Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Do your initials spell anything? Do you care/have others commented?

66 replies

trueblueari · 21/04/2018 15:59

More importantly, would you be put off using a name if the initials spelled a negative word?

The word in question is "LESS" - so nothing vulgar, just not something you'd necessarily want your name to spell.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Cutestbaby · 10/11/2021 15:10

I have ELA and LIA, I also didn't realise until they were a few years old that their initials spelled anything.
I think middle names are only ever really used when filling out forms unless it's a double barrel name. So full set of initials will rarely appear anywhere.

Bundlebuns · 10/11/2021 14:48

My ex had the initials PIS. He hated it.

ApolloandDaphne · 10/11/2021 14:44

My uncle used to call me 'kid' when I was little. I never really thought about why he did it, I was a kid after all. It wasn't until I was older and could read that I realised my initials were KID. Now I am married they are KIS which is fine.

Movinghouseatlast · 10/11/2021 14:41

Please avoid this! Mine is a very very well known abbreviation and was the bane of my life as a child. I got bullied and laughed at.

JKDinomum · 10/11/2021 14:38

@Mollie85

I went to school with a girl whose initials spelled her first name. Deliberately. Her dad thought it was cool.

E.g. Mia Iris Adams. (Thats not the name obviously)

My brother is a "RED"
I worked with an "ARS" - the time sheet system we use just uses your initials, so yes, these things do follow you around if you work in an office :)

I know someone with a three letter name whose initials spelled it out too. She changed her surname on marriage so it no longer works.
JKDinomum · 10/11/2021 14:36

Surely most people never know what your middle initial is? My eldest's initials spell out her dad's name plus S. For example IANS if her dad's name was Ian So it looks like we named her because she belongs to him. It was unintentional and nobody except family notices it.

I don't think anyone I went to school with or anyone I know or have known knows my middle initial except my parents and husband.

If the first and last initials or first and surname spell something that might be more of a problem.

shocwave0122 · 10/11/2021 14:28

My initials spell out CAR

Arpafeelie · 09/03/2019 14:13

One of my cousins would have been DAM, but his parents swopped to ADM(known as D) to avoid it. He does have to keep explaining that his name is not A, even though the A comes first.

shedougahole · 07/03/2019 23:32

DS was almost going to have his initials as ‘ASS’ but we realised in time and now he’s just ‘DJS’. That’s about as exciting as it gets for me, although mine and my sisters intitals were KAJ and KEJ before I was married and people called us that.

PippilottaLongstocking · 07/03/2019 23:32

I know someone whose initials spell a shortened version of his first name

Also an R.Ash, which no one seems to comment on

SweetButaPsycho · 07/03/2019 23:30

Mine are DC. Which as a comic book fan I appreciate 😁

Bumblebeesmum · 06/03/2019 17:16

Ones like BJ are the worst - spelling words mostly depends on what the word is I think

BeyondThePage · 25/04/2018 16:24

my friend's sister was WC - she used to be nicknamed Bogmella...

Mollie85 · 25/04/2018 16:16

I went to school with a girl whose initials spelled her first name. Deliberately. Her dad thought it was cool.

E.g. Mia Iris Adams. (Thats not the name obviously)

My brother is a "RED"
I worked with an "ARS" - the time sheet system we use just uses your initials, so yes, these things do follow you around if you work in an office :)

Fibbertigibbet · 25/04/2018 10:55

There's a study that looked into this, and found that negative initials seem to lead to negative outcomes (less success in relation to their counterparts) in men, but not in women. Not sure why.

My DBIL is called a name that begins with R, but it's his middle name, because otherwise his initials would spell RAT and now they spell ART. All I can think is why not just give him a middle name that didn't start with an A?!

vickibee · 25/04/2018 10:20

Before I got married my initials were VD, very unfortunate on office memos! I was glad to get rid of them when I got married

RedPandaMama · 25/04/2018 10:17

My daughter has FAB as her initials. It suits her because she really is.

CatkinToadflax · 25/04/2018 10:16

@GlumGlowWorm I was ET as well and it made my time at primary school an absolute misery! In my parents' defence I was born a few years before the film came out, but I still blamed them for their careless initialling (as I considered it), and have never watched the film as an act of benign protest!! Angry

NickMyLipple · 25/04/2018 10:14

My DD is HAT. We call her Hats too so that works!

QuimReaper · 25/04/2018 10:12

The intials-login thing has been three letters in every instance I've encountered it (work and school) so any potential logins are more likely to be LES or LSS.

I honestly think unless it spells TWAT or ANAL or ASS or something, the initials thing is something people worry about unnecessarily.

Kokapetl · 24/04/2018 22:09

One of mine has initials that spell out a herb which is fine I think. The other I couldn't give the middle name I wanted because it would have been a type of fighting.

AllPizzasGreatAndSmall · 24/04/2018 21:14

I really don't think it's a big deal unless they actually spell something like TIT or NOB. Most people never know people's middle names anyway - I don't know those of any of my colleagues or any of the children I work with and would only notice if they actually chose to put their full initials on something and it did spell a word.

SilverHawk · 24/04/2018 20:46

hotstepper4 I'm afraid I'm one of those parents too.
Nothing weird or odd but recogniseable.

tarheelbaby · 24/04/2018 20:13

my given names produce TFS which some have interpreted as 'thanks for sharing'

a friend realised that her daughter's initials would spell BEEP but decided she didn't care. I don't think others have realised.

NapQueen · 24/04/2018 19:59

Mine dont, but the kids are TLC and MAC which we didnt think about til after they were named abd quite like!

Swipe left for the next trending thread