Dear Parents and Prospective Parents on Nameberry.com;
You are embarking on an amazing journey, beginning to bring new life into the world, and the bundle of joy is all your own. You can dress him or her however you choose, feed them according to your dietary ways, and most importantly you are given the responsibility of bestowing your child with a name.
Now how much thought goes into naming a child? Surely, no one (that I have known) draws a name out of a hat and says, “Okay, I guess that is the one!” There is a process. When a parent does name their child, though, the child enters this word with a label all their own. Some may share this label, others may be the only one in the entire world who carry this moniker.
There are three factors that I have found to be involved in the naming process that can take effect on a person’s life down the road:
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The child had no say in their name before they were born. [name_m]How[/name_m] could they? They were not born yet. [name_m]Even[/name_m] so, being given a potential label that you do not care to wear can eventually take a toll on a person’s self-confidence. Essentially, why do parents name their children how they do?
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Society tends to have a cruel ability to label everything that comes into existence. Whether the name is stigmatized or labeled can be based off of race, stereotypes of hearing a name before you meet the person, random TSA selections and so on.
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Finally, a person’s own perception of their name can affect their life. If someone does not like their name because it is too “out there”, this can be detrimental to the idea of embracing individuality. So many people want to hide from their names when they are unconventional, yet by embracing it, they can learn to share their individuality and uniqueness with others.
So, upon discussing this, there does not seem to be any one overarching change to this process to ultimately solve the issue, but I urge you all to work to make progress to help people learn to accept their names, be open to them wanting to change their names, and always support them.
A name is a label, and it can have affect your life if you let it. By teaching your children to embrace this name, we can work toward building up their confidence and reconstructing the concept that individuality is beautiful, just like their names.
Thank you for your time.
[name_f]Jenna[/name_f] Stribling