In Defense of Unique Baby Names

Unique baby names are more popular than ever these days, and not just among celebrities. Many parents want their child to have a name that is either totally unique or has a strange spelling, like naming your girl Madicyn instead of Madison.

A recent reader rant on the New York Times blog raised the issue of whether the explosion in unique baby names is a good thing. The writer's half-joking, half-serious post decried unusually-spelled names and suggested that parents choose normal names for their children.

Since I am strongly pro-weird baby names, I must present the other point of view.

Opposition to unique baby names: It's because of personalized keychains!
A recent Facebook discussion on the NYT article elicited the expected response: Most people oppose unique baby names. Their reasons vary, but surprisingly, the one that came up the most is that boys and girls with strange names won't be able to find personalized keychains or glitter pencils with their names on them in a gift shop.

No, really! This is a major issue to some people. Lots of people with unusually-spelled names commented on the post, recalling how disappointed they were as kids when they couldn't find an "Amie" or "Teal" pencil at the store.

To me, this is a really silly reason. Besides, don't we have the technology to make personalized pencils and keychains these days? Surely by the time your son Plastic or your daughter Cynamon is old enough to want a pencil that displays his or her name, we'll have a machine that can make one for them, don't you think?

Unique baby names: Advantages
There are definite advantages to having a weird name. People never forget it. Freds and Wendys may be anonymous in large groups of people, but Parvati and Trenyce are memorable. Standing out in any way can be a very important advantage in places like university classes, which can have a few hundred students.

A unique name - if it's an appealing one - helps in any popularity contest. Would Fantasia have won American Idol if her name was Sally? Perhaps. But I'm guessing the name helped a little. Then again, having a unique name didn't help Sanjaya, so it's not a foolproof plan.

Unique baby names: What if the kids get picked on?
The only "real" argument I've heard against giving your children unique names is that it may cause them to be picked on at school, which could cause their academic performance to suffer. Or just cause them lots of social headaches.

I'm sensitive to the issue of bullying but I'm not buying this argument. I know plenty of Mikes who were bullied and teased. Kids are going to make fun of each other no matter what the reason. Being teased for having a silly name is actually preferable to a lot of other things kids can be teased about.

In fact, since so many kids have unique names these days, I'm not sure a unique name is even grounds for being picked on anymore.

Some people used to think that strange names would hamper people trying to get a reputable job because they wouldn't be taken seriously. But that theory was pretty much smashed when a guy named Barack was elected leader of the free world.

In this era, if I was a little boy named Michael, I'd be jealous of my unique-name-having peers.

Unique baby names: Summary
The real reason most people oppose unique baby names is simply the curmudgeony old man argument: "That's not how we did it in my day!" When you have to resort to that, your argument is pretty weak.

So go ahead and bring another Michael or Kimberly into the world. If I have a son and daughter, I'm naming them Box and Pineapple.

Unique baby names: Sources
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/complaint-box-brittney-brittny-brittneigh/