To be ‘setting up daughter as target for bullying’

[Mumyum1]

So my daughter is 10 days old and the name I have chosen for her would give her the initials A.S.S.

DH is not having it. He wants the ‘A’ changed to ‘i’ so it would be I.S.S. The pronounciation of the first name would be the same but the cultural connotation (for his and my (different) culture) of the A spelling would be lost and that’s really important to me. Our children’s names have always been a lovely bridge between our two cultures. Even his parents who were opposed to our relationship love our children’s names for their meanings and symbolism.

I do believe I will grow a human who will withstand such pressure should it occur however I don’t want to be the ass either, who wants it her way or the high way. Just so hard to be objective when the spelling of the name in my mind carries a lot of weight.

All opinions welcome. (Our previous two took us 6 weeks to agree on everything and both visits to registry office saw us barely speaking to each other. With the second one I felt so sorry for the poor registrar who witnessed our (civilised) disagreement over the spelling of DC2’s name. (I didn’t win). So this agreeing on a name in the first week is pretty awesome).

I was bullied as a child also - I wish to God someone had said 'that's not okay they shouldn't be bullying you - lets go tackle those people who are behaving wrongly and make it stop'

What that actually said was 'hmm well maybe you should stop being so keen to put your hand up first in class' and 'okay we will buy you the 'in' shoes then maybe they will leave you alone' and 'don't worry maybe you'll fit in better at secondary school'. They told me they agreed with the bullies, that there was something wrong with me that was causing the problem.

And you know what, no matter what I did to fit in, to change myself, it never EVER helped. Because I wasn't the problem. The bullies were.

Every single time someone posts to say 'YES! you absolutely should change your child, their name, their shoes, their clothes, their behaviour to stop them being bullied' they are validating bullying and perpetuating it in our society.

I think not a problem. People rarely know your middle initial, so she's just be A.S. My husband is A.S and has never encountered any bullying.

It's not just about when they are children - as adults it could be their login, email address or reference on letters. I used to work with a PUS (who was lovely, elegant and not at all yellow and manky) and I always used to feel a teeny bit sorry for her because of her initials, even though I never said anything out loud to anyone. And even though she was vastly superior to me in every possible respect.

Our timetables are listed with initials. Anatomy with Dr ASS Friday 9am in lecture theatre B2?

My university email address was ECJ0000
At my old job, my email address was E.C.Jmith (name changed)

If it's a double barrelled surname, e.g. Anna Smith-Scott I would consider changing the first name, as she's likely to use A.S-S as her initials at school, although they might not be used other times (my first name is hyphenated, but only the first initial of my first name was used in my email addresses, e.g. Emma-May Caitlin Jones= ECJ)

If it's a middle name, e.g. Anna Sophie Smith, I would either change the middle name or add on before it, e.g. Anna May Sophie Smith = AMSS or AMS.

Jmith was obviously supposed to say Jones

Is it Ayla vs Isla? If so please don't change it, Ayla is beautiful and far less common than Isla.

Chuck an extra middle name in it if he's so worried.

I would add another middle name

I'm someone who uses their three initials all the time, I always write them all down

PE shirts at my dc's high school have to be printed (quite large) with their initials. School did emphasise that parents should consider not putting all initials on if they spelled something silly. I wouldn't use it, if she isn't ever going to use all her names/initials what's the point of having them.

Just change the middle name.

Just to chip in, my full initials spell something equally...odd.

I realised in school after a couple other kids teased me about it and I dropped my middle name ever since. But to be honest, you never really use all ypur initials or your full name, so I don't think it's that big a deal.

I once asked my DM whether she realised what my initials spelled. She said no, paused, then said "Joke's on you!"

Hi everyone and thanks for sharing your thoughts ... tbh the thought of adding another middle name really hadn’t occurred to me. But DH might agree to having his grandmothers name added which starts with F.

DC1 - Called on first name only as DH chose his middle name which was his grandfather’s nickname and slightly silly sounding.

DC2 - she and I and my family call her by first and middle name eg Sophie Mae ... DH and his family use only Sophie because DH was never keen on her second name.

DC3 - yes as a matter of fact it is Ayla vs Isla (I also like Aila or Aaila) - DH is desperate to have a name that as he puts it ‘won’t prejudice others when they read the name’ (cv/applications etc) and feels the A spelling is too ‘cultural’ (for want of a better word). I really thought his objection to the initials being ASS were more for having the ‘british’ (??) spelling than anything else hence the reason for posting this thread. I like the more uncommon spellings, he prefers the more common spellings for the purpose of not standing out. (No he wasn’t bullied as a child, and on that note I’m so sorry to hear about PP who were bullied. I agree that my child might despite my best intentions be someone who could become victimised so apologies if that comment offended).

I will not be going with the initials A.S.S by the way ... I guess it would be rather unreasonable of me.

Glad she is not going to be ASS, wise choice. AFSS or ASFS will be better, or whatever you decide.

I think if I saw Ayla written down I would pronounce it AY( like day)-LA not Isla. Are they pronounced the same way?

There is nothing wrong with having a non-British name, but I can imagine constantly having to correct how people pronounce your name might be tiresome. So I am with your husband on this! Both my kids have unusual names! My dd (because I did not realize that people would not know how to pronounce it) and my son because he is adopted and I did not pick his name. I love my kids' names, but I do have to correct pronunciation with both, and spelling with one, (and some people actually get the whole name wrong at times!).

Thanks for updating us, often people do not.

And CONGRATULATIONS on your lovely new baby.

Thank you!!
I also have an unusual name and often have to advise on pronunciation but all the people who eventually matter end up getting it right so it’s never bothered me. This is why I like Aaila as I feel it’s phonetically closest to pronunciation.

It's not a problem for my kids really, eventually people get it, but it is a pain that one child's name is spelled wrongly even in replies to messages where it has been spelled out for them!

I quite like Aila (less so Ayla or Aaila) Aila I would probably say as Isla. So I'd get right?

AIBU is starting to look like an attractive set of initials for my next child..

English isn't the only language in the world. I see names all the time and realise it means something horrible in my own language. People just need to learn to be more mature and civilised. If your daughter will be taught how to be confident and defend herself, it's not a problem at all. Kids that bully will bully for any reason. No one really pays attention to initials at school.

I know more Aylas than Islas in the under 5's.

I prefer the spelling Ayla as well!

Irrespective of bullying, would you be happy for your parents to have knowingly given you the initials ASS!

ASFS is a good compromise!

Intials are used alot at my work. I have a cousin whose intials spell a rude word and she hates it.

I also know someone whose intials are DSS and he hates it. Think it used to be the name for benefits.

Intials do crop up. You can not guarentee to raise a child that can withstand teasing/bullying. It just doesnt work like that

My friend has these exact initials, she happily points it out and has a little giggle and has never been bullied.

Staff in my workplace are noted as: DJP etc. So no way would I use ASS. Change the middle name.

I worked for someone who would initial documents ‘CRAP’. The first time I saw it I stomped over because I thought it was his opinion on a piece of work I’d done.

There was a study which showed it can be unfavourable:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3294546/Is-your-name-to-blame-for-unhappiness.html

Using a large, computerised database of death certificates, they identified people whose initials formed a positive-sounding word (such as A.C.E., H.U.G. and J.O.Y.), and those that had very negative connotations, like P.I.G., B.U.M. and D.I.E.

Using factors such as race, year of death and socio-economic status as controls, the researchers discovered that men with positive initials lived approximately four and a half years longer than average, whereas those with negative initials died about three years early.

Sorry I should RTFT but good choice.

My friends initials spell out F.A.G well they would have... when he was born his birth certificate switched the middle and first name around to spell AFG but his family call him by the F name xxx