They say that once you choose your child’s name, be it Kaydon or Atticus, Balthasar or Brady, your child becomes that name.
I’m not so sure.
Sometime around 1976, I trotted off to nursery school and discovered I was one of many girls named Amy. And thus was born a life long obsession with names.
My mother’s one and only baby name book – the guide she thumbed through while naming all four of her children – eventually fell apart beneath my grubby mitts.
“Why,” I’d query my long-suffering mother, “didn’t you call me Chantal?”
“Really,” my mother would reply. “Would you really want to be Chantal?”
I would think about it, scan the page again and ask, “How ’bout Chandra?”
At this point she would ship me outside to play. Sometimes I took the book along and rechristened my dolls things like Faustine.
Years later, I found myself having similar conversations with my husband-to-be. “No. We can’t name our kid Caradoc.”
“Maybe Julius?”
“Do we have to talk about this now? Maybe wait until there’s actually a baby to name?”
I kept raising the subject, and eventually we reached The Great Naming Compromise of 2001. We would name our firstborn son after his father (Alexander) and our firstborn daughter after my mother (Clarina).
But it wasn’t quite that easy, not even after the ultrasound tech declared it was a boy.
“What will we call him?” I asked.
“Alex,” my husband replied.
I mulled it over. Name aficionado that I’ve always been, I knew two things: first, Alexander was already a Very Popular choice. (It ranked #15 in 2004, the year our son was born. By last year, Alexander reached #6. And that’s not counting the just-Alexes, the girl-Alexes, or the creatively-spelled-Alexxes and Alyxes.) My husband veto’d Alasdair. (“We’re not Scottish.”) He didn’t even want to consider Evander or Iskander, though I argued that they were quite close.
My fail safe was this: the list of nicknames for Alexander took up a paragraph, even in that old, much-thumbed through baby name book from my youth.
Factor in my husband’s roots – his parents came from Poland not long before he was born – and I figured I could push an unconventional nickname. “Is Alexei the Polish nickname for Alexander?” I asked, innocently.
“I’ll ask my mom,” he replied, but never did. I looked it up, and found Aleksey listed as the Polish nickname.
Done, I thought triumphantly. All over but the spelling. Alexy, maybe? Would that be a good compromise? I thrilled every time an ESPN reporter mentioned a hockey player named Alexei. My husband is a Huge Hockey Fan. Surely, that would sway him.
Our son arrived and two things happened: first, it turns out that you don’t have a second to think about your child’s nickname. Everyone wants to know, pretty much immediately. And if you don’t tell them, they just assume that the most common nickname is the one you’re using.
Second, much to my surprise, my in-laws called their firstborn grandchild Oluš – oh LOOSH. In some parts of Poland, Aleksander might be Aleksy. But in their region? Nope. Loosh was cute, but I couldn’t introduce my kid as Loosh. As for Sasha, another possible diminutive, it was vetoed as unbearably Russian.
Friends also chose Alexander around the same time, with the intention of calling their kiddo Xander.
But somehow we each ended up with an Alex.
I didn’t fuss about it at first. Because Alexander/Alexei/Aleksey/Alexy/Alex had another name in mind: Aly – the name he used for himself as soon as he could talk.
Over the past not-quite-five years, Aly has stuck. He’s aggressively boyish with wild curling hair. The name he chose for himself is simply the right name. And I respect that.
Then I had to register Aly/Alex/Alexei for summer camp. At a loss about what name to put on the form, I asked my son, confident that Alexei would win. He’d chosen Alexei for his hockey jersey, after all.
But this time?
Alex, he said.
My heart broke.
I fetched from camp a few days ago, and when the head counselor called Alex, more than one little head swiveled. My son popped up, along with another little boy.
“We’re both Alex,” said the other boy.
Then they hugged.
“Yeah,” Aly added. “There’s me. And there’s Alex Smith, and Alex Anderson, and this is Alex Jackson. Plus there’s Alex Hunter, but he’s BIG!”
As we left camp, I queried my son. “There are lots of Alexes,” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you sure you want to be Alex? You can be Alexei. You could be Aly. Or we could choose another nickname.”
He looked at me like I had three heads. “No. I’m Alex.”
And so we’ve come full circle. My mother hated her unusual name, I hated my super-common name and my kid? He’s perfectly happy to be one in a crowd.
Years have passed, and I still call him Aly. That might read feminine in some circles, but it hasn’t been an issue. Well, not for that reason, anyhow. Our Muslim neighbors thought I was calling him Ali and did a double-take when they met him.
I’ve read before that kids like having common names, but I’ve never believed it – it was so very opposite my experience. But my husband – who grew up Arthur in a sea of Jasons and Michaels – tends to agree with my mother, a Clarina amongst Marys and Janets.
For a while, Aly’s name remained fluid. But then it settled. He’s Alex to pretty much everyone else on Earth, but at home? He’s still Aly. Plenty of us have names like this – a public-facing one, and an affectionate nickname only for our nearest and dearest.
I didn’t get to choose exactly the name I longed for, but it’s absolutely his name, and I’m content with how well he wears it – even if he’s sometimes one in a crowd.
But when Clio comes home and wants to know why I didn’t name her Madison?
That’s gonna be a tough day.
Marissa, I love the nns Mari and Maris, but I know what you mean – people are so used to hearing Marissa as a given name, but they’re not likely to know too many – so it doesn’t bring up the need.
I love Maris, though …
Roseanna is lovely – and I think she’s on the right side of my three-syllable rule (observed rather than invented!) to not necessarily need a nickname.
Until she comes home with one, of course!
Elisabeth, it might be a difference between boys and girls. It might also be age-specific. At the moment, I think Aly is charmed by the idea of being around so many “big” kids – he’s with 5 and 6 y.o.s in camp. The fact that he shares a name with some of them is yet more proof that he’s one of the crowd.
Emmy Jo, I’m not so sure that we can guess what our kids will want. I’ve written before about living in a huge metro area, with families from all over the world. (We’re on the Maryland side of DC.) If we still lived in the Midwest, I think my attitude towards kids’ names would be less adventurous. (We lived in Pittsburgh when Aly was born. I think it is one of the reasons I hesitated to push for exclusive use of Alexei. All the kids we knew were Charles and Henry, Theodore, Lawrence, Anthony … the classic classics, with a few picks like Jackson and Avery tossed in.)
Allison, I agree – it is ABSURD to think that “everyone” will “always” call Alexander or Iphigenia or Caterina or Bartholomew by his or her full name. Three syllables, maybe. But four? It just isn’t within the rhythm of how Americans speak English. In other languages, maybe – Polish and Italian diminutives actually add sounds and syllables, as do many other languages. So my MIL Grazyna becomes Grazykna; my great-grandmothers Chiara and Sara became Chiarina and Sarita. There was a poster at Yahoo!Answers a while back who insisted that her son was always called by his full name: Oliver-William. Maybe by mom and dad …
In high school, I knew a guy called Michael (didn’t we all?) but he went by Elmo. (Cause really, Mike was taken. And then some.) I had no idea Elmo wasn’t on his birth certificate until I called his house and got a frigid, “There is no one here by that name” from Mrs. Elmo’s Mom. Er – Mrs. Michael’s Mom.
Tau, there are almost enough of us to get tee shirts printed! I’ve heard the Jennifers have a club.
My sister’s name is Alexandra, and she went by just Alexandra for her earliest years. Inevitably somehow it shifted to Alex. She’s currently a rising sophomore in high school and is excited to introduce herself in college as either an Alexi or a Lexi. That’s what I think is so great about longer names – even if everyone else’s name is Elizabeth too you could be a Betsy or a Liza or a Lizzy or a Beth or whatever strikes your fancy and fits you best.
As a Marissa, I haven’t met too many people that share the name since middle school when there were three in my homeroom (but that was all of the Marissas in the grade, oddly enough). I tried to go by Mari for a while sort of due to that but gave it up. Rissa is not an option and Maris doesn’t really sound like a nickname to me.
I am yet another Amy who is obsessed with names. There are four or five on the Baby Name Wizard blog already…
Thanks for sharing your story!
This makes me feel slightly better about sticking with the naming zone my husband and I have agreed upon (“familiar but not too common”).
I’ve been wondering recently if, because I know so many rare names, I should pick ones that NO ONE else seems to be using (like Iolanthe, Leta, Lysander, or Hadrian) instead of the more familiar ones we both like (like Clara, Miriam, Frederick, or Wesley).
Reading this has made me think that my child just MIGHT be happier to be called Clara than Iolanthe, even if Iolanthe is just as pretty in my mind.
I went to interview for a part-time nanny job when I was in college. “His name is Alexander,” his mother began, “and we NEVER call him anything but Alexander.” Emphasis hers, not mine: she actually leaned in and widened her eyes when she said NEV-ER.
Which leads me to believe that people calling him Al or Alex was had already become an unrelenting source of frustration for her. I can’t imagine why anyone would choose a 4-syllable name and then demand no one ever deviate from it. If you’re that opposed to nicknames, why not just call him Brock, Cale, or Gage and be done with it? Little Alexander would be college age by now, and I wonder to this day if his full moniker stuck intact. Anyway, I can’t remember the rest of the interview, I just knew I couldn’t work for someone so rigid.
I have heard that some people really like having popular names, and everyone knows kids never want to stand out or be different. However, it seems like for the most part, people with trendy, conventional names like Jennifer resent their ten-a-penny name status. I read once that the single most common cause of baby name remorse is, “We didn’t know how popular it was.” At one time I worked in a dept store where 4 of the 7 girls who worked behind the Clinique counter were Michelle. True story.
As for myself, there was never more than one other Allison in my entire school, and I appreciated that. Even told my mother so. (My mom swears she wasn’t influenced by Mia Farrow’s character on Peyton Place, but I think she must have been to some degree, even unconsciously.) I doubt my kids will ever appreciate how I ruminated endlessly over their names, taking popularity, perception, alliteration, nicknames, and potential for teasing into account. Seriously, I doubt Spencer will ever even think about it. But I do secretly hope that one day my sweet, beautiful Macy appreciates how hard I had to lobby to save her from her father’s first choice.
He wanted to name her Madison.
Allison, I think Macy will appreciate it. Or I hope Macy will appreciate it. Um, how ’bout I appreciate it? There. That’s a definite!
Still, I’m kind of jealous that your husband even HAD an opinion.
Do not be jealous of husband’s having opinions. It can be horrible sometimes. It tooks us *weeks* and me having a breakdown, then 4 hours of hashing things out to even get a first name for our daughter.
My husband’s girl name preferences run toward the eccentric yet unwieldy while I like classic elegance (which he calls “old lady” and “fusty”). It was very problematic.
A nice point, Sharalyn! It is SO nice to agree, and challenging when your tastes are very far apart.
Ooooo I can’t agree with the comment “everyone knows kids never want to stand out or be different” – I spent a good part of my childhood (through the ages 6-10) lobbying my parents for a more interesting name than Jane. I wanted a name that no one else had. It was a major obsession. I have met several other people with the same childhood experience of wanting a name that stood out more, was more interesting, and different.
P.S. I gave up the parental lobbying at around age 10, but I did start lying to people about my name, telling them I had all sorts of interesting middle names, and spelling my name Jayn for a long time! Cringe! Now I like my name, but it took me until my mid-20s to spell it Jane and be proud of it.
LOL, Jane! I attempted to use the spellings Amee & Amme before giving up and becoming Amy Abigail – A. Abigail – Abby. Only to find that hordes of little girls now share my “uncommon” name. Oh well …
Great post! So far, I haven’t really had any requests for information about Roseanna’s nickname. That’s fine with me, since Mark and I haven’t really come up with one and both call her by her full name. I’m sure sometime in her life that will change and people will begin to call her “Rosie” (which we both hate), but we’ll stave it off as long as possible. I mean, hey, I managed to go through most of my life without a nickname and to this day most people just use my full name.
Oh, and Roseanna’s name was a compromise too, being chosen for Mark’s mother. The bad thing? We’re screwed if we have another girl!
Uh-oh: “Rosie” is probably inevitable. Are you really that averse to it? For what it’s worth, I think it’s sweet and pretty, very appealing.
I’m not fond of Rosie because I’ve known SO MANY of them. My husband doesn’t like it because the only Rosie he’s known was a guy!
Oh, and I think you DID strike a very clever balance for your two children. The deal you struck with Arthur was ingenious, and the nicknames superb. I do hope young Alex discovers the merits of Alexei sooner rather than later though. And I kind of love “Oloosh”!
Maybe it’s largely a difference between boys and girls?
I had a similar experience to yours. In my case my parents chose Elisabeth largely because it has so many nickname options, and I could, like Alex/Alexei/Aly, choose what to be called later in life. Of course I was boring and go by the name in full. I do like my name, but it is very common (read: Elizabeth, top 10 almost always). I like that it’s classic, but wanted my children to have more unusual names. I wonder now if I struck the right balance or pushed the envelope too far? We won’t know for a while yet how they will feel. I already have to correct people “no, it’s not Beatrice” and spell E-U-L-A-L-I-E quite a bit. As a name nerd, it surprises me when people are unfamiliar with names that are so common to my own vocaublary.
And of course I’m desperately trying to strike just the right balance, yet again for #3. That’s surely a while off yet, if at all!
I agree with YouCan’tCallItIt – I had the same thought about it being a boy/girl thing – most of the men I know with unusual names, always wished they had more common names, and most of the women I know with common names, wished they had been given mure unusual ones. I can see that Clarina is an exception here – a woman with an unusual name who wished she’d been given one that fit in more easily. Interesting!