Two questions:

[becomingun.livejournal.com]

First off: When you're looking at names, how much do you care about the initials spelling something?

This is inspired by my friend Patrick Owen O'Neill who was telling me yesterday how he was teased as a kid because the other kids thought his initials were funny.

Secondly: Are there any names that your would ordinarily like/love but that have been ruined by knowing someone awful with it?

For me:
Crystal
Katherine/Katie/Kate
Ian
Jordan on a girl
Stuart
Jeremy

Comments

[b-gum.livejournal.com]

i don't pay any attention to initials but i should... because knowing me i'm going to be sitting there one day when the kid's three, it's going to hit me that their initials spelling something and i'm going to be like... oops. initials that spelling something teasable does turn me off, but i just don't think about it at the time.

as far as your second question:
Amy
Lee
Kevin
Sean
Amanda
Tina

[brittmarie.livejournal.com]

this.

as far as the second question goes:
Evelyn. My husband's psychotic druggie Aunt is named Evelyn, and it's been my first choice for a girl since I was 10. Ugh, just my luck.

[shweetnettie13.livejournal.com]

I generally don't think of initials. Well, I didn't until I got married and my initials became JSM.

I love the name Caroline and would love to use that as a child's name in honor of my mom (her name is Carol) since we do plan on using my husband's mom's name in a name as well (of course, depending on how many kids we have and all that jazz).

But, Caroline is the name of the first girl to break my husband's heart, so he won't use it. =(

Erin for me. One mean bitch ruined it all for me.

[solitudete.livejournal.com]

My name is Erin, but I know another Erin who is a total hag. :( Bitch is ruining my name.

[a-tergo-lupi.livejournal.com]

I check it, but I don't fuss about it. I'm a genocide researcher and when I realized I was fussing about "OMG THIS KID'S INITIALS WILL BE SS!!" I knew I'd overdone it. So, things like COW or FAT or SUK or ASS or POO or PEW or other such things that would be prone to teasing, I'd avoid. But I'm not going to discount a name because of other random acronyms.

[ahsavka.livejournal.com]

This. If it spells something lame, I'd avoid it, but something innocuous - PAT, RUN, NOO, SAT, EAT, no problem. But the insulting ones, or the just plain weird ones, like DAD (esp. for a girl), GOD, STD, FUK ... I'd rethink those.

[rubie-dubidoux.livejournal.com]

I knew someone whose initials were STD... I didn't know him very well, but he had a big fat monogram on his jacket. : /

[kort-ni.livejournal.com]

I knew a girl growing up whose initials were PMS. We definitely teased her about it and for that reason, I do think about it. Of course I have a friend who took her maiden name as her middle name and made her initials ASS (and doesn't really mind...her name also became a sentence because her maiden name is a verb and her married name a noun)

I can't really think of any (but I always dread when I meet someone who has the name Eve or the name Collin that they will be terrible and ruin the names we have picked out)

[mrssubee.livejournal.com]

first- I care- my son is Benjamin Joseph, but I thought long and hard about it- because of "BJ" and sexual connotations, high school, etc.
but, he is named after both of our deceased grandfathers- so, it was kind of important to us- and also- joseph hardly ever comes up- he's pretty much just Ben

second- oh yes- I'm a teacher and so many names have been ruined for me
there are lists and lists of names I can't handle

[morningapproach.livejournal.com]

I have only had a few names ruined, and I don't think if those people anymore so I can't even remember what the names were!
I know there was:
Jen/Jennifer/Jenny (a series of co-workers AND an awful ex-roomate)
Kara (an awful girl in HS who said that she wished I would die)
Daniel
Jamie

[kilobites.livejournal.com]

Initials only matter if they spell something like ASS, PIG, POO, or something offensive. Otherwise I'm not too bothered by them.

As for your second question... there have been a few names. I can't think of one off the top of my head but I know I have had them.

[lorienellen.livejournal.com]

Funny that you ask this, because whenever I suggest a name my husband immediately spells out the initials and we had a conversation about it last night. Initials aren't that important to me as long as they don't spell out something offensive but making a word seems to be important to my husband. His initials are CJW so I'm not sure where the word thing came from. Maybe he was always bummed his never spelled anything...

[littlehounddog.livejournal.com]

Yes!! There are plenty of names I'd like except for the bad associations. I love the names Evan and Devin, but I harbour a hatred for someone named Kevin and the similarity kills me.

[snoglobel.livejournal.com]

My brother was going to be named Andrew Ian R but my dad got worried about the initials being AIR (and the airhead connotation), they chose David instead so he's ADR.

I would avoid really bad initials, but for the most part kids don't know the other kids middle name anyway, so it wouldn't be a huge deal breaker for me.

Names I would never use because people ruined them:
Nicole, Ken/Kenny/Kenneth, Jacob, Jade

Luckily none of the names I hate because of people are names I otherwise like.

[sal_amanda]

Initials totally matter to me. My daughter is Eleanor Rebekah, but we thought about Eleanor Zoe for a while until someone pointed out that her first two initials would be EZ, a la "easy." There were other reasons I was reconsidering Zoe already, and that was the final straw.

Like the person above who is a teacher, I've been a teacher/social worker for long enough that I couldn't possibly list all the names that have been ruined for me. It's been a real challenge coming up with name options for our next kid.

I also have the problem of liking names of people I'm relatively close with, but not wanting to use their names because I don't want to make it look like I'm naming my kid after them. That actually bothers me more than having someone ruin a name for me because they're jerks. Like people I've been involved with romantically in the past, but I'm still good friends with. Kind of a bummer.

[chesterismyhero.livejournal.com]

I don't really pay attention.

My son's initials are XL, but he's living up to them.

I won't give any future kids a name that starts with L though.

[let-letitbe.livejournal.com]

They matter to me, but only if it's something offensive.

These names have definitely been ruined for me, which sucks because some of them are really good names!:
Nicole/Nicki
Ruby
Cody
Danielle

[maybaby4me.livejournal.com]

lol everyone knows a really awful Crystal, don't they? =P

[cremepuff.livejournal.com]

I've known both good and bad ones! Funny, the bad ones tend to have an uber-creative spelling...

[becomingun.livejournal.com]

Ha agreed! My bad one was a Krystlle who bullied me as a kid.

[anamericanchild.livejournal.com]

Unless it spells something really awful, I don't really care about initials. POO probably wouldn't bother me honestly. In fact, I really like the name Patrick Owen O'Neill. =/.

and yes... too many! I'm also a teacher though.
to name a few:
Evan on a girl - my best friend's ex... total bitch.
Scott
Karen
Sydney
Kyle
Carson
Amber
David
Dana(I still love it to be honest but could never use it now)
Brad
Brianna
Zachary

[cremepuff.livejournal.com]

Matthew (actually got ruined by multiple people!)
Clarence (the name of my mother's psychotic uncle, who apparently went after her and my grandma with a shotgun in the 60's)
Portia (though she spelled it Porscha)
Rina
Monica
Brittany (ruined by both a Britani and a Britney Spears)
Abigail/Abby/Abbey
Selena
Kristen
Bethany

Jury also still out on Amy, Marcy, Karen, and Anna.

[becomingun.livejournal.com]

That's why I have Katherine/Katie/Kate listed :P I've known multiple bad people who went by each of those! Katie is the worst though. That was ruined by a seriously evil, evil bitch.

[frost.livejournal.com]

I don't really pay attention to the initials, only because I don't generally know people's middle names. =/

I probably wouldn't give it too much consideration [when naming], unless it were really obvious and/or offending- like POO, ASS, etc.

[falls2climb.livejournal.com]

When she was little, my sister used to say she was glad she wasn't born a boy, because her initials with the boy's name my parents chose would be DVD, and that sounded too much like BVD, the men's underwear, for her. Fast-forward two decades and DVD would have taken on a whole new meaning!

I'm another teacher who has had too many names ruined. I try to dissociate the name from the person I dislike, but I've ALWAYS loved the name Katie and I have an awful Katie this semester. The other kid who drives me up a wall this semester shares my mom's name, which is also my middle name, and that's sort of unfortunate.

[rubie-dubidoux.livejournal.com]

Tawny
Sonja
Miranda (not really, it was just a girl who I called a brat to her face when I was like 9)
Haley
Marissa
Sophie (this one is mixed - it's the name of my childhood best friend, but she turned out to be kind of a pretentious snot)
Vienna

Carter (he was SUCH AN ASS)
Sam
Jackson
Patrick
Brennan (I don't hate him, per se; he's just very memorable)