The Difficult Job of Naming a Baby

By the time your child is born, you'll face the inevitable task to give him or her a name. Some parents have thought about the name for a long time, sometimes years before the child was born. For others, the decision is more difficult and a name is not decided upon until the birth certificate has to be turned in.

What exactly causes this decision to be so difficult? Parents usually want a name that defines their baby and his or her heritage. After all, the name the parent picks will be the name the child will have to live with for the rest of his or her life.

For a traditionalist parent, who picks the names of relatives, usually the grandparents, the decision might appear to be easy. However, even this decision can be problematic. Nobody wants to offend a relative by not picking his or her name. Therefore, children of traditionalists sometimes end up with several middle names.

For the rest of the parents, there are plenty of resources available in book as well as online form. Most parents want to find names, which will not subject their children to ridicule among their peers. Some parents play it really save and stick to run of the mill names like Michael, Thomas, Sarah, and the like.

Another group of parents wants to play it save but still give their child a 'hip' name. This group picks names from the top of the baby name lists, or of popular actors/actresses, movie characters, politicians, and the like. The baby boom in Hollywood added new variations to the name game, like Apple, Suri, and Shiloh. Those kids are bound to have children with the same name in their age group.

And lastly, the fourth group of parents wants a unique name for their child. A common name will be spelled differently, which will force the child to spell the name out for the rest of their life. Or a new name will be made up. A New Zealand couple recently decided to name their child '4Real'. However, the government registry due to a technicality rejected the name. Numbers are not allowed in names. Instead of changing their choice to 'ForReal' to avoid the number problem, the couple ended up picking the name 'Superman'. A Chinese couple decided to name their child '@'.