• Wed, Aug 29 - 5:44 pm ET

STFU Parents: How Parents Choose Their Baby’s Name, According To Facebook

Today it was announced that Isabella and Jayden are the most popular baby names in New York City for the third year in a row, which got me thinking once again about the baby name decision-making process. Parents tend to go for names that are unique (or sometimes yooneekly spelled), and they’re often fairly protective of them. Those names are a reflection of who the parents are, or who they want their children to be, or even just a reflection of their “taste” in something.

For instance, many of the parents who have chosen the name “Isabella” for their babies are no doubt Twilight fans who plan to call their daughters “Bella.” It’s a personal and momentous decision that I’m somewhat fascinated with, if only because so many parents give their kids such stupid names. Years ago, it was popular to give a child a traditional family name, but today, baby naming is more of an expression of self. And sometimes, those expressions make me wonder what the parents were thinking. Let’s take a look at some of the latest examples to hit my inbox.

1. Namesake

 

I don’t really have anything against strippers, or the name Savannah, but I do wonder why Judy wrote this confession on Facebook. Does she want people to start associating her daughter with stripping, or is she just tossing out fun facts? “Savannah is named after a stripper. My pet turtle is named after my great-grandmother Maude. Oh, and I had a chili dog for lunch.”

1 2 3 4 5 6 next  next
Share This Post:
Related Topics: Childrearing • • • •
← Older Comments
  • Finn

    Niamh is the original spelling of Neavh. It’s Irish :)

  • Finny

    Caitlin and Kathleen aren’t the same names at all. Caitlin is more derived from Cochleen and has older Welsh origins.

  • Boodeenie

    I’m pretty sure that “Neavh” is a variation of the Gaelic name “Niamh” which is pronounced like “Neeve”, and not the horrible American name Nevaeh.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=503414837 Cat Conlon

    Neavh should be spelled Niamh (mh is a v sound) It’s a traditional Irish name. Very common.

  • http://www.facebook.com/skyebellematilda.brand Skye Belle Matilda Brand

    The Neve one may have been confused with the traditional Welsh spelling Niamh?

  • Guest

    My daughter is Sheldyn. I’m not illiterate, but it was to feminize the name also.

  • Guest

    My daughter is Sheldyn. I’m not illiterate, but it was to feminize the name also.

  • Ashley Wilson

    Meh, calling the baby by it’s name actually can be a good thing. It helps you get used to it and see if there are going to be problems with it (eg mispronouncing it once and discovering a terrible nickname or it’s too close to someone elses name). It creates a firewall before that name is legal, plus beats having to constantly use pronouns. But signing that kids name, especially before it’s born: F’ing creepy. Got a thank you card for a baby shower gift a few years ago and it was all about how she (the unborn baby) was looking forward to meeting me and having me teach her things. Weird. Fortunately I was friends with the father and not the mother (who wrote the thank you cards) and he absolutely wasn’t offended when I told him how stupid that was, rolled his eyes and completely agreed.

  • Leigha7

    Yeah, Indigo seems fine to me. I think it’s just because I’ve read a couple books with an Indigo in them, though. And Indie is cute.

    It took me a couple tries to even be able to read Pyrus right. Then all I could think of was Papyrus.

  • Leigha7

    All of those names are perfectly fine on their own (although I don’t much care for Fern, and Hazel sounds like a girl’s name to me), but I don’t like the idea of theme-naming the whole family. One flower name, cute. A whole “garden” full? It just seems like you’re asking people to make fun of them.

    Lily and Heather could probably work together, since “flower” isn’t likely to be people’s first thought when they see the name Heather.

  • Leigha7

    I kind of wonder if they didn’t choose that particular spelling of Niamh because of the Nevaeh trend, but I agree, it’s definitely supposed to be Niamh.

  • Leigha7

    Like Michael Swaim, from Cracked? If it’s a surname from their own family, alright, but otherwise…strange.

  • Leigha7

    “Scrabble names” reminds me of the kind of names online games generate as suggestions. They somehow manage to cram a half dozen z’s and x’s into it, and I have no idea how you’d pronounce half of them.

    Maybe…maybe some parents use those to come up with their kids’ names?

  • Leigha7

    TOTALLY see that all the time with Gaelic names. I’ve seen it with other foreign (from a US perspective) names as well, but Irish names are trendy so it’s more common. It’s like people refuse to believe other countries, with their own languages, have different traditional names.

  • Leigha7

    I’ve met a Rayleen (no idea how it’s spelled, just realized that).

  • Leigha7

    I don’t think it’s creepy, and I agree with what Ashley said about it helping you make sure it’s right (plus it beats calling it “Peanut” for months), but I do think it has the unfortunate downside of potentially making it even more devastating should anything go wrong.

  • http://www.facebook.com/natalie.wmyer Natalie Wmyer

    The Neavh name is a twisted Anglicization of the Irish name Niamh. I’ve seen it spelled Niav, Neve, Neeve, etc. but not that way. Neeve is probably the best phonetic spelling if you want to go that way. It’s hard with Irish names that aren’t already Anglicized. If you go with the Irish spelling, you get hideous mispronounciations (FYI to parents–the name Caitlin isn’t pronounced Kayte-Lin–it’s the Irish spelling of Kathleen), and if you go with the Anglicized spelling, it’s often ugly looking.

  • http://www.facebook.com/mary.renee.reuter Mary Renee Reuter

    Saphfyre spelled that way was a contestant on Flava of Love. I think. Just saying.

  • Killian

    Just FYI on the “Neamh”. IF the family was Irish, it would make perfect sense. The letter combination ‘mh’ in Gaelic is pronounced as a ‘v’. The traditional spelling of the name is Niamh, pronounced “Neev”.

    While I get that people being trendy or “yooneek” is annoying and stupid, please understand that SOME people do choose names from their ethnic heritage to honor their families.

  • Edify

    Sometimes I wish that you’d do just a little more research. Neeve is the variation of Irish name Niamh. It’s not made up, it’s just not from your culture. It’s possible that they have Irish heritage.

← Older Comments