Crazy Baby Names: 12 Warning Signs

We love to talk about crazy baby names.

And yet, unusual names can be great choices. Really! Plenty of names fall well outside the mainstream. Whether parents are reviving a name all-but-lost, choosing a non-dominant spelling, embracing an unconventional word, or deciding to borrow from another language, plenty of rare names succeed.

Sure, an unusual name might raise a few eyebrows, but most of the time? Even the wildest celebrity baby names – think Aire and RZA and Techno Mechanicus – only sound a little different than what we hear on the average playground.

But can you go too far?  Well, yes.

How do you know if your choice crosses a line – and what line exactly, are you measuring against?

We’ve all heard names that feel over the top.  But defining exactly why they qualify as crazy baby names is a little tougher.

Ultimately, it is a personal decision based on your lifestyle and values.  If you’re a performance artist living in New York or L.A., and all of your friends are in similarly creative fields, chances are that you can blithely violate many of these guidelines – though your parents in Poughkeepsie might not be thrilled.

Now, a disclaimer: most of these rules can also be forgotten when you’re choosing a middle name.

Here are twelve tests that might – might – signal that you’ve gone too far.

CAUTION, YOU MIGHT BE CONSIDERING CRAZY BABY NAMES

12. The name has never appeared in the US Top 1000.

Make no mistake – there are some amazing names that have yet to crack the US Top 1000.  Even more names once appeared, but no longer chart.  Cordelia, anyone?

But if a name has never appeared on the Top 1000 list, it may be unfamiliar to many.  This isn’t a dealbreaker, but it is worth considering – how much patience do you really have for repeating your child’s name?  If saying “No, it isn’t Mason, it’s Macon, like the city in Georgia” will make you batty, then consider this a yellow light.

11. The name has never been given to five children in the US in a single year.

The US Social Security Administration reports every name given to five or more children in a given year.  You can find the data on their website here, or search names at Nancy’s Baby Names.

A name that fails to register in the Social Security data? That’s a name that no one is using, a name that could surprise – or even shock – others.

Or hey, maybe not.  Maybe you’re just at the very start of a trend.  Maybe you’ve found a name that really works, even though no one is using it.  (Writer Rebecca Woolf discussed naming her twin daughters Reverie and Boheme at Girls Gone Child, sisters for Archer and Fable. Her kids are much older now, but she’s still one of my favorite examples of discovering not-names and making them seem surprisingly wearable.)

10. There’s a negative dictionary definition associated with the name.

Let’s be clear: the fact that your mother-in-law knew a mean girl called Sabrina in grade school does not automatically disqualify the name.

Once a name goes mainstream, the meaning is less of a concern.  Mallory means unfortunate, but Family Ties made it a possibility.

But how about bane?  Bane as in burden, as in “bane of my existence.”  Yes, it’s archaic(ish), not something you’d use in everyday conversation.  It sounds great, even with that heavy meaning.

Of course, that’s probably the reason Bane checks off another box farther down the list …

9. The name creates significant gender confusion.

Oh, this is a dicey topic.

We should feel free to name a boy Wren or a girl Elliot. With every passing generation, more names feel truly unisex than was previously true, and that’s a good thing.

Name a daughter Dylan and it’s a non-issue. Lyle works, too, especially in this Lily-Lyla-Delilah moment. Yes to Frankie and Charlie and Stevie, too, for boys or girls, and no question that our sons can be Cary and Robin.

But naming a daughter Matthew? Herman? Calling your son Margaret? Gladys?

It feels a little too much.

8. The string of names is long.  Very, very long.

Uma Thurman went for broke when she named baby number three.  She and French financier Arpad Busson welcomed Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence in 2012.  They call her Luna for short.  If you’re counting, that’s five given names – two more than little George Alexander Louis, future King of England.

Two middles is absolutely fine.  Two middles and a double-barreled surname?  Sure.

More than that?  Maybe.

But probably not.  Sure, there are reasons to go the Uma route, like honoring all three of your great-aunts, or, um, maybe all of your favorite athletes on the championship-winning team …

Or maybe not.

A little bit of restraint isn’t a bad thing.  This is even more true if your child is going to be known by a third or fourth middle, meaning a name that many an official form will unwittingly omit. While we shouldn’t choose our names solely to satisfy bureaucratic requirements, acknowledging the realities of a cumbersome name is a kindness.

7. The name is a foreign import that sounds great in the original – but is tricky to pronounce in English.

Importing a name can be a great way to honor your heritage and find something distinctive for your child. This is especially true when part of your family speakers another language.

But consider this question before you proceed: can the average American English speaker say the name in a way that is pleasing?

Yes, of course. It is lazy and disrespectful to automatically convert unfamiliar names to a mainstream alternative. But it is also foolhardy to choose a name with sounds that cannot be reasonably pronounced by non-native speakers.

This doesn’t mean Niamh – a non-intuitive doesn’t stop us from correctly pronouncing this name. Some names are just plain hard in English because Americans can’t say the ts or the cz sound, or the vowels, as intended.

If your beloved name isn’t the same when said in American English, it might be time to consider a name that crosses over more gracefully.

STOP! YOU’RE PROBABLY CONSIDERING CRAZY BABY NAMES

6. The name is embarrassingly hard to live up to.

Imagine being named Beauty.

Yes, we’ve called our children Grace and Constance for years, and names like Prosper, Mercy, and True fall somewhere between Puritan revival picks and modern virtue names.  But even if such names convey an ideal, it is one ideal – not a general image of flawlessness.

Hyper-masculine names fit into this category, too.  Yes to the Germanic Gunnar, whether he’s a crack shot or no.  But Blade? Rowdy?  Maybe the parents are might be the coolest of the cool, but what if the kiddo ends up a bookworm?

Some of these daring names do go mainstream – Miracle is now in the girls’ Top 1000, and Legend ranks for boys. Maverick is a Top 100 staple. Popularity changes everything.

But there’s no guarantee that your kids, Perfection and Awesome, will spark a trend. What’s it like to bring home a C on the spelling test or get cut from the basketball team when you’re supposed to be Goddess?

5. The name lacks phonetic transparency.

The term “phonetic transparency” is explained by Name Lab here.  While their work focuses on corporate clients and products, it applies to choosing names for human beings, too. A good name should be easily pronounced, based on the spelling.

There’s something to be said for sticking with a standard spelling – in an age of scanning, our eyeballs immediately recognize Michael and Georgia and Madeline.  And yet Madolin and Mykel and Jorja just squeak past – they might cause some confusion, and a whole lot of let-me-spell-it-for-you.  But they’re not unwearable.

But how about Meily?  Is it a respelling of Miley?  Or maybe Maylee?  Or a surname name in the first spot?  Even if it is your maiden name, it is worth considering whether Meily works as a given name.

Likewise, if a respelling is miles away from the expected, it might spell trouble.  Previously spotted on in a forum: Eighmei.  Yes, that’s a complicated respelling of Amy.  Eimee might be okay, but Eighmei? It sorts of strains the eyeballs.

4. The name requires complex punctuation.

K’lee and M’kayla and J’den are in use, and we all sort of understand that they’re actually Kaylee, Makayla, and Jayden.

And yet.

Names like these are often recorded in official records as Klee, Mkayla, and Jden. Some fare better than others. Mkayla seems obvious, but Klee? It’s easy to rhyme it with See and Bee.

Diacritical marks are an even dicier subject.  Ask any French teacher – yup, you have to know the different between grave and aigu, and the circonflexe is not optional.  But here in the US – and online – they’re quite often omitted.  (They’re officially banned in Australia.)  We know how to say Jose and Chloe without the marks, so most names work. Plenty of people use diacritical marks in their names without difficulty. But if it will drive you batty to find that your state won’t include the mark on your child’s birth certificate?  You may want to find another name.

3. It is the name of a fictional villain.

Yes, you can name your baby Anakin.

Just like Maverick or Messiah, as a name becomes more familiar, it also becomes more flexible and wearable.

Some names, though, like Maleficient, feel permanently problematic. Bane is a super villain in the Batman universe.  Both names combine a negative meaning with a memorable bad guy figure. It fits nicely with current trends, but suggests a negative meaning that fiction makes familiar.

Borrow from fiction, of course, but think about the character’s story arc and double check the name’s origin.

2. The name has deep spiritual or cultural significance to others.

This might be one of the most challenging prohibitions, because frankly, we know what we know.  And no one chooses their child’s name with the intent to insult others.

But that’s precisely what has happened.  The two most common examples?  The controversial Cohen, a name reserved for the priesthood in Judaism, and names like Dakota and Cheyenne, taken from Native American tribes.

The line is fuzzy at best. Trinity and Messiah can feel sacrilegious to some; deeply spiritual to others.

Cultural appropriation is an issue, of course. Borrowing names from a less powerful, minority culture can be deeply problematic. But language is slippery, and our connections to cultures and countries isn’t always obvious based on our faces. It’s always worth considering how others may perceive a name – rightly or wrongly.

1. The name connotes evil. Actual, black-hearted evil.

You cannot name your child Hitler.

Another one?  While the sound is lovely and the meaning has aspects beyond the satanic, Lucifer also feels impossibly unwearable – regardless of your personal beliefs or appreciation for the television series.

Happily, the list of truly unthinkable names is brief.  Most choices are more nuanced – bad people and good have answered to George and Elizabeth, Ryan and Laura, and nearly every name in between.

But if you’re choosing a name purely for shock value, a name that will be jaw-droppinlgy controversial from kindergarten to job interviews to fifty years post-mortem, when the name is found on a gravestone?

That’s way beyond the scope of this list.

Do you agree or disagree with this list of crazy baby names warning signs?