When I was born, I was given a family name. My first name is my mothers maiden name.

Yes I got teased and I wish she had not given me a last name for a first name but this is common in the south.

Oh Dear. I'm jumping all over this one. Please, please, please give your child a decent last name, not a trendy or "cool" one. Enough with the "Madison"s! Such "Christian" names precisely are not, of course. The new vapid handles we assign our children, statistically speaking, are symptomatic of a populace bereft of its roots, roots replaced by ... well, best not start
preaching. It could go on for days. I am attaching Gene Weingarten's Excellent article from the Washington Post (Sept. 21, 2003). 3 Cheers for family names, honoring "good lives, well lived"!

Jeez. And people ask me all the time why I don't have any children...

The stress starts before the little suckers are even born.

Diana, people who know you, already know why you don'! have children. And, some of here have been given a big clue!

ok, so I can't type! "don't"..."some of us here..."

If a boy, you could go with the first name on my Father's birth certificate - Male. (Apparently, my grandparent's were still debating the name and the clerk needed to get the form done. Many years later, when my Dad needed a passport, he had to have a judge declare that John was in fact his legal name.)

wow - :-/

Here's another warning against "different" spellings, even common variations on a name. You doom your child and yourself to a lifetime of spelling out their name every time it must be used for business/medical/school purposes and spelled correctly. Somehow I think we get a bit hormonally imbalanced in pregnancy, making us vulnerable to such errors. I know...I was one. :)

I still like my son's name, Geoffrey, but regret I didn't spell it the traditional way, with a "J". He's Geoffrey Armstrong (his grandmonther's maiden name) McXXXXXX. Has a nice Celtic ring to it yes? But no one in the US would think to spell it with a G so anytime we had to give his name to someone so they could write it down or look it up, and any time he does now, he has say, "and that's spelled G-e-o etc". I recall sitting in a pediatrician's office with him years ago and the nurse coming out to call the next patient and calling out, "Godfrey McXXXXXX". :( Ouch. So...think long and hard on those variations...they make a lot of work down the road.

I went to school with a really neat girl, Beth McKenzie.

Be careful of what the initials in a name spell out as well.

The first name my "hippie" friends gave their daughter -- Aurora -- wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't added a middle name of Borealis. And to make it worse, their last name begins with C, so her initials are ABC.

Sometimes you wonder if the parents actually look at their child before naming them. There is an adorable little girl in my daughters' school named Raven. She has red hair, freckles and green eyes. What the heck were these people thinking? If you were fixated on the bird thing wouldn't Robin have been more appropriate?

As far as Madison goes for a girl's name, my friend swears she picked that name for her daughter because she was sure that there was no nickname for it. Of course the entire school calls her daughter Maddy.

My mother, my daughter and I all share the same first name - Bernadette. I've been called Bernie my whole life and so was my Mom. I wanted my daughter to remain Bernadette. But as soon as the kids at school grew up a little, they put two and two together and started calling her Bernie. That digressed to Birdi. I would never have guessed that Bernadette would turn into Birdi. Which only goes to prove that we parents are stupid and we can't predicate what will happen a perfectly beautiful name. Oh well. I hope it doesn't last but if it does its not so bad.

Ani - Bernadette's best friend's name is Anya. Her dad is Swiss and says Onya - the rest of us butcher the name and say Ahnyah. I'll try to do better in the future. Its a beautiful name.

Just because a name may sound unique or different to a person hearing/reading it, doesn't mean that it is that different to a certian culture.
I had a patient whose name was Finnoula. Her parents were Irish, so it wasn't a very uncommon name to them. I've also had a Mufasa, who was born before the Lion King was a movie, and a Ossma, who is of Middle Eastern decent. Precious is a name common in Africa.

People don't want to name their children Adolph because it sounds old, and Hitler killed millons of people. Betty (and Fred for that matter) makes me think of Betty Rubble from the Fintstones or of a 1950's housewife. Other more "traditonal" names sound old today.

Childern are still teased with common names. My dad's cousin was named Patty and they used to sing, "Fatty Patty two by four, couldn't fit through the bathroom door, so she piddled on the floor."

Having a baby is the ultimate celebration of one's slef. Look at how many Jouniors, there are. Giving your child a name that not many others have is a way of making them feel like an individual.

Naming your child after a relative doesn't mean that they will have a childhood free from ridicule. My husband wanted to name a son Hans Henirich Christian Conrad Ehrig after his great-great grandfather. I said no, so now the dog has that name (big name, small schnauzer).

Every one has different taste when it comes to clothing, food, and vacation destionations. The same thing with names.
Don't criticize someone because they like Madison. Who knows, they might hate your name!

Sorry Diana...

It's OK wow.
I went back and re-read my post. It DID sound a little cranky. ;)

I guess I was just amazed at the tempest this poor lady stirred up when she asked for a little name help.

One thing you always get on here is a LARGE variety of opinions.

Let's play with statistics for a moment. Sure not that many people are named Fred -- more are named Frederick. Not many are named Betty, neither was my aunt Betty, the name on her birth certificate is Elizabeth.

On time in college I went to a sandwich shop with 2 friends. All of our names end in y (the traditional spelling). When the counter person asked for our names, every time she spelled them with a final i. Then I noticed her name tag: Wendi.

Islandmom, how about Sandy (not SanDeE*). It will remind you of the beach, most people can spell it, and she shouldn't get teased more than the other kids.

ncgrrl,
My Mother's name is Sandra and is called Sandy. I've gone to the beach with my mom since I was born. Love the beach and I love my mom!

To find out if a name is "unique" or just "trendy", the best site to visit is the Social Security one. Type in the name and it tells you how it's rated in popularity. So, "Madison" was #133 in 1991 but #2 for 2001 and 2002. A name that is creeping up the listing but not quite top ten will probably make it there eventually; avoiding such names may help your child from being one of many Emma's or Zoe's in her class:

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

I'm sorry, but a lot of the female names I see mentioned here sound like stripper names! I would never name my little girl something that would suggest that.

Following Pisces - And it's interesting to note that the database does not list homonyms - each name is ranked separately based on spelling. I suspect that the fourteen (count 'em!) variations of Katelyn, if combined, would easily be #1 by now... I have a friend who just had a little Caitlyn, and I can just see her elementary school class now, with four Catelin/Kaitlyn/Catelyn/Caitlyns all spelling their name differently!!

...and Amen to Suzanne. So many names these days fail the Presidential/Little old Lady test (can you see a 90-year-old woman named "Britney"? I can't!