By Lyz Lenz
When my daughter was born, we had no idea she was going to be a daughter. We didn’t find out her gender until she came out of the womb and the doctor announced, “You have a girl!” and you could have knocked us over with a pink hair bow, because based on the amount of testosterone in my husband’s family we were sure we were having a boy. Everyone else was sure. In fact, we were so sure that we went to the hospital with one boys name and two girls’ names that we had only loosely agreed on.
So, when my daughter was born she remained nameless for three hours while we waffled. A name was finally chosen when I saw that the nurses had written “baby girl” on her sheets and I started bawling. We chose the name Ellis Claire. And for the next two weeks of her life I woke up every morning with a feeling of dread in my stomach. “We named her the wrong name!” I told my husband. “She’s not an Ellis. She’s a June. We should have named her June!”
Never mind that she was born in March and I had previously thought naming a kid born in March June was silly. My post-partum mind was sure I had ruined her life. Fortunately, my husband told me very kindly that I was crazy and thwarted my attempts to contact the social security office. By the time Ellis was three months old and her little personality was starting to emerge, I forgot all about my name regret. She was an Ellis and I couldn’t imagine a better name for her.
According to Parenting.com, one tenth of parents regret the name they gave their child. I almost wonder if this isn’t exacerbating by the growing number of people who announce their baby names well before the baby arrives, giving well-meaning, but misguided family members the chance to weigh in on the name selection. Or maybe it’s just a result of people thinking the name they chose is special and unique, only to learn a year later that in fact, there are a lot of little Isabellas out there.
Do you regret the name you chose for your child? Why do you think so many people regret their child’s name?
About the Author:
Lyz Lenz is a writer, a mom and a midwesterner. Although, not in that order. She lives in Iowa and on the web at LyzLenz.com
