Baby name remorse – a serious problem for some

We write quite a bit about baby names – usually from a positive angle. You know, “Top Baby Names of 2013″, or whatever year we may be in. But we’ve never written about “baby name remorse” – the apparently common condition of regretting naming your baby what you decided on.

So, we feel compelled to do a 2-part series on this simply because we’ve found it a bit bizarre, er… surprising. In fact, we found one couple that changed their baby’s name five times!

Our author is simply known as Cat, and you can see the full confession here at OffBeatFamilies.com. It’s a short, entertaining article that is a real eye-opener to this seemingly growing dilemma.  Says Cat:

I thought we were on the ball while I was pregnant. Ok, so maybe we were having issues agreeing on a name, but surely we would agree by the time he was ready to be born… right? Wrong. We passed names back and forth. My partner hated the unique and unusual names I liked. I despised the traditional and classic names he suggested. Finally at the birth I swallowed my unsure feelings and we named him Angus Griffith Asher — a name we both settled on but didn’t love.

“Whaaaa…???”

Angus… most popularly known today as a breed of cattle. Formerly more associated with head-banger aging guitarist of AC/DC. Either way. This immediately raised my sympathies. Fortunately they were at the ready with an alternative.

When he was three months old and we wanted to rename him Finnegan. My partner and I not only had seriously considered it during our pregnancy, but it was really the only name that we had agreed on and both loved. When we looked at him we recognized it as his name, he was Finnegan. However a promise made to a (now) former friend about not using that name kept us from it…

Because we couldn’t use Finnegan we then went through a few more names and even actively changed his name to the ones we liked (not legally, but instead by announcing it to others and calling him by it). None of the names we tried seemed to fit just right. I started to think that maybe it wasn’t just about names that we liked, but more about whether I was bonding with this baby as I should be.

The problem runs deep. Levi gets thrown in for awhile, but there seemed to be a problem with the pronunciation.

Now at ten and a half months old, he is certainly not without a name, but instead with many, many names. All the names that were considered along the way have stuck in one way or another. And he’s been “officially” renamed four times.

But I said “five times”. It seems the loyalty to the former friend weighed heavy in these matters… for quite a while anyway.

So, holding our breaths and diving into the raging waters of stigma (we’ve been wading in it up to our hips for a while now) we reintroduce you for the fifth and legally binding time to Finnegan Levi Angus Griffith Sleigh.

Congratulations to the Cat family. And mostly to young Finn. If Finn doesn’t take after some years, I’d suggest “Sybil”.

By the way, there’s a really adorable picture of the oft-named youngster that’s certainly worth a look. While you’re there perhaps leave Cat a comment to appreciate her work.

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