Teasing

[mamasammy.livejournal.com]

How much do you let potential teasing over a name affect your decision on whether or not you would use it?

Sometimes I think the BabyNamesWorld website is a curse! If you're not familiar with it, you should check it out (at your own risk!). I love/hate that it lists the questionairre for people with the name to answer and share what kind of teasing they faced because of their name.

My last name was Todd when I was a kid and I never could quite understand why tons of kids (and even adults) would call me Samantha TOAD. I mean I get making the "o" hard and Todd becomes Tode/Toad, but I thought it was a bit of a stretch, personally.

At any rate, it never really bothered me. I just shrugged it off, and went with it. Meh.

Also, I know alot of people in this community didn't like my boy name choice (Enzo), but  now I'm thinking about the fact that we live in an area that is highly populated with hispanic people, which means my children will be in school with just as many hispanic children as american children. I looked at the questionairre on BNW and a few people with the name Enzo said that kids in school called them Menso/Menzo, which means dumb, in spanish.

Is this something I should be very concerned about it? Like I said above,... How much do you let potential teasing over a name affect your decision on whether or not you would use it?

Comments

[pleasure-past.livejournal.com]

...with just as many hispanic children as american children...

Worry less about your kid getting teased for his name and more about him getting into fights for implying that only white people are real Americans.

I went to a high school that was about 52% Latino. One boy in my class was named Assapopoulos, nick-named "Ass." As far as I know, he was never really teased for it. As for Spanish teasing, most of my school didn't actually speak enough Spanish to make the "Enzo -> Menzo" connection.

I do think that if bullies decide they want to tease a child, they're going to do it regardless of hir name, but I do consider it a little bit when choosing names. At least it gives me a certain amount of control over the type of teasing that will go on. I'd rather name my daughter Holly and have her go through life having Christmas Carols shouted at her than name her something like heyvanit's example (Molly Lester).

I was actually never teased for my first name (Though I did grow up constantly coaching people on how to say/spell it, because it's Yiddish and for some reason that makes it hard even though it's the most phonic spelling my parents could think of, but that's a rant for another day...) but I've been teased a pretty good deal about my last name (which is actually a pretty common surname, that I just happen to share with an infamous individual), so sometimes you'll lose no matter what you do.