Conversation with a family member recently makes me want to ask for stories to help her decide what she wants to do…
What is it like living with a name “oddity”. Some examples are two middle names, two last names, accents, hyphens, umlauts, nicknames off your middle name, nicknames that aren’t anywhere near your name, capitals in the middle of a name, double names, etc, etc. What are some real world problems you face with a name story like that?
And you don’t have to share the exact name if you want to keep it anonymous, just make something up that fits the same story.
Well that’s quite a list OP -I am thinking you should find many examples.
For me its a very distinctive hyphenated surname. The only one (hyphenated) ever in any school I attended. In elementary school the kids laughed and argued that you just couldn’t have 2 names for a surname. That cemented it well and truly as my identity. I had to ‘fight’ for it.
The name goes back 6 generations, before that the records are confusing.
By middle school it was cool. Even my uncommon first name was abbreviated to a common n/name. I really had to mind my behavior because I was still the only one in the large metropolitan private school. Everyone in the whole school knew me -all teachers. That wasn’t a bad thing. I learned discipline & how it reflected on you -so it was a great incentive to learn disciplined behavior and to be proud of my name. Our first school reunion- it was without saying I was the ‘contact’ for everyone - I had over 200 people to contact. The least responsive answer was -Oh I remember your name and you have long, blonde hair? I did. The other hundred or so all just said ‘Hello what a blast from the past.’ and carried on as if there had been no time lapse of 10-12 years.
By College/University there was another young woman -her Father was a well- know Doctor - I am talking nationally known, for his work. Ironically her given name was the same as my nickname. We were known as the Mandy Double Barrels. We sat in class side by side but have since drifted apart and Mandy changed her surname when she married. Traitor I thought!. There were most likely some others at Uni, but I never knew of anyone else.
Now hyphenated surnames are are 30 %? perhaps in my community. I am still recognized by older people as ‘You were a Smith Jones- weren’t you? same as the other Mandy. I had retained my surname but now I feel less ownership mainly due to cousins wives who have seized upon the ‘distinctive name’, whether still married to my cousins or not, use the name. I think its a natural progression as I become part of my own family after 7 years marriage and first child due that it becomes ‘was’ -an overall amazing experience and I am feeling content as my husband and I choose either his name or make a ‘smooched’ surname for our own family. A great experience. Very dominant in my life until now. Sorry for this’ story of my life’ but it was ‘that’ dominating. Hope you find out what you need. Best wishes.
I’ve gone by my middle name all my life and not only that, but have both of my parents’ last names, no hyphen. I go by [name_f]Catherine[/name_f] which in my husband’s family is shortened to [name_f]Cate[/name_f] and in my family it’s usually my full name or [name_f]Cathy[/name_f], which I love being called more than [name_f]Cate[/name_f]. My first name was something my parents gave me to honor a family member due to pressure from everyone in the family, a family member they weren’t even that close to, which is why [name_f]Catherine[/name_f], my middle name (after my gran) was from day one my name. It’s kind of funny because in school teachers and 60% of my classmates would call me by this first name and then the other friends would call me [name_f]Catherine[/name_f] because they knew it was what I preferred, so basically I went by both… and it worked until in Secondary school my teacher was grading group assignments and she saw that a member of my group had written only [name_f]Catherine[/name_f] Last Names… she couldn’t for the life of her find my name on the class list to place my grade as [name_f]Catherine[/name_f] had been abbreviated to fit on the paper. What a hassle! But really it was quite funny and after that it never happened again.
I grew up in South [name_f]Africa[/name_f], so it’s not like people weren’t/aren’t used to a HUGE variety of names. Traditional Zulu, Afrikaans, English, [name_f]Indian[/name_f], Arabic and names native to other dialects and tribes from the country, as well as names from foreigners’ children such as was my situation, so really the two last name thing didn’t pose a problem at all. Growing up, my best friends were Bj0rk (100% South African), Neh@ and Priy@nka (Of [name_f]Indian[/name_f] family), L!zzy, Yumn@ (Muslim family) and DeW3t (Afrikaans)… so as you can see probably [name_f]Catherine[/name_f] and L!zzy were just too simple and plain.
I guess the only thing that would have made my life easier was not having my first name (a simple change in the order could have worked) and my parents simply having named me [name_f]Catherine[/name_f], the name they really called me. So my advice is to name your child what you will truly call him or her.
I have a slightly different spelling of a very common name – [name_f]Brittani[/name_f]. Growing up, I was one of 3 [name_f]Brittany[/name_f]'s in my class (about 6 by the time I was in HS). While all the others were called “[name_f]Brittany[/name_f] (last initial)” I was “[name_f]Brittani[/name_f] with an i”. Annoying as a child. As an adult, my name is still never right, but I have grown used to it.
I have the most unusal spelling of [name_u]Madison[/name_u] - [name_f]Maddison[/name_f]. I also have the weird spelling of [name_f]Maddy[/name_f] - [name_f]Maddie[/name_f]. People always get the spelling wrong so I would say go with the original spelling if you can.
My sister has a hyphenated first name and the only issue she ever has is that sometimes people leave out the hyphen when writing her name. They still always call her by her whole first name though and she’s never had an issue with people trying to shorten it.
I have a very common Irish O’ last name. The apostrophe and capital letter after it cause no end of problems.
For example, when I applied to college there were several schools for which I had to submit 2- and 3-part applications. One of the schools I applied to contacted me saying they were missing parts of my application, when I knew for certain I had sent everything in on time. It turned out they had filed part of it under O’Lastname and part under OLastname. I checked with the other schools I had applied to and 3/8 of them had done the same thing and lost parts of my application because they couldn’t keep my last name straight.
My parents both go by their middle names, so they were very intentional about selecting first names to be used as first names. My older sister was given a very uncommon name ([name_u]Andree[/name_u]) and has struggled with being called [name_u]Andre[/name_u], [name_u]Andrea[/name_u],etc her whole life. Realizing how burdensome that was just 4 years on, they went in a totally different direction with my name. I was named [name_f]Ashlee[/name_f] in 1986. I was one of 10 in my graduating class. They kept the ee ending from [name_u]Andree[/name_u] for something different, but realized being [name_f]Ashlee[/name_f] C. Or the 3rd/4th one in a class could be just as difficult as being a totally unique name. The spelling has been a challenged my entire life. I just accept it now.
My suggestions- find a middle ground in name choices and don’t get too wild with the spelling. Your child will thank you for having a name that can be spelled, recognised and pronounced. That said, if you love a name that doesn’t fit with that, go for it. It’s your decision.
@wittyusername103 My name is [name_u]Madison[/name_u] and my whole life I have been asked, “is that 2 D’s?”. Apparently, [name_u]Madison[/name_u] is the masculine and [name_f]Maddison[/name_f] is the feminine.
I have a hyphenated last name too, and I don’t even wait for people to ask, you just start spelling it and they follow.
I think now, with all the different spellings of popular names, and all the unusual/unique names, it’s inevitable that you or your child are going to have to spell it for someone. Or everyone. There’s not a name in the world that someone couldn’t butcher or misspell. [name_m]Just[/name_m] find a name you love, love to say, love to spell and go for it.
I have two fairly uncommon surnames, hyphenated to make up my surname. I appreciate the reason behind my mother giving us this surname- I have some half siblings and she wanted us all to have the same surname. She grew up having the same surname as her brothers, but a different surname to her sisters and parents which caused a lot of confusion. Some people even teased her that she was adopted because of it. So it was nice to have the same surname as my mother and siblings growing up.
That’s not to say it hasn’t been a hassle though. People struggle with the spelling of either one so when both are together it’s almost always spelled wrong by others. Also, one ends in ‘ing’ and the other in the ‘lee’ sound and for some reason when read, people tend to make it either ‘…lee-…lee’ or ‘…ing-…ing’. I never quite understood why, but it happens. Whenever they got to my name on a roll-call, teachers or lectures would always pause and then I’d just say my name and that I was there. I was the oldest and I think the surname mission was slightly easier for my younger siblings, in school at least, because it was familiar to the staff by the time they got there. Nowadays, whenever it’s not for an official process, I just tell people the first surname and leave out the second to save the hassle. I look forward to the simpler surname I will have when I get married.
My mom had an accent on her first name that she decided to drop because it always got left out, and wasn’t really necessary anyway.
I think it’s a tricky thing. If there’s a good enough reason behind it, or the name doesn’t make sense without it then it may be worth the potential hassle. If not, I would recommend sticking to the simplest option.
