[name]Do[/name] you avoid names that contain common sounds that children have speech issues with?
Like names with Rs, Ss, Sh, Th, ect?
Names like [name]Aurora[/name] or Shoshanna could end up a real mess!
I wouldn’t worry about it too much, but it is worth considering.
I didn’t really think about it much when I named my daughter, but growing up my sister had a friend named [name]Rory[/name] who had real trouble with R’s. I remember we all felt so sorry for him, as he would try to tell someone his name.
I had never really thought of it until someone mentioned it in a post here! I guess I wouldn’t veto something entirely for it…but I will think of it in the future.
Nope. If my kids have speech problems, we’ll go to speech therapy. It’s not a “change my favourite names, just in case” situation, it’s a “help my kid if they need it, regardless of his/her name”, kind of deal for me.
I’m a speech pathologist, and have worked with kids with this exact problem. I once had a kid with /r/ problems whose name was [name]Archer[/name]. Augh!
That being said, I wouldn’t change my name list based on possible speech problems. In reality, only about 2-5% of school-age children have speech problems. MOST of those will be cleared up with good speech therapy by the time the kid is in 4-5th grade, (unless the child has other issues, such as apraxia, etc.) A child is more predisposed to a speech disorder if a family member also had speech problems.
I occasionally run into the full grown adult with a speech impairment, but this is VERY rare. Also, while most kids I work with are aware of their speech impairment, they usually aren’t overly concerned about it. Speech teasing doesn’t really start until the older elementary grades, and many kids will have their impairment fixed by then.
[name]Hope[/name] that helps!
Good comments, and I’d like to add that my name is [name]Aurora[/name] and I have seven younger siblings. While they couldn’t pronounce it perfectly when they were learning to talk, my name has been one of the first they tried to say. Babies seem to love the repeating round vowels and the R’s, even when the name turns out “Wah-wah” for a while.
My name is [name]Lindsay[/name] and when I was little I had to have my four front baby teeth removed because of the way they had come in. This prevented me from correctly making the “L” sound in my name but eventually I got when I got my teeth back and I love my name. The hard time I had saying it when I was little is nothing but a distant memory to me. [name]Even[/name] when it was going on, I loved my name too much to ever wish it was something else 
So I think everyone will get used to there name, or you could always find a NN for them that is easier to say while they are having the speech problems.
It doesn’t bother me. I figure they’ll grow out of it.
Very interesting! I only know one adult with a lisp and it’s kind of endearing!
I had speech therapy until I was 10 and my name has the dreaded L and R but I never felt self conscious or upset about it so personally I wouldn’t rule a name out.
It is something I consider, some names could be disastrous! I had a friend in high school named [name]Randy[/name], and he couldn’t pronounce his R’s. He was sweet as could be, but his name was [name]Wandy[/name]…
[name]Both[/name] my sister and I had speech impairments as kids. I actually really loved speech therapy though, I remember thinking it was super fun, lol, but I was a dorky kid. I was never teased but I said gwama for the first 10 years of my life.
My grandfather also had a speech impairment that was never corrected. When my mother was naming me, my grandmother begged her not to choose a K name but she loved [name]Kim[/name] and [name]Kim[/name] I became. But my grandpa always called me [name]Tim[/name]. It never bothered me, I always thought it was sorta sweet and special. And funnily enough I married a man named [name]Tim[/name]! I often think of my grandpa when I say my husbands name.
This isn’t something I ever thought about, but it’s something to consider. I wouldn’t discard my favorite names because of a speach problem possibility.
However, there are some names that my sister can’t say to save her life, so I wouldn’t use them! [name]Rodney[/name] and [name]Sidney[/name] become Raw-duh-nee instead of Rawd-nee, and [name]Sydney[/name] becomes Sih-duh-nee instead of [name]Sid[/name]-nee.
- [name]Athena[/name]