A Fifth of Parents Regret their Name Choice

Mumsnet has surveyed 1,000 parents and discovered 18 percent regretted the name they chose for their child. In a quarter of cases, their anguish was caused by the name becoming too popular, with 11 percent realising too late that people could not pronounce or spell their choice correctly. One percent of those admitting to regrets blamed the fact that their chosen name produced an inadvertantly inappropriate or embarrassing acronym.

Only two percent of the unfortunate parents had taken the drastic step of changing their child’s name, despite some admitting their children hated their monikers or that the name had taken on unexpected connotations. That’ll be the kids called Isis, then.

Potential Baby NamesThe reason this caught my attention was that a mum responded to the survey, saying that she regretted calling her daughter Elsa after Frozen was released. I have written extensively about how we named our daughter Elsa a month before that film came out, and it was annoying, but I can’t say I regret calling her Elsa for one minute. I still love the name and I think that it completely suits my daughter. Okay, so it’s not as unusual as it would have been had Disney not stolen it (and they did steal it), but it’s beautiful and I wouldn’t change it. At least we didn’t try to name her after a chocolate spread or a rubbish iPhone app.

Naming a child is a huge responsibility, and there is so much to consider that you may miss something, but I can’t believe there were ten people who didn’t take the time to write down the intended initials and check they didn’t make dodgy words before they rushed out to register the birth.

Telling people the names you rejected is an enlightening experience. We discarded my choice of Delilah, which a number of friends and family members have subsequently told me they would have hated. Would they have had to pretend to like it if we’d gone with that? Or would they have simply asked us “Why? Why? Why?”

(Sorry)

Do you regret the name you chose for your child? Do you wish you had a different name yourself? Let me know in the comments.

 

About bewildereddad 401 Articles
I'm Jim Coulson, a West Yorkshire dad blogger, content writer and radio presenter who loves heading out around Yorkshire with my kids and exploring the best family activities.

1 Comment

  1. I named my firstborn child Krum after the notorious Bulgarian chieftain who lived around 800AD. Krum is an inspiration to me and I wanted my child to be just like his namesake – taking no prisoners, ravaging enemies and instituting laws which ensure state protection to poor Bulgarians. Unfortunately, JK Rowling took the name and gave it to some kid in her Harry Potter stories. Now my kid wants to be associated with some quidditch playing wizard! ARGH!

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