How to name a baby with a difficult surname?

[BlackLantern]

So the name we like just rhymes with our surname and I think it will always sound silly. So many names we can’t use due to the sound and layout of the surname. Do we just suck it up and give them a rhyming first/second name and acknowledge it’s always going to be an issue whatever we pick or pick something that works and we don’t love as a name?

Don't give them a rhyming name. Also make sure their first name is spelt the standard way. I have a difficult foreign surname and parents gave me a common easy forename but spelt it a very non standard spelling so I go through life spelling them both 🙄

DS’s school has a lot of year 7s with wonderful names. Honestly I will NOT say them otherwise you will think you had dyslexia. It is just a load of random letters for the first name and a difficult surname for the last. I will say ONE example: Tomilola. Tommy + Lola???

@QuickTraybake that name is Nigerian not English. Try to be more curious and less ignorant. And don’t out your students. 🙄

I know a Pat Paine, and he used to live in Peene 😀

But there must be lots of names that will work with your surname:
Elizabeth: Liz, Lizzy, Liza, Eliza, Betty, Beth... Etc.
Oliver - Ollie, Iver/Ivor
Samuel - Sam, Sammy,
*Are you expecting a boy or girl?

My surname is 3 syllables and ends in an 'ee' sound, my mum loved the name Natalie, but it was such a 6-syllable mouthful!

That's a traditional Yoruba name from Nigeria. How ignorant.

The meaning is actually really beautiful. To +mi = enough for me and Lola = to have wealth in a the sense of spiritual fulfillment, success, regard rather than just cash. It's blessing the child with enough of all of those things. Note how it's about enough, not excess.

It's a very established name.As for these 'dyslexic' strings of letters, another background too?

@Catandsquirrel exactly. Google is fucking free and @QuickTraybake could've just looked it up instead of name shaming a child in her role as a teacher for goodness’ sakes. But then again, a lot of the posters on the Baby Names forum are really ignorant and xenophobic or just plain racist.

It is just a load of random letters for the first name

After all the years of being in the EU and of immigration, and of seeing native Celtic names in common use, it's depressing that so many people, usually English sadly, still view every name through the lens of the English language, and regard anything else as gobbledegook. Seriously PP, did you really look at that name and assume it was Tommy and Lola merged together? Did it really not cross your mind that as it was unusual (to you), it might have an origin that isn't English? And that those "difficult" surnames might actually just be from another culture?

I'm not sure if, as other posters suggest, you are ignorant or racist or xenophobic, but you are certainly narrow-minded. Get out more, hen, it broadens the mind.

Not defending the poster but she said DS school? Not her students

I think if it's rhyming along the lines of 'Bob Job' or 'Ken Pen' then I would choose a different name. My surname begins with O and the only boys name we liked began with O as well, and as much as I would have wanted to use it we wouldn't have because I think sometimes names can sound a bit cartoon character when they are similar sounding.

Do you have to work at being this ignorant, or does it come naturally to you?

Give the baby a different surname?

Change surnames. Double-barrel.

I don’t think any of those examples are too bad.

I think it depends on the first name. Celine Green and Abigail Dale don’t seem as bad as Max Wax because the spelling is different and no one is ever going to shorten them to Line Green or Gail Dale but Zachary Black is almost definitely going to end up as Zac Black. Christopher Diss is fine if you use Kit as a shortening before anyone starts calling him Chris.

OP could you just go for your favourite as a middle name and a classic/ one you quite like as a first name? Say Robert Benjamin Penn or Alexander John Donne. I think that's absolutely fine.

Like Ben/Benjamin Ten 😄

Double-barrelling the surname won't help. The first of the two surnames often gets dropped.

Not double barrelling or changing the surname, wish we had done it when we got married but too late now.

I have spent my life spelling my first name and surname and it’s honestly not an issue, my name is what it is and it’s from my origins so not usual and it’s never been a hardship having to spell it.

@QuickTraybake , is probably not racist or xenophobic, but didn't know it was an established Nigerian name.
I guessed it might be, so I looked it up.

There are so many different names out there, not everybody is likely to be familiar with all of them.

When I was at school we had a science lab technician called Patricia Fish. Know to everyone as Trish Fish the Lab techish!

Sally Nally?

No, don't do it to the child.

Jim Pym

Maybe look at other relative names, grandparents, great gp etc to see if there’s any inspiration there?

@BobbyDazzler11 actually, you’re correct. Thanks for that correction. The rest of my post stands though.