To not use proper spellings when naming your child

I can go one better. When Dd was a baby I used to go to our brilliant sure start centre. One of the workers was talking to a new family who had arrived with their baby girl Amy Beau. The lovely worker Kris said hello Amy Beau (pronounced Bow) and the dad said no it's Amy Bew like Beautiful. The worker just made a 😳 face at me over their shoulders. The worker was known as Kris but was actually a Krystall who often wondered if her mum was still on the gas and air when she chose that spelling.

Harper isn't a nice name. As a first name, it's ugly, and sounds like a surname. You must be the first person ever to describe the Beckhams as upper-class. It was chavvy the moment they chose it for their daughter! I think it's a pity that girls are called things like Harper and Piper when there are so many much prettier names. They sound like the surnames of young men in the Armed Forces.

"Piper! Polish those boots!"
"Harper! Drop and give me fifty!"

😂

The upper classes have their own idiotic names that they've used for a long time and haven't really filtered down to the masses, like Lettice and Araminta. Just as stupid as Neveah and Chavon, imo.

What???
Where? Not in Ireland for sure.

Romelu Lukaku is a cool name. It's in a totally different league from the others.

Oooh! I have a friend called Anna! So that's English covered. What are the others? Russian, presumably? (Anna Karenina, Anna Netrebko). Italian? French?

The Freakonomics thing is more complex than that though.

It points out how upper classes aren't held to the same rules. And this doesn't affect their education.

Indeed there's a pattern of the upper classes adopting a weird name, it being copied becoming popular and then becoming regarded as unspeakably awful by the middle classes in the UK. Best example I can think of off the top of my head is 'Harper'.

In 2011 43 girls were born with the name. Then a certain Beckham had a daughter, and just a few years later in 2018 over 1500 girls were named Harper and in 2023 it was the 22nd most popular name. Normally names gradually increase in popularity and you can see a general trend. Harper is unusual because it came from nowhere and no one saw it's popularity coming.

It's actually a nice name, which doesn't have a crazy spelling - and that's why it's gone nuts. But it'll be regarded as chavvy soon enough due to the above association.

Going back to Freakonomics, it says an unusual name CAN be a hindrance but it can also be to your advantage too. The CV with the unusual name to make it stand out from the crowd and is memorable. It's a really fine line between getting it spot on (which arguably Harper did) and just being plain weird.

The whole argument is a complex one and it's not as straightforward as many make out.

Freakonomics also argue about causation and correlation. Lots. Lots and lots. The point about causation and correlation is one of Freakonomics core repeated points but it never fails to amaze me how many people miss this.

Low attaining parents are in a different cultural bubble and are more likely to have low attaining children cos genetics. You can't discount this.

There's a whole host of things about how a name can inspire and perhaps unwittingly influence someone too.

Then there's the psychology of having a dull as fuck name and becoming the wallpaper (and how you might kick back against that when you have your own children)

You have to read what they say on names multiple times - some of it is really contradictory.

(Guess who read it a lot about names whilst pregnant... It hit me just how significant a name is. It's not just a name - it potentially is a gift/curse.)

Made me think of Romelu Lukaku (plays for Napoli)

His first name is a portmanteau of his dad (also a footballer)'s three names - Roger Menama Lukaku.

Wondered if there will be a load of Belgian/ Scouse/Neapolitan kids running around now called Romelu! I think it's a cool name actually it sounds a bit like Romulus the Rome wolf boy.

In my parents generation it was common to have a Gaelic or Scots first name, then English middle name, often a direct translation, not always obvious. So my father was, eg. Iain John X. He had two equal parallel identities, and he switched between them at will, Iain X at home in Scotland, John X out in the world. Documents could be in either or both.

In these days of security paranoia we're pinned to one formal identity for pretty much all administrative purposes. No more flexibility. So I do a lot of (hopefully invisible) wincing at pronounciation and spelling attempts, and offer up a nickname instead.

Oooh, you've started me off with my war against the lack of hypens these days! Are you American? I read "pre-warn" as "prawn" since it didn't have a dash!

The Freakonomics thing is more complex than that though.

It points out how upper classes aren't held to the same rules. And this doesn't affect their education.

Indeed there's a pattern of the upper classes adopting a weird name, it being copied becoming popular and then becoming regarded as unspeakably awful by the middle classes in the UK. Best example I can think of off the top of my head is 'Harper'.

In 2011 43 girls were born with the name. Then a certain Beckham had a daughter, and just a few years later in 2018 over 1500 girls were named Harper and in 2023 it was the 22nd most popular name. Normally names gradually increase in popularity and you can see a general trend. Harper is unusual because it came from nowhere and no one saw it's popularity coming.

It's actually a nice name, which doesn't have a crazy spelling - and that's why it's gone nuts. But it'll be regarded as chavvy soon enough due to the above association.

Going back to Freakonomics, it says an unusual name CAN be a hindrance but it can also be to your advantage too. The CV with the unusual name to make it stand out from the crowd and is memorable. It's a really fine line between getting it spot on (which arguably Harper did) and just being plain weird.

The whole argument is a complex one and it's not as straightforward as many make out.

Freakonomics also argue about causation and correlation. Lots. Lots and lots. The point about causation and correlation is one of Freakonomics core repeated points but it never fails to amaze me how many people miss this.

Low attaining parents are in a different cultural bubble and are more likely to have low attaining children cos genetics. You can't discount this.

There's a whole host of things about how a name can inspire and perhaps unwittingly influence someone too.

Then there's the psychology of having a dull as fuck name and becoming the wallpaper (and how you might kick back against that when you have your own children)

You have to read what they say on names multiple times - some of it is really contradictory.

(Guess who read it a lot about names whilst pregnant... It hit me just how significant a name is. It's not just a name - it potentially is a gift/curse.)

I would imagine that there would be a significant correlation in the UK too, the pupils with 'normal' names tended to have more intelligent parents.

In my parents generation it was common to have a Gaelic or Scots first name, then English middle name, often a direct translation, not always obvious. So my father was, eg. Iain John X. He had two equal parallel identities, and he switched between them at will, Iain X at home in Scotland, John X out in the world. Documents could be in either or both.

In these days of security paranoia we're pinned to one formal identity for pretty much all administrative purposes. No more flexibility. So I do a lot of (hopefully invisible) wincing at pronounciation and spelling attempts, and offer up a nickname instead.

I wouldn't assume that.

I'm Irish and for many years a lot of us have been moving away from Gaelic spellings.

I have a cousin named Shinaed and she's in her late 40s.

My fav is a girl called: Trendy

I wouldn't assume that.

I'm Irish and for many years a lot of us have been moving away from Gaelic spellings.

I have a cousin named Shinaed and she's in her late 40s.

@Stravaig said "In my parents generation it was common to have a Gaelic or Scots first name, then English middle name, often a direct translation, not always obvious. So my father was, eg. Iain John X. He had two equal parallel identities, and he switched between them at will, Iain X at home in Scotland, John X out in the world. Documents could be in either or both."

Fascinating. I knew a British friend of a friend whose wife was Hong-Kong Chinese. IIRC her forename and last names were obviously Chinese, but then she had a European/English/American middle name, to use 'over here'. (Think Edna or similar.) Her brothers were named similarly.

Whe I was born my parents wanted to call me Caron after my mum’s favourite actress and dancer Leslie Caron. Apparently the registrar flatly refused saying it wasn’t a proper name which is why I ended up with the traditional spelling of my name beloved of misogynists everywhere.

God. Isla-Beau is horrific