How to name a child? It’s been a while since I’ve done a good opinion post but upon hearing the announcement in the media about Elon Musk and his partner Grimes who have named their newborn son, X Æ A-12. I feel compelled to take to the blog with my two pennies worth about naming children.
This post is an extension if you will, about my problem seeing your children online.
A big responsibility
Naming a child is not a task to take lightly, it is a huge responsibility and my husband and I felt the weight of this responsibility last year when we chose a name for our son.
I spent months noting down names I came across that I liked for boys and girls so that we could have a list to consider before making our shortlist. The brief I followed was traditional but not common or popular.
How to name a child: A checklist
Is the name too cute?
I ask this genuinely because it’s very easy to name children something sweet, forgetting that they stay little for quite a short amount of time in comparison to the rest of their lives.
To be fair I have no idea if X Æ A-12 is cute or not as I don’t even know how it is pronounced.
Will the name be easy to spell?
Sounds silly but if a child struggles to learn to spell their own name, then you’re not making learning to spell or even learning anything, that fun or easy for them.
Is X Æ A-12 easy to spell? I guess it is… kind of? Well for X Æ A-12 certainly but he’s going to have to spell it for everybody else, forever.
Does the name need explaining?
Imagine having to explain your name to every single person you meet or come into contact with. Always.
Sorry X Æ A-12 but you’ll be explaining your name to everybody forever.
Will the name be taken seriously?
Princess Consuela Bananahammock anyone? If people (family, friends, teachers, employers etc.) are likely to get distracted by your child’s name before anything else, that might be cause to reconsider.
Sorry X Æ A-12, I’ve made assumptions about you based wholly on your parents, which is unfair (to you).
In all seriousness, when you name a child it shouldn’t be about making a headline and for a long time it was celebrities who were the main culprits for this. But now social media has opened up the opportunity for a timeline grabbing announcement for Joe Public so really, no child is safe from a bad name.
In fairness though, while there are some genuinely weird names out there given to children that have made most of us gasp at the announcement (Apple, anyone?), some got better after having a bit of time to let the initial shock settle.
I remember when The Beckhams named Brooklyn and honestly the media had a field day. But now that name is fine and relatively normal by comparison to what came after.
So please, I beg of you, think of the goddamn children before you name a child.
Until next time x
