Monday, May 14, 2012

Have some baby-name TACT, for goodness sake!

All over the web today I am reading about how the top names of 2011 list has been released. Every Facebook page that has posted it has posed questions to the readers like, "Was your child's name in the top 10?" or "What do you think about the names that made the list?". I responded to a few of them, but had to stop reading others' responses because, quite frankly, they irk me! I can't believe how some people can sit there and say things like, "(insert name here), EWWWWW!" or "Parents who name their kids something 'unique' are just going to have kids who grow up and change their name.". Really? I understand saying you don't like something, but it can be done in a much more tactful way. I wonder how these same people would feel if it was their child's name getting the "EWWW"...? I try to think about these things before I even open my mouth when it comes to opinions about baby names. Even if you don't personally like the name, you have to remember that to someone it is not JUST a name. It is their child. They think the name and everything their child is and does IS that name to them. I also cannot stand when people describe names as "out there". To me that implies that the name is bad, or at best NOT good. Personally my kids' names have not ever been on the top names list in my lifetime. My son's name made it at # 662 for 2011. Definitely not trendy, but I like that. My daughter's name doesn't even have a rank on the list, but it is a name I discovered while researching my family history. It's too bad people don't think about where names come from though before labeling them as "weird".

If you are curious about name rankings for 2011 and/or where your child's name falls (or doesn't fall) on the list, you can view it here on Nameberry.
http://nameberry.com/search/popular_names

1 comment:

  1. Well said. I find it interesting too, that some of the most popular on the list were on a "most annoying" list a week or so ago. Who thought it was ok to decide that a child's name is annnoying?

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