The nicknames we stick with

My name doesn't easily lend itself to a nickname. There is not an acceptable short form for the name "Lauren," so my parents and family members often came up with other nicknames for me. Some of these - true to nickname form - were shorter versions, while others - somewhat inexplicably - were longer than my original name.

My husband, however, happily goes by the shortened version of his name. And when he and I sat down to think of children's names before having our son, we did consider the power of the natural nickname.

We eventually settled on a name that doesn't lend itself to any easy nickname, so we often end up calling our son by other monikers. "Buddy," and "Dude" are the most common when we are in public. (I have special names for him that I try not to call him in front of others lest I cause embarrassment.)

I never really thought about the source of those catch-all nicknames until I read through this recent piece on guy nicknames. I suppose I always knew they had to come from somewhere, but I hadn't realized that "Dude" is more than 300 years old.

As my son gets older I do wonder if there will be a time when he asks for us to start using an adapted version of his name, or to stop using various nicknames for him. Perhaps it will happen during his teen years, when he is trying to form his own identity. I am OK with that, even though I am bound to mess up and still call him a special nickname from time-to-time. Maybe as long as I don't do it in front of his friends, he'll let me carry on using them.

Does your child have a special nickname? Talk about it in the comments.

A baby by any other name...

A friend of mine was telling his parents that he and his wife were expecting a baby boy. And when my friend told his parents their first choice as a baby name, he said his father looked him straight in the eye and said "Nope. What's your second choice?"

My friend and his wife named their son by that name anyway, and everyone got over the incident, but this story has stuck with me.

To my parents' credit, if any of them ever had a wayward thought about the name my husband and I chose for our son, they never vocalized it. I don't even recall them trying to provide suggestions for baby names. And for all of that, I am very grateful, as some grandparents believe they should be consulted on their grandchild's name.

I am not sure of the full context of those feelings - if they have to do with family traditions or something else - but I know that most parents struggle with finding the "right" name for their child. That is one of those first big decisions that remind you that you are making choices for someone else's life.

So, it is probably for the best that the choice remains between the parents.

I do understand another portion of that study, though, that discusses how some grandparents have to get used to unusual baby names. I have often looked at the roster of my son's classroom and thought how nice it is to see so many creative names and then wonder if anyone names their children "Mary" and "Joseph" anymore. (Maybe they still do that in the Catholic schools like the one I attended; there were a lot of Marys and Joes in my class.)

I have asked my son if he liked his name and he responded that he did. I then made the mistake of asking him what he would change his name to, if he could have the choice of any name in the world.

He responded, "Kitten Man," and ran off.

So, there you go.

Do you wish you had more or less input from relatives when deciding on your baby's name? Tell me the tale in the comments. 

Change of heart over a name

A friend of mine is going to give birth to a boy in just a few weeks, and she has no idea what she would like to name her baby.

"Do you have a short list of names that you like?" I asked her.

"Sort of," she said. "I'm kind of hoping to get some inspiration when I see him."

Although my husband and I had our son's name picked out before we went in for the first sonogram, I can understand the pressure: Picking out a name for your child is hard. There are so many questions: What if other people have trouble pronouncing it? Or spelling it? Or what if you accidentally pick a name that is suddenly wildly popular and your child ends up in a class with three other children with the same name?

But all of the trepidation around baby naming is good practice for parenting in general: You go with your gut, and you sometimes still get things wrong.

How wrong? Well, it turns out that one-fifth of UK parents regret the name they chose for their child. The good news is that there is a way to fix that. I am often reminded of my classmate in eighth grade who asked his parents if he could change his name for his birthday (and was granted his wish). Or of all those classmates who I realized went by their middle names when their full names were announced at graduation.

People's preferences change. The important part about baby naming is still the same: Go with your gut.

If you could have changed your name when you were younger, what would you have changed it to? Tell me in the comments.

Maybe you should avoid those unique baby names

I have a few friends who are expecting babies right now. And one of the things that I love is hearing their criteria for choosing a baby name.

Every parent has their set of criteria for narrowing down the thousands of baby names out there to find the one perfect name: Some parents like to pass on a family name, others want to make sure they aren't repeating a family name, others are looking for a name that is completely different from any other name that they've heard before, and some fall in love with the name of a city or a street sign and go with that.

I don't see many people passing on family names anymore (at least not as first names) and this may be why my son's Kindergarten class doesn't have a single William, Anna or Henry in it.

But maybe parents should rethink those names, as a study by MooseRoots.com has found that most geniuses have a common name: John, Mary, Robert and Elizabeth all took the top spots on the survey.

Does a name denote genius? No. Of course not.

But it is something else to think about when narrowing down that baby list.

What was your criteria for naming your child? Share your guidelines in the comments.

My child is really special (to me)

My son is building a pirate ship behind me right now. Along with the construction work to create the perfect pirate vessel, he is telling me about the various adventures we are going to have once on board. There will be buried treasure, sword fighting and a daring rescue of trapped monkeys. Listening to the way his mind works is a privilege for me. In short, my son is one of the most amazing people I've ever met.

But, that is mostly because he is mine.

Don't get me wrong: I like other people's children. I love watching my niece's fearlessness when it comes to trying something new; I am the Mom who will happily accept hugs from my son's classmates, help them with their sweatshirts and celebrate their differences.

I know that my son isn't perfect. And I think it is OK to admit that.

Other parents, however, have trouble admitting that their children are anything but awesome. And it is for those parents that the Parental Overvaluation Scale was created. This very real, very useful test demonstrates the extent a parent feels that their child is more special than other children.

The test (you should click on that link - it is worth a read) goes so far as to invent facts and ask parents if their child knows about them. Parents who over-evaluate their children will claim that their child knows all about those made-up subjects.

Researchers took this test one step further and correlated parent's own narcissism and determined that the children of those parents were more likely to have unique names.

Maybe some parents need a wake up call. 

Do you have a child prodigy on your hands or just a normal healthy child? Share with me in the comments.

September edition of the name game

On August 12, my mom sent me a seemingly random text message that said:
I named you after Lauren Bacall. Cool. Babe.

First of all, can we just pause here to recognize how suave my Mom is? She's a pretty crafty chick and an amazing woman. You should check her out.

(Also: my dad says that he named me after Lauren Hutton, but that info isn't really going to do this post any good, so let's move on.) 

The text seemed random to me, because I don't pay much attention to the news and didn't know that the actress had died. When I learned that info a few hours later, I felt a little sad and started reading more about the life of that "cool babe."

And that's when I learned that Lauren Bacall's real name was Betty.

All of this is really just another excuse for us to talk about names again and how much influence they have over our lives. This piece by The Atlantic does a nice job of conglomerating multiple studies on names - from how they influence others' perceptions of us to how we like things that with names similar to our own (yes, really).

It made me wonder if my life would have been different had I been named Betty. I don't know if I could have pulled off being a Betty. Not that there is anything wrong with that name, but Bettys require a certain level of sauciness that I associate with Archie cartoons, Betty Boop's shimmy and a svelte Jurassic-era next door neighbor. That image doesn't gel with my pigtails-on-the-weekend mom lifestyle.

If you could rename yourself tomorrow (without all the government paperwork) what name would you choose? Tell me in the comments.