Can Your Child Title Be Too Grownup?

There are such a lot of elements to think about when selecting a child identify. Does the identify go along with your final identify? How does it sound with sibling names? Are there any related nicknames that you just don’t look after?

For one mother of 4 on TikTok, she’s anxious that the identify she ended up selecting for her child boy sounds too grownup. 

In a video captioned “identify regrets?” the creator relays how her 4-month-old son is Reed, and he or she is having a tough time connecting the moniker with the “little, squishy child.” The mother reiterates that she loves the identify Reed, however by some means it appears so grownup. 

She then appeals to social media customers to see if anybody else has the identical drawback with boy names sounding too grownup, and shares different examples that she sees falling into the class, reminiscent of George, Harrison, Theodore, and Thomas. 

Are Sure Child Names Too Mature

Positive, we might affiliate some child names—particularly these impressed by grandparents or older members of the family—with grown-ups. “Sure names and identify kinds undoubtedly have a extra formal or critical tone, and sure identify kinds can sound extra candy and cute,” says child identify marketing consultant Colleen Slagen of Naming Bebe.

Examples of “cutesy names” embody Charlie and Teddy, or ones like Lucy and Millie. Dad and mom trying to keep away from adult-sounding names might also favor “nickname names” like Jack and Gus. 

In the meantime, Slagen says, “Surnames like Grant or Brooks have a extra formal, polished sound and could also be more durable to image on a child.” That is additionally true in relation to conventional names like John or Elizabeth, or “boomer” names that we’re used to listening to on adults, not infants. 

Slagen notes that traditionally, adult-sounding names are in all probability extra of a difficulty with boys. “Individuals are inclined to need extra ‘critical’ names for boys, however that’s beginning to change with the rise in gender impartial names,” she provides.

Infants Develop into Their Names

In my expertise as a mother of 5, children’ names change and develop with them. Living proof: I selected a reputation for my firstborn that’s usually related to an older technology. I cherished how distinctive it was for her age group when she was a child, and nonetheless do, over 15 years later. So, my two cents is that should you love a reputation, go along with it! 

Slagen seconds that notion, saying that in relation to child names we might affiliate with adults, “It is not one thing I might fear about…Not solely will they develop into the identify, however pure nicknames will develop even when they don’t seem to be ‘deliberate’ nicknames.”

She provides that individuals extra usually have the other drawback of solely with the ability to image a reputation working for a child—and never later in life. 

Another excuse not too fear: “Your baby is a child for a really temporary interval,” says Slagen.

One TikToker factors that out in her viral video too, saying, “You’re naming an grownup. You’re not naming a child. A child is round for 2 seconds.”

In case you are hung up on whether or not your child identify will stand the check of time, Slagen gives a tip for highway testing it: “After I was naming my final child, I might all the time image the names on my checklist for folks of all ages to see the way it felt!”