Our favourite boys name is [name]Lawrence[/name]. If our little bundle is a boy I am 99.99% sure that his name would be [name]Lawrence[/name] [name]Gavin[/name]. [name]Gavin[/name] is my youngest brother’s name. He is 15 and has Down Syndrome. [name]Gavin[/name] has trouble pronouncing some words especially L, S and C sounds. I asked him on the sly to say [name]Lawrence[/name] because I know he won’t tell anyone the name. No matter how hard he tried he didn’t even get close to pronouncing it right. He gets frustrated when people don’t understand what he’s saying so now I’m worried that it’s going to cause problems for him. We are leaning toward the nicknames [name]Law[/name] or [name]Lance[/name]. [name]Gavin[/name] can sort of say [name]Law[/name] and [name]Lance[/name] comes out ance. So at least that’s fairly close and he might feel okay about that.
He can’t say [name]Elizabeth[/name] exactly right, it comes out izabeth but it’s close enough that people know what he’s talking about so it doesn’t bother him. He has no problem saying [name]Annabelle[/name] (which I admit confuses me because it has an L sound too). I have never had to worry about this with our girls names.
I’m worried that maybe we need to rethink our name choice because I don’t want to make things hard for [name]Gavin[/name]. It’s not like with a toddler who will one day grow up and be able to pronounce it properly, he will most likely never be able to pronounce [name]Lawrence[/name]. I don’t just want to think it doesn’t matter because to me it really does matter and if I make the wrong choice I will hate myself for it. [name]Gavin[/name] is a huge part of our lives and he is a very proud uncle.
[name]Do[/name] you think we need to rethink our choice? Is being able to sort of pronounce the nicknames enough?
I know not many Berries are in a situation like ours so it can be hard to understand why it’s such a big deal to me.
I’m not personally, nor have I ever been, in this situation, but I’ve definitely had friends who had to take into consideration pronunciation issues when choosing their children’s names because they came from families in which English wasn’t the predominant language. Not that this is exactly the same, but I can appreciate that it is a challenging situation.
My suggestion is: Is there maybe a special nickname that you can let your brother choose for your little one? Something not etymologically tied to his actual birth name? I was thinking it might be a way to give your brother an extra special connection to the baby. I can totally see how this might not work, but if everyone was into it, it could be a way for you to keep your favorite names and remind your bro know how much he matters to you.
Why don’t you ask [name]Gavin[/name] if he minds? Sounds like he doesn’t mind calling his niece Izabeth. If you don’t mind that [name]Gavin[/name]'s special name for the new little bundle is [name]Ance[/name], maybe he won’t mind either. Or, maybe there’s a special just-for-Uncle-[name]Gavin[/name] nickname the baby could have, like [name]Ren[/name] or [name]Ari[/name] or Stinkbug. (I don’t know, it sounds like the sort of thing many 15-year-old boys would enjoy calling a baby who adores them.)
I think it’s great that you’re considering this. But don’t worry. Regardless of how he pronounces the baby’s name, it sounds like your brother will enjoy being Awesome Uncle [name]Gavin[/name].
I really love the idea of a special nickname for [name]Lawrence[/name] that only Uncle [name]Gavin[/name] uses. That’s incredibly sweet. Maybe you should let him choose the nickname, and then tell everyone else it’s off limits (unless [name]Gavin[/name] doesn’t mind sharing).
I agree with everyone else. Find a nickname that your brother can comfortably pronounce, perhaps something with some of the sounds in [name]Lawrence[/name]. No reason not to name your son [name]Lawrence[/name], and it would be easy enough for your family to get used to an extra nickname. I think things can work out just great for everyone.
Thank you for your fast responses! I really like the idea of [name]Gavin[/name] having his own special nickname for [name]Lawrence[/name]. Plus [name]Gavin[/name] is very fond of nicknames. (He calls me Hotdog because I’m a vegetraian, haha) We weren’t origninally going to find out the sex of the baby but we are having so many arugments about girls names we changed our minds! So we have a scan in 10 days (but who’s counting) and after that if it’s a boy I will talk to [name]Gavin[/name] about nicknames. I will have to talk to my Mum about it too so she knows what [name]Gavin[/name] is going on about if he suddenly starts telling her he gets to choose a name for the baby or something. He like talking about names with me so I think he will enjoy choosing a special nickname. He keeps telling me we should name the baby [name]Merlin[/name] or [name]Hermione[/name], which I must admit are much better options Jimbaly-Jambly which my husband suggested!
