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.
How do you pronounce Alexei for your son?
Great post! My Elijah is three and he goes by Elijah or Lija or Lij but never Eli. (DH has horrible past experience with an Eli.) Anyway, last Sunday Elijah runs up to me after playing some of his friends and he says, “I’m Eli mommy!” Oh no hunny, you’re Elijah. “No I’m Eli. They said I’m Eli!” Who said? “My friends!” And he runs off to play more. This is not good. But two minutes later he announces himself as Axel and by the time we return home he is back to self identifying as Elijah. Crisis averted. It really does make me apprehensive about what he will choose to be called but ultimately it’s his choice.
Now my daughter is Felicity Elizabeth Louise. She is only three months old and with a four syllable name she has more nicknames then she knows what to do with. Most people call her Felicity but she also goes by: Lissy, Lily, Tilly, Tizzy, Indie, Molly, Liss, Fliss, Flitty, and Ruby Lou.
Oh man, when my mom named me back in 1996 Chloe wasn’t even top 100 anywhere.
Now its like the 5th most popular name for girls in many places and I want to die because I still think it’s a gorgeous name but can’t stand how common it is.
Fortunately it isn’t common here in South Africa
This is why I can’t use Alexander as a first name — I don’t want an Alex, and I like too many of the other nicknames to choose just one! I love Alexander though, so I want to use it as a middle name.
I’m going to have the same sort of problem with my daughter though, whom we’re planning on naming Katherine [after my mom, Kathy]. I’d love for her to be Kasia, but I have a cousin Natasha/Tasha. Katya is my second choice, but I fear she’ll end up a Kate.
She can be:
Kitt
Kitty
Attie
Kate
Katy
Ina
Ren
Rennie
Ari
Erie
Nina
Whoops – hit send before I was ready.
Does anyone else have any ideas for nicknames for Paloma?
How ’bout Lola or Polly?
or Dovie since Paloma is Spanish for Dove
Awesome story. I can relate to your angst about trying to find JUST the right name with the right circumstances for optimal nickname capabilities; meaning, the one you want. I still have yet to find that name.
But I think you were successful overall because your child likes his name, and was allowed to call himself what he wants when he wants. Since we can’t predict how our children will like their stand-out or fit-in name, offering them a salad bar of nicknames seems to be the next best thing. I am leaning toward Susanna for this reason, and wishing there were more options for Paloma for the same reason. (I want to call her Lola, but worry that it won’t stick).
Thanks, Kat. And I love your “salad bar” visual.
Great post! I often wonder how Imogen will react to her name as she grows older. I liked being the only one with my name, but no one misspelled Jade or had a hard time figuring it out based on what was written. Having said that, there was a brief moment around age 10 or 11 when I thought it would be nice to go by my much more common middle name. So maybe age/stage in growing up plays a large part in that part of a group vs. unique individual push and pull.
Imogen may not be so ‘easy’ in pronunciation or spelling as Jade, at least here in the states. I don’t get to find out before we have to name #2. I’m not sure I want that information anyway. Right now, all I know for certain is “Immy” is the name of choice for referring to herself because she stumbles through the full-on Imogen. And that’s more than fine for me. Part of the appeal of Imogen is that it has a slew of nicknames and I’m fine if she chooses to go with one or another that isn’t my favorite for a spell. After all, it’s her name. And her super common middle (Lily) is always there as a back-up if that’s what she wishes. I know I’ll never be sad that her name is what it is. I just hope there are enough options for her to feel comfortable and happy with her name too.
As for those who insist on full names, that’s well and good, but rarely practical, even with shorter names. Sure, I do know a James and a David that go by their full names all the time. But most, especially those whose parents insisted on the full name all the time, end up with nicknames in school. My husband’s folks are non-nicknamers. They went with Leigh for their first son (not an odd spelling for a boy in the UK) and that works – no nicknames possible, really. They followed that up with Micheal (yeah, he goes by Mike) and Nigel (which doesn’t really have an obvious nickname, but he’s Nige much of the time among friends). So, short of using a single syllable name, it’s likely your kid will choose to go by a nickname in school whether the parents are thrilled or not… at least that’s what I’ve seen.
Thanks for sharing about Alex/Aly/Alexei’s current nickname preference… it’s definitely something I’ve wondered about for my girl too… In a few years, I imagine we may be in a similar spot.
Great post! I’m kind of the opposite, in that I was given a trendy, modern, misspelled, uncommon name (Channelle) and always hated it. Growing up, there was never any other Chanels (now it’s a little more popular, but still really uncommon, and still considered pretty trashy and strippery).
On the other hand, I am very into the idea of giving my children a classy, classic, old-fashioned, correctly spelled (and intuitively spelled, I hated that I always had to spell my name out!), beautiful name. Even though I know a Rosemary or Beatrix will still be the only one in her class with that name, at least when she grows up she’ll appreciate having a name with class and history…or at least I hope she will.
I hated being the only Corinne. I still hate being Corinne, and desperately want to change it!
Pronunciation issues, spelling issues, nickname issues, the list goes on. My sister went through the same thing as an Aynsley, but my brother will luck out as a Logan.
I hope my kids won’t go through this eventually!
What a great post! I hated being one of a zillion Kates in school, but my sister lamented being the only Amelia. She always told me she wished we could trade names. She thought Katie sounded like a cute popular girl “not at all like you!” Got to love it. I think it just depends on your child. Everyone is different. At least you put a lot of thought into it and gave him the options. And he’s young, he has plenty of time to change his mind!