What was I thinking when I named my child? I had always loved the name Jack, not as a nickname, but as a stand-alone. To me it connoted strength, confidence, simplicity, and a gentle, easy way of navigating the world. A solid name, for sure. Common, as well, but I didn’t have any particular issues with the commonality of one’s name. My own name is Sarah, which is about as common as a name gets. I never minded being one of four Sara(h)s in grade school, though I was always irritatingly insistent about the inclusion of my name’s final consonant. (And really, let’s be honest. Doesn’t Sara look rather incomplete and flighty?)
What I so completely failed to consider about the name Jack is that everything under the sun rhymes with it. Even the ever so frequently uttered sentence, “Hi, Jack!” will make you giggle if you ponder it for enough time. (Hint: avoid saying these two words in this precise sequence if you are on an airplane.) And you’re no doubt familiar with what parents often shriek when attempting to corral a wayward toddler: “Come back, Jack!” That sentence practically invites smirks over for coffee.
How about the following sentences?
- “You don’t know jack.”
“Jack, don’t forget your backpack!”
So far, the myriad possibilities for plays on his name don’t seem to bother Jack. In fact, if he gets the double-entendre at all, he finds it vastly amusing. But what will bother him someday, I suspect, is a second mistake I made when naming him. His middle name begins with an “A” - his last name, with a “P.” So his initials are JAP. Yep. Pregnancy hormones must have caused me to experience (thankfully temporary) brain damage.
Do you have any regrets about the names you’ve given your children?
[tags]parents, moms, dads, kids, children, baby, babies, names, regrets, puns[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by Tinker*Tailor, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
Yep. We went all out and gave our kids some seriously taunt-inducing Eastern European names. But, we gave them both “normal” middle names so if things get really bad, they can always revert to those.
It’s funny you should mention Jack’s initials, because it is an actual tradition in my husband’s family that any newborn’s initials must spell out an actual word.
I have several amusing anecdotes relating to this topic…
- If I had been a boy, my mom originally wanted to name me Andrew Scott. My maiden name starts with an ‘S’. Luckily, my father caught her oversight. (Not that it mattered much, hehe…)
- My initials before I was married spelled “LAS”… Cue wise-ass with a terrible Scottish accent.
- Both the Husband and I have ‘A’ as our middle initial. Yup, I’m LAG and he’s NAG. No one really made fun of him for his initials growing-up though (probably because they never got past his first name, which is, ah, unusual for an American).
Don’t worry about it too much. Probably the only time Jack will ever hear anything about what his initials spell is around standardized testing time, heh.
I am pretty happy with all my kid’s names – although I tried in vain to get the Mr. to agree to Aiden for our youngest.
But, my cousin’s initials spell out MOP. We were always calling him Mopsie, any chance we got.
I have a friend named Jill, and her son is Jack.
I think the only thing I would do differently is give our sons two middle names instead of two last names… But they’ll survive it.
Jack was on my short list when Hollis was born. I’d never thought about the rhyming issue either!
There’s a young associate I work with named Ethan G. O****ff. That’s right. E.G.O. In his case, the initials fit well, but what were his parents thinking?
I hope I don’t one day regret naming my daughter something unusual. My soon-to-be-born son is also getting a doozy of a name.
So far, I’ve only gotten compliments on the daughter’s name. And some silent and lengthy head nods on the boy name.
We’ve given each of them “normal” middle names, just in case they grow to hate their first names. Although we are planning to raise them not to care what others think, and to embrace their individuality.
It’s funny you would write about this … I’m working on a piece about naming, also.
I love the name Jack. Strong and solid and simple. You can’t go wrong with Jack.
When we were pregnant with BubTar, my OB asked us what our name choices were and then he “checked them” for us, making sure the initials were not embarrassing or his name wasn’t tortuously rhymable . I got a kick out of the doc’s interest in those things.
As a parent of a Jack (a Jackson, but we call him Jack), I’m so with you on all the ways his name goes with other words and phrases: jumping jack, cracker jack, car jack, jack in the box… and more. So many more.
But really, I love the name. I think (obviously, I guess) that it’s one of the best names in the world.
I adore the name Jack, I think it’s strong and solid and a good name for a man.
I’m fairly pleased with my kids’ names – nicely unusual without being names from another planet or anything, although The Boy has a name that rhymes with everything, too. Oh well.
My father’s name is John, but he always went by Jack. He named my brother John. And he still calls the bathroom “The John”. Strange.
I love the name Jack, also, it is a good, solid name, just like my kids name’s, which rhyme with all sorts of things.
My maiden name rhymes with Hell, that’s fun to grow up with.
I’m still happy with my choices of names for my kids. No regrets so far!
I think Jack is a great name too.
When we named the Peanut we started to run into lots of problems. We loved a middle name that started with the letter A, our last name starts with G.
SAG
TAG
RAG
LAG
GAG
FAG
HAG
Yup, the possibilities are endless. How did we solve the problem? Two middle names. Ah ha!
I love the name Jack and so far, no regrets for my kids two names – they rhyme with nothing. Somehow, people are still able to give them funny nicknames, though – like calling Elliot “Swelliot”.
I love the name Jack, btw.
No regrets, although Liam prefers his middle name–but maybe he’ll pick that one instead someday.
No regrets at all- though you do make interesting discoveries along the way, as you have mentioned here. We thought our second son’s name was quite common, and yet have found it to be quite uncommon (traditional, but currently uncommon).
Few people know this but we named Molly and Joseph as such because we thought they would be born around Christmas. We thought it was a way to give them twin names that “went” together, and had significance, but in a subtle way (Molly being a derivative of Mary). And even though none of it worked out the way we thought, or hoped, I still like how they sound together.
Jack is an awesome name! I don’t like names that try to be more than they are. I don’t like designer names or trendy names. Jack will never go out of style.
I don’t regret what names I chose for my first, or Critter’s name (no, it’s really not Critter), but I regret that my parents didn’t give me a middle name. That is because my mother is Hispanic and in her culture my middle name would be her maiden name (Perez). She wasn’t quite ready to embrace Anglo culture so she just didn’t give me one. I always fewl sorta incomplete without a middle name.
Hmmmmm… Jack. I’ve been looking for a boy name these days, and that’s one I haven’t seriously considered – before now. Hmmmmm.
As for regrets, I love the first and middle names we picked for our boys, but I’m sometimes a little sorry that I saddled them with both our surnames, hypenated. It’s a mouthful, and I have to spell it out s-l-o-w-l-y rather frequently. But my 5 year old takes great pleasure in my assurance that there is likely nobody else in the whole world with his name (my husband’s surname is common, but mine is not.)
We fretted over names for our son before he was born. Worried about people shortening it…worried about nicknames & teasing.
Settled on Ethan. 5 years later it’s been a good choice.
Pretty sure my folks don’t read our comments, so here goes:
I hate my name.
Stu – as in Stupid or Beef Stew or Stooooooeeeeeyyy…
And, how can you really think deep sexy thoughts when your man’s name is Stuart? Really, it’s not overly inspiring in that department. Need your computer fixed or your paper edited, Stu’s your guy. But a date? “Nah, I’ve go plans with Steve or James or Rick or Malcolm.”
Oh, Stu. Yep, I can understand your issues with the name. And yet — Malcolm? Rick? No, no, no…
My husband’s name is Steve — LOL!
My late father-in-law was names Maurice Edgar and called “Danny” his whole life. Long story, involving drugs and the signing of the birth certificate soon after delivery.
My only real regret with the Punks- (Aidan, Clay, and Lucy) is that I sometimes wish we’d named Clayton just plain old Clay. It’s what we call him anyway.
The only other bummer is that after we named our 1st his name skyrocketed in popularity. Now everyone knows several Aidans or Bradens, or Haydens or some other variation.
What can you do?
Funny set of comments. I like “Jack” – it’s a nice strong simple name.
I love my daughter’s name – it’s a little off the beaten track, but not too much so. And her initials are the same as mine, because she shares my middle name AND last name. Because I’m a crank and insisted that she have my last name (which I did not change at marriage).
Clayton is a fantastic name that will open doors for him when he becomes a man. Think of it: Chief Justice Clayton Hatch. Perspective is everything.
We tried so hard to name after my mother. But we could not agree on a boy’s name that started with G. Finally, we gave up, chose a first name after no one, and a middle name that started with G.
So far I still love the names we gave our son. He has an uncommon first name that goes well together with a suddenly quite common second name and a not very common and easily understandable surname.
I’m very happy that we found out that our first choice for his name, Leo, suddenly became immensely popular. There are always two or three Leos in every group he attends.