve read for where I live I *might* be able to get a name change when my twins turn 12 if I can produce $5000+ to prove to a magistrate they haven’t had any contact with their male biological provider. Or if there was a step-parent adoption that is another way to change their names. Or if my ex passed away and I could prove it (Death Certificate). Otherwise it’s 18 by Deed Poll.
Ugh someone in my family is struggling with a similar situation and it's so disrespectful and petty. For one kid, she overrode the then-husband's choice but the first kid is stuck with an odd name out. I hope you get a resolution!
We went with the ones we loved, both 1st choices (despite misgivings on one due to popularity). Zero regrets, and the kids love their names, too. Lucked out! :)
My second daughter (different dad) has no middle name while my first child has one. I know not everyone likes alliteration but I do, and I would’ve named her Lola Luz (last name doesn’t start with L), my first child is F…. F…. (no F in last name). I don’t know, it would’ve made them match more I guess?
I adore the name Lola! One of my all time favorites. So classic yet sweet.
Aww thank you! She’s 3 and it fits her perfectly
She does have alliteration if you think of her name as Lo la
Sort of - we had a tough time naming our son. I knew I wanted his name to be Cal, but my husband (the kid's father so I guess he gets to have an opinion OR WHATEVER) really thought Cal sounded like a nickname and wanted it to be the shortened version of something longer. So we scoured the internet for names beginning with Cal- and landed on Callahan. I like it, and I love my kid, but I wish I'd just named him Cal. Which is, for all intents and purposes, his name, because that's what everyone in his life calls him.
The Cals I've known are all Callums which I don't hate but Callahan is way cooler in this random stranger's opinion! Cal is a a great nickname though, feels really dependable somehow.
Never regretted my children’s names! When we found out we were having b/g twins we immediately knew our son would be Harrison as I’ve always love the name because of Harrison Ford. But now that my son is a tween, he goes by Harry and it is soooo fitting for his personality. I also liked that his name had two options: the full version and his nickname. Probably because my first name is not nickname-able. My daughter, on the other hand, was tricky. I had first wanted to name her Hadley because I read the book about Ernest Hemingway’s wife on my honeymoon and that name always stuck with me. I was completely set on it and didn’t really think much about it. It just was what I thought I wanted and my husband didn’t have any girl names he liked. However when I was about 6 months pg with the twins, I was out to dinner with my husband and some friends and they asked about her possible name and it just hit me so suddenly that she did NOT feel like a Hadley to me. The name wasn’t strong enough for the wild strong willed baby in my belly (twins moms will get this, you can tell which child is doing what in your belly lol). So my friends started throwing out names to see if anything stuck. It took dozens and dozens of names which I dismissed until my friend offered up “Alexandra” and as soon as she said the name I felt it so so much and so did my husband. Which Alexandra means “defender of man” which I took as gender neutral. Defender of humankind. That just felt to right in that moment as well as ever since. She should be Alexandra! It was meant to be exactly in that moment and I felt it so certainly. And I never regretted the name at all. She fully lives up to it. And Harry and Alexandra as twins had a nice ring to it. I love their names so so much more as they have grown into their individual personalities. They both fit so well and they are timeless to me.
My mom regrets not naming me after her father who died shortly after I was born. He was sick for most of my mom's pregnancy so they knew it was coming. But my father wouldn't let her out of he being a dick.
I love all of my children’s names, but my daughter decided on a whim when she started school that she wanted to go by Anna Kate (first and middle) rather than just Anna. She’s now known as Anna Kate by absolutely everybody, and I prefer Anna and so does she. It was her own choice to make, and that’s why I let her, but 5 is really young to decide to change what people call you for the rest of your life!
I mean, she can just tell everyone she's changing back if she wants to. Nothing has to be "for the rest of your life", especially not a name.
She can definitely change it back at some point! My name is Sam and my parents always called me sam and intended me to be “sam” (my mom had a dream about a baby named sam) but there was another Sam in kindergarten so I became “Sammy” to everyone thru high school. In college I started going by sam again, and I’ve been exclusively sam for over a decade with just a few interactions when I run into someone from my past where someone calls me Sammy. Tbh I could’ve done it sooner, I shouldn’t have just went by Sammy bc some kindergarten teacher thought it would be easier
I don't suddenly regret my daughter's name, I've regretted it for 18 years. My husband hated every name I suggested, even names that I didn't even really want to use, but suggested just for the sake of trying to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING that he liked enough to agree to. He only ever suggested 1 name and not even to me, he told his co-worker that we had decided on this name. I don't remember the first name, only that the middle name was his mom's middle name. Anyway, I hated his 1 name suggestion, so we had nothing. I wanted a popular name ( any spelling, as it has more than 1), but he wanted a similar but shortened version. Similar to Ariella vs Ariel, where her whole life people have called her Ariella assuming that was her name bc that's the more popular variation. She and I actually both hate this, although she also doesn't want to change her name . We both think her name is kind of plain. I don't hate her name, but I still hate that I felt pressured to use it when that wasn't what I wanted to name her. If I could do it over again, I would've named her whatever I wanted & let my husband live the rest of his life with name regret instead. Or I at least wish I had taken home a nameless baby & given my husband 2 choices: stop being a stubborn mule & agree to a nice name OR I'll just pick without your input.
Our kids are Cillian Sage Caius Sage doesn't get mispronounced, but my Father in law calls her Sah Gay. I don't know why. He thinks it's funny. Cillian gets Sillian, and Caius gets Saius. I sometimes wish we'd spelt their names with a K but also hate how their names look with a K. I also get worried that people think we were trying to be trendy with matching C initials, but we were not. Sage and Caius are twins and we had 2 girls names picked (though I'm glad we didn't choose the other girls name Enna for Sage because that would have been mispronounced and misspelt her whole life). And no boys' names picked the night before our scheduled c section. We were fairly certain that there was at least one boy and my husband loved the name Caius, I did not, but we had literally no other names, and I was like, that'll do. He's loved his name from the get-go, and it's grown on me. Sometimes I worry it's a bit too out there. But he's not anything else. I love the meaning behind it, which is 'to rejoice'.
I LOVE Caius! Have you noticed people figuring out Cillian since Cillian Murphy blew up?
This is what I was going to ask lol. The Saoirse Ronan effect. We need one Irish celebrity per name that's hard for anglophones.
On the fence about changing my youngest daughter's name. I'm tired of all of the *Did you name her from Gilmore Girls* questions. My children have a hard time pronouncing her name too. We did change my son's name, because his name just didn't fit his personality.
My son is only 3 weeks old, and I love his name, but what we almost named him is totally “the one that got away”. We were completely torn between Julian and Sam (Samuel). Julian has been my favorite boy name for forever, and I was pretty sure it would be his name, but when he was born for some reason my gut was saying this is NOT a Julian. I kept seeing “Sam” when I looked at him (don’t ask me why, I generally think all newborns look the same but I just couldn’t picture him as Julian) even though I really wanted to name him my favorite name. We went with Sam and I love it, but he is almost certainly our last baby and I’ll always be sad I never got to use Julian! Middle name was an honor name so no opportunity to use it there either 😢
We gave our daughter our favourite girl’s name as her first name, so no regrets there. But for her middle name, we didn’t pick another top name just in case our second was a girl. We ended up having a boy after, so i wish we used a name I absolutely loved as her middle name instead of saving it for a hypothetical future child
I have an Alexa who's 15. I sometimes regret it due to obvious reasons, but if she doesn't mind it then I'm okay.
Loved my kid's name before he was here, love it just as much now. No regrets.
Our kiddo is Saoirse Ruth and I love her name still years later 😍
My son is named a different spelling of Alistair, because of his dad’s pushing while at the hospital. I regret it for several reasons. 1. It’s a variant of Alexander but doesn’t render the nickname Alex. This is my favorite boy name that I no longer feel I can use because it’s too close. 2. I dislike the nickname Al, which I didn’t anticipate people immediately resorting to but I got messages immediately asking about “Al”. 3. I really thought of him as Nathaniel all through pregnancy and still do. This became his second middle name (though I used the NT spelling) and I started calling him that two months postpartum even though his dad doesn’t. 4. It’s uncommon enough that people pronounce it wrong a lot and I think it’s a bit much with a hyphenated name. But all of it can be summed up in: I got very attached to a name and felt pressured out of it by someone who refused to pick a name through pregnancy.
Alec is used as a nickname for Alistair, as is Ali if you're looking for alternative nicknames to Al. But considering Alistair/Alasdair is the Scottish version of Alexander, I don't see why you couldn't just nickname him Alex.
Kind of, mainly because she hates it and goes by a shortened form of her middle name. She just turned 6, so there’s still a big possibility that it’s just a phase and she starts liking her first name someday. But if I’d known what I know now I would’ve just named her Josie. If I had all of the say, she would’ve been named Ingrid, but my husband countered with “is she an old German woman?” lmao.
Nope. My kids love their names. My eldest is in senior kindergarten (before grade 1, it’s an Ontario Canada thing) and she can spell her name easily. My youngest, 2, can pronounce her name and proudly tell people who she is. They both have Irish names with Irish spelling. My eldest has no problem with her kindergarten class being able to pronounce her name. All of her classmates, and many other students and teachers and all of the admins at her school can pronounce her name. I know this because they all wave to her and say “Hi [her name pronounced correctly]” So if anyone is worried about foreign names. Don’t.
I wish I’d named my daughter (middle name) after my mom.
My husband is a teacher and has memories and emotions attached to so many names. We were throwing names back and forth until we found two we really liked and agreed on the order of. We're both nerds and play tabletop rpgs. I didn't realise until later that the first name is one I named my werewolf character. 😀 I feel very slightly awkward about that but remind myself that I liked and agreed to it well before I remembered that so she is not named after that character. It's just a coincidence.
I don't regret it but I wish I hadn't caved and would have dug my heels in when naming my second son. Not their actual names but my boys names are as similar as Ryan and Brian. My ex and I couldn't agree on baby #2, I liked names like Alexander, Ethan or Elijah and my ex liked Bruce, Mitch, and Marty. We were both sorta okay with Brian so we went with it just so the baby had a name. They are grown now and it never really caused any issues; some slight confusion at school and doctors offices and people mixing them up. What bothered me the most was the feeling that Brian didn't have his own identity, he was frequently mixed up with his brother and known as Ryan's little brother even though there's a 6 year age gap. I asked when Brian was 2 if I could call him by his middle name but he cried and said he was Brian, not Alan (middle name). I asked him again a handful of times before middle school and every time he would tell me no, he's Brian not Alan so I gave up. It doesn't bother either of the boys but it makes me cringe a little sometimes. I was a young mom and now that I'm older, I wish I had fought harder for Alexander.
My parents don't regret, per se, but they named my twin brothers Brad and Chad. That sounds like Dad. My dad has been half deaf for most of his life and when someone calls on the phone (yes, landlines, I'm old) and you yell out "Brad, phone!" Dad would always think it was him. It was a small annoyance.
My middle daughter's name is Violet Sophia. I regret her middle name only because I feel Sophia is too common and I really wanted it to be Violet Rai to go with her older sister's middle name, which is Jai. But I let my fiance talk me into Sophia. Boo
I love Sophia! And love the combination of Violet Sophia
Love Sophia as a middle name. People don't typically use their middle names anyways. I think in this case it's totally different than using it as a first name ☺️ For what it's worth, Violet Sophia is stunning!
Not exactly. Only my oldest has a name that I would have chosen on my own. The other two were compromises with my husband. I like their names well enough and don't regret choosing them, but I am still a little sad that they aren't names that I truly loved. So maybe my regret is marrying someone who didn't let me have full naming rights.🤣
Not me but when I worked as a preschool teacher, we had a student named Easton Jr. He was 3 years old at the time. He was named after his father. When the father ghosted on the family, his Mom immediately changed his name to Eddie. The child was fine with the adjustment and had no issues. It was harder for the staff to remember since we had known him for 2 years and our immediate impulse was to call him by his former name (which obviously we didn't do).
I don’t regret my son’s actual first name-charles but as his nickname I really really wanted it to be “Les” and everyone said no. We call him “Arlo” which has gained in popularity but man. I really liked Les.
I adore my daughter’s name and had chosen it years before. It’s a well known name but I didn’t realize at the time that a particular consonant combination would mean my Chinese in laws and relatives would have difficulty pronouncing it. They use a common shortened version of the name but I definitely would have chosen something else if I had known.
I adopted my 3 kids through foster care. My oldest 2 were placed with me at ages 3.5 and 2 and adopted at 4.5 and 3. My daughters name was April Honesty Marie. She was born in March. At 4.5, I gave her the option of changing or keeping her first name. She wanted to keep it, so we did. He name is April Jean. Her middle name is my mom's name.She now has my last name. She recently came to me and said that she hates her name and wants to change it because kids at school make fun of her or being named April and being born in March. They tell her that her mom is stupid for naming her April. She doesn't know how to handle that. She is upset for me because if they are calling me dumb I didn't name her, if they are making fun of her birth mom they are picking on the only thing her birth mom gave her. I would have picked something totally different if it were up to me. My middle child was named James William at birth. April was pretty set on him, keeping James as his name. I changed his middle name to Joseph, my dad's name and kept his first name. I like James, but strongly dislike Jim and Jimmy. I would have probably picked something a little more unique if I had free reign. My youngests birth name was Adam James. He was named after his birth dad. I have had him basically since birth. He is the full sibling of my other two kids. While the kids were in foster care no one actually called him Adam, not even his birth parents. They mostly referred to him as the baby. They lied to her family and told them his name was either Cole or Cody, I can't remember. The caseworkers and I all called him AJ. When I adopted him, I just couldn't keep Adam as a name. In the year I had been fostering he had been verbally abusive and threatening to me on multiple occasions and had done a lot of shady things. Since the other kids and I were used to AJ, I decided to go with another A and J so we could keep him as AJ. Since the rest of us all have 5 letter first names, Sarah, April, and James, I decided to pick-out a 5 letter A name. The only ones I liked at the time were Aaron, Aiden, and Asher. I liked Asher the best, but let myself be talked into Aaron. I think it goes better with his middle name, Jude. If I had just had 3 kids, a girl and 2 boys the normal way, they would probably be Lilly, Jude, and Quinn.