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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House Stu works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Today we're talking

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Speaker 1: about baby names and whether or not they make a

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Speaker 1: difference in life, and particularly more unique names. And while

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Speaker 1: Kristen is not the most unique name, they're plenty of

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Speaker 1: Christen's out there listening right now, I would bet. But

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Speaker 1: the spelling is a little unconventional, and I will say

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Speaker 1: that there have been times in my life when I

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Speaker 1: wish my parents hadn't been so creative. At the hospital,

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Speaker 1: it's c R I S T E N. Rarely does

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Speaker 1: someone spell it correctly on the first time. I understand

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Speaker 1: it's an unconventional spelling, but perhaps there are times when

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Speaker 1: that's a little bit annoying to you. It has been annoying,

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Speaker 1: and for some reason, maybe it's the way I say hello,

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Speaker 1: my name is Kristen. People typically respond, oh, hello, Christian

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Speaker 1: or what was that Christine? Kirsten, Kirsten, like any anything

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Speaker 1: that is not Kristen I have I've gotten like no, Actually,

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Speaker 1: it's Kristen. And fun fact about me, Originally my parents

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Speaker 1: were since this was in the early eighties, Um, they're

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Speaker 1: gonna name me Michelle. Not no offense. Michelle is out there.

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Speaker 1: But I'm kind of glad I'm a Kristen, you know.

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Speaker 1: I think that, um, it was gonna be Molly or

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Speaker 1: Emily for me, and well Emily. If I had been

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Speaker 1: an Emily, I would have been like one of ten

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Speaker 1: Emily's in my class. So I am glad that I

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Speaker 1: got Molly because it's not very common except among dogs.

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Speaker 1: If I had a dollar for every time someone told

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Speaker 1: me they had a dog named Molly, I could go

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Speaker 1: buy us a nice lunch. Today. Yeah, it's a very

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Speaker 1: common pet name. So um, yeah, that's what we want

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Speaker 1: to kind of get into. Everyone's got a story about

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Speaker 1: their name, whether it meant something to their parents, whether

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Speaker 1: they just liked it, which Geremala came from. And I

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Speaker 1: think that it's fair to say that naming a child

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Speaker 1: causes a lot of angst among expected parents, especially today.

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Speaker 1: If you look at the traffic numbers for like baby

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Speaker 1: name dot Com and all these different baby naming sites,

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Speaker 1: they have just gone through the roof in the past

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Speaker 1: few years. Everyone wants a good name. I mean you've

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Speaker 1: got to You've got to get like the perfect balance

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Speaker 1: between uh, common enough that everyone knows it, that you know,

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Speaker 1: people won't have trouble spelling it like a kristen Um,

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Speaker 1: but out there enough that you're not gonna be one

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Speaker 1: of you know, fifteen Emily's or John's or Matthews in

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Speaker 1: your class. And I feel like that's the line that

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Speaker 1: a lot of people are trying to walk. And as

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Speaker 1: a result, I think we're getting some more unusual baby names.

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Speaker 1: And before reading all of these sources, I had no idea,

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Speaker 1: first of all, the great effort that a lot of

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Speaker 1: arrants are going to these days, not only just looking

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Speaker 1: at baby named books and consulting you know, family names,

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Speaker 1: but also going to numerologists, going to branding consultants, specific

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Speaker 1: baby name consultants, taking Internet polls and surveys, so much

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Speaker 1: fretting over baby names, and lo and behold, there is

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Speaker 1: actually decent reason why, because researchers have put all this

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Speaker 1: effort into figuring out how your name impacts you down

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Speaker 1: the road. Yeah, let me let's throw out a few examples.

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Speaker 1: Let's say, for example, that you're a fella who was

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Speaker 1: given a name traditionally given to girls like an Ashley,

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Speaker 1: Yep or Shannon. Those boys are more likely to misbehave

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Speaker 1: than their counterparts with masculine names, according to some research,

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Speaker 1: because they're saying that, you know, if you're a male

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Speaker 1: Ashley and all of a sudden you're in a class

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Speaker 1: with a female Ashley, the bozos and the class are

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Speaker 1: gonna start giving you a hard time. You're gonna start fighting,

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Speaker 1: and that's your discipline record will look different than you know,

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Speaker 1: John does disciplinite record. And there's also correlation between how

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Speaker 1: much um someone likes their name and their self esteem,

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Speaker 1: So accumulating research is indicated that if you dislike your name,

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Speaker 1: you probably have lower self esteem. Right, yeah, here's another

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Speaker 1: one if you're kind of flip side the one I

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Speaker 1: just threw out. If you're a girl who has sort

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Speaker 1: of a masculine name, let's say Morgan versus Elizabeth, because

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Speaker 1: Morgan can go either way. The masculine named girls are

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Speaker 1: more likely to take those math and science classes that

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Speaker 1: you know, typically girls are you know, stereotypically not taking

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Speaker 1: then the girls with the more feminine names. But people say,

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Speaker 1: is this a difference in terms of how we treat

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Speaker 1: daughters with masculine names, or is it just that masculine

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Speaker 1: name gives you the the push to kind of go

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Speaker 1: into that more masculine dominated world. And speaking of academic performance,

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Speaker 1: there's also research indicating that names that sound like and

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Speaker 1: this is where we get into some controversial territory names

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Speaker 1: it sound as though they came from a family of

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Speaker 1: low socio economic status, might be tagged as less capable learners.

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Speaker 1: And so it turns into um sort of a vicious

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Speaker 1: cycle of people, you know, educators perceiving this child based

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Speaker 1: on his or her name as coming from a low,

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Speaker 1: lower economic status and in putting them into the lower

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Speaker 1: learning groups. And even just let's say you've got a

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Speaker 1: common name, let's say Christian for example. They're saying in

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Speaker 1: this article by Jenni Brner that if you were constantly

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Speaker 1: asked like, is that really how you spell your name, Kristen,

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Speaker 1: that that would affect your self esteem too, right, that

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Speaker 1: eventually you would think, is that really how I spell

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Speaker 1: my name? Am I wrong? Am I wrong? Am I

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Speaker 1: my crazy? Is this name any good at all? They're

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Speaker 1: saying that kind of a very well effect on your

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Speaker 1: self esteem, right, because think about it like that starts

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Speaker 1: to happen what in kindergarten, you know, and teachers don't

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Speaker 1: don't want to, um, don't want to spell your name

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Speaker 1: that way, and it can it can really hurt. But

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Speaker 1: but and then just going on with this, like we said,

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Speaker 1: there is an astonishing amount of research. So just to

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Speaker 1: add to this pile criminal activity. Yeah, there's this whole

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Speaker 1: study from Shippensburg University that found a relationship between first

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Speaker 1: name popularity in adolescents in their tendency to make crime.

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Speaker 1: And basically they're saying that if you know you're a

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Speaker 1: a Eugene or Mildred and no one likes your name,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna go on a crime spree overcompensate for having

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Speaker 1: such a polarizing name. I liked on the record for

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Speaker 1: saying I'd love the name Mildred. Mildred is cute. Um,

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Speaker 1: But I think that if I have a daughter christ

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna name her Deborah, Oh, I know why,

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Speaker 1: because you want a high achiever. I want a high

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Speaker 1: achieving daughter or son. So that's why Peter and Deborah

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Speaker 1: will will be the names of my children. According to

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Speaker 1: one study, those are the most common names of c E.

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Speaker 1: O s in the United States. Yeah, this was I

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Speaker 1: think it came from an extensive survey from information called

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Speaker 1: off linked in and they pulled out i mean, sixteen

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Speaker 1: million UM profiles and like you said, yes, Peter the

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Speaker 1: most popular. And the Deborah thing is interesting because Deborah

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Speaker 1: spelled with the A H ending is the number one

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Speaker 1: most popular female CEO name, and then number three is

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Speaker 1: Deborah A R A. So yeah, even just you know,

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Speaker 1: if you're making decision, oh, I like the name Deborah,

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Speaker 1: You've got to consider which spelling is gonna be better

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Speaker 1: for my child. Add on that h um. And you

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Speaker 1: know there are a lot of dentists whose name are dentists.

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Speaker 1: So um, yeah, you can see now why parents might

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Speaker 1: start to stress because it does seem like maybe your

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Speaker 1: name might influence what you do for a living, how

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Speaker 1: you get through high school, whether it's with a disciplinary

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Speaker 1: record or good grades or not. Um. Even when you're

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Speaker 1: sending out those first resumes, and this is where we

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Speaker 1: get kind of into touchy territory with racial names. Um,

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Speaker 1: they're saying that Molly for examples of very quote unquote

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Speaker 1: white name, and that if we sent the same resume

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Speaker 1: out for one Molly versus the same exact resume for

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Speaker 1: someone named like Rashonda, that Molly would get more hits

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Speaker 1: than Reshonda. And there have been a few economic studies

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Speaker 1: that have confirmed this. If employers are looking just side

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Speaker 1: by side at resumes um identical candidates, they haven't met

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Speaker 1: the anyone in person. But the resumes with the stereotypical

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Speaker 1: white names versus the more stereotypical black names, the white

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Speaker 1: names typically get more callbacks. And this is not just

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Speaker 1: a us phenomenon. We found one study where um in Sweden,

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Speaker 1: if those names were not stereotypically Swedish enough, those people

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Speaker 1: did not make as much money as the people who

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Speaker 1: had Swedish names when they were given a starting salary amount.

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Speaker 1: But here is an important point to make about especially

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Speaker 1: the white versus black names, and this is coming from

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Speaker 1: the book Freakonomics that talked a lot about this phin aminon,

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Speaker 1: and they looked at a very large data set as

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Speaker 1: well and examined the outcomes of white kids and black

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Speaker 1: kids with you know, the stereotypical white names, the stereotypical

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Speaker 1: black names, and then just crossover names just like you know,

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Speaker 1: names that have no racial distinction whatsoever. And again the

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Speaker 1: similar pattern occurred where kids with the stereotypical and they

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Speaker 1: called this super black names that as they quote uh,

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Speaker 1: ended up with the lowest outcome. They ended up making

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Speaker 1: the least amount of money, the most poorly educated. And

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Speaker 1: the Forre economics guy said, this really is not an

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Speaker 1: issue of the name, but it's an issue of the

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Speaker 1: what the name indicates. Because children with those super black names,

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Speaker 1: and I hate using that phrase over and over again,

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Speaker 1: but that's phrase they used typically come from lower socio

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Speaker 1: economic backgrounds with fewer opportunities, right, And there's some evidence

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Speaker 1: that people who give those quote unquote super black names

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Speaker 1: to their children are trying to associate themselves with the

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Speaker 1: socio economic group on purpose, you know, standing together in

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Speaker 1: solidarity with your community. Um. But then the question becomes

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Speaker 1: whether you're standing with the community or just trying to

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Speaker 1: give your kid a name that's kind of cool and edgy.

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Speaker 1: How does it affect the child? It affects some sort

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Speaker 1: of long term we're saying, you know, maybe there's a

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Speaker 1: little bit of you know, maybe there's some fun to

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Speaker 1: be had in terms of you name your kid a

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Speaker 1: dentists and he turns out to be a dentist. Or

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Speaker 1: you name your kid Mabel and chains of working at

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Speaker 1: Mabel's bakery, they might happen. Yeah. Well, there is a

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Speaker 1: theory that all of this effort that parents today are

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Speaker 1: putting into finding that perfectly unique name, you know, the

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Speaker 1: Surry Cruise, the Apple Poltro or whatever, the Martin Martin Um,

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Speaker 1: all this effort we're putting into it is only breeding narcissism,

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Speaker 1: because at birth, we're saying you are unique among children's

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Speaker 1: snowflake along snowflake, You're so special that I must fund

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Speaker 1: a word that has never been used as a child

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Speaker 1: name and put it on you. And so bearing this

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Speaker 1: unique name, they become self centered brats. Yeah, and and

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Speaker 1: it kind of they're saying, it says more about the

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Speaker 1: parents being kind of self centered brats as well, because

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Speaker 1: you could argue that any name says more about the

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Speaker 1: parents than it does about the child. Despite the fact

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Speaker 1: that people are going to branding experts saying what name

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Speaker 1: can I give my kid that will make someone really

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Speaker 1: rich higher them? But uh, you know, by choosing this

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Speaker 1: most unusual name than yeah, it's possible that we're going

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Speaker 1: to become this nation of narcissists. According to one theory,

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Speaker 1: but speaking of the branding and this, I think this

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Speaker 1: little anecdote is points to this parental role. You know,

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Speaker 1: maybe it's not the children that we're breeding that are

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Speaker 1: the problem, but maybe the parents who need to just

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Speaker 1: breathe and relax and name their kid George and get

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Speaker 1: it over with. So this guy in the Wall Street Journal,

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Speaker 1: he's a branding expert, Mr. Alper, He tells Wall Street

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Speaker 1: Journal about how he and his wife are just agonizing

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Speaker 1: over what to name their child. They end up naming

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Speaker 1: the child Beckett, and he says, quote that c K

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Speaker 1: sound is very well regarded in corporate circles, giving Kodak

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Speaker 1: and Coca Cola as examples. Quote, the hard stop forces

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Speaker 1: you to accentuate the syllable in a way that draws

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Speaker 1: attention to it. Poor Beckett or Beckett. Well, you know

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Speaker 1: there's one actor. Al said that there was a father

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Speaker 1: back at the turn the centry who named one kid

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Speaker 1: winner and one kid loser, and winner like sucked at life,

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Speaker 1: he became a criminal, did not do well. Loser goes

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Speaker 1: on to be like the most successful businessman of the neighborhood,

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Speaker 1: but people called him lou because it was uncompable. Calm loser. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he actually ended up a sergeant with the NYPD, which

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Speaker 1: is kind of ironic because winners on one side of

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Speaker 1: the law and lou A losers on the winning side

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Speaker 1: of the law. I think, though, Molly, that we need

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Speaker 1: to get off the Internet and go back to colonial

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Speaker 1: times when parents would choose names by opening the Bible

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Speaker 1: and selecting a word at random. What sort of names

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Speaker 1: with that result? In Christen Well, some examples from the

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Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal were notwithstanding Griswold and maybe Barnes. But

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Speaker 1: that's just in the United States. It's unconventional naming practices.

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Speaker 1: But in other countries sometimes the law determines what your

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Speaker 1: child can be named. Yeah, if you want to name

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Speaker 1: your kid Metallica, you are out of luck in some countries.

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Speaker 1: Sweden does not take kindly to someone wanting to have

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Speaker 1: a baby, and as a joke, name in Ikea. No

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Speaker 1: Swedish authorities have rejected such names as Veranda Ikea and

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Speaker 1: Mattawa coup And there was a French law that was

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Speaker 1: enacted in the eighteen hundreds and was only repealed in

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Speaker 1: nine that prohibited all names except those on a preapproved list.

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Speaker 1: And then in Germany the government still bands invented names

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Speaker 1: and names, and this is interesting. Names that don't clearly

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Speaker 1: designate a child's sex. Very interesting. Well, every now and

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Speaker 1: you'll see a trend piece in this country of some

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Speaker 1: parents who wants to me and their kid hitler for

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Speaker 1: a laugh, like, should we have a law that prohibits,

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Speaker 1: you know, crazy names like that, or maybe we should

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Speaker 1: have a law against crazy parents being able to you know,

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Speaker 1: have children. Wait, that's eugenics. Never mind, here's what I

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Speaker 1: think we should do. Christen. Technology has all our answers.

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Speaker 1: I know you want to go back to the Bible,

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Speaker 1: I say, I said, we all use our smartphones because

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Speaker 1: I found out about this app that you can get

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Speaker 1: on your phone where you um a name will kind

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Speaker 1: of slide by on the app. You put it up

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Speaker 1: to your pregnant belly and when the baby kick after

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Speaker 1: hearing the name, they're saying the baby is selecting its name. Yes,

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Speaker 1: this is called the kick to Pick app. It's only

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Speaker 1: cs and cents for a great name any price. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there you go, take all the take all the worry out.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I still I still think that maybe you

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Speaker 1: should honor the Lord and look it up in the bottom. Well,

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Speaker 1: what you can do. According to this article in Time

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Speaker 1: about the app, you can pre select sort of a

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Speaker 1: group of names. So let's say you want to put

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Speaker 1: like a big circle like biblical names on your app.

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Speaker 1: I would want a lot of hard stops to accentuate

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Speaker 1: the vowels and such um. And then you let that

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Speaker 1: go by on the app. And so the kid will

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Speaker 1: be picking a biblical name that you have preapproved. But

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Speaker 1: when he complains later about his name, you have to

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Speaker 1: be like, hey, Jesus, you picked this name. And that's

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Speaker 1: why they're always middle names. You know, parents, you're freaking out,

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Speaker 1: But just remember you got two names to play with.

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Speaker 1: I do over if you will. Yeah, guess that's one

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Speaker 1: of the things that this name regret, almost like buyer's remorse.

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Speaker 1: Just for one final statistic, kind listeners. A British study

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Speaker 1: of three thousand parents suggests that one in five regret

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Speaker 1: the name they chose for a child, and most of

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Speaker 1: the distress comes when they pick something unusual or odd.

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Speaker 1: So maybe go with something like George Slingshot. You know,

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Speaker 1: do something weird and do something conventional. You can mix

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Speaker 1: it up, and you know, kids will probably just rename

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Speaker 1: themselves when they become engsty fifteen year olds anyway. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's no big deal. And anecdotally, once kids passed sort

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Speaker 1: of that mark of getting through high school, getting their

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Speaker 1: first job, and kind of settling into the name, they're

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Speaker 1: fine with it. Yeah, even though people still must spell

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Speaker 1: my name all the time, I don't mind it. I

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Speaker 1: like it. Yeah, it's a distinguishing factor. I think that

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Speaker 1: the thing is is once you see the kid and

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Speaker 1: the names applied to them, it's set. Yeah, so expectant

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Speaker 1: parents out there. While we freaked you out in the

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Speaker 1: first half, the second half is just to tell you

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Speaker 1: to chill out, just relax, and people with odder unusual

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Speaker 1: or horribly ordinary, right in and tell us your stories.

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Speaker 1: We would like to hear them. It's mom stuff at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And I've got an email

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Speaker 1: that was sent to that very same address. It's about

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Speaker 1: yeast infections. It's from Nicholas and he earned his five

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Speaker 1: gold stars by being a man who listened to all

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Speaker 1: of that podcast. And he writes, sometimes a woman's partner

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Speaker 1: can find signs of a East infection before the woman herself.

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Speaker 1: I was too embarrassed to mention anything the first time

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Speaker 1: I came across the East infection, but if I had,

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Speaker 1: it would have cut short my girlfriend's symptoms. And when

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Speaker 1: she found out, she was mortified. So to make things

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Speaker 1: easier for everyone, do not be afraid to tactfully say

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Speaker 1: something to her. Maybe a couple should even discuss how

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Speaker 1: they'll handle this in advance to avoid awkwardness and embarrassment.

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Speaker 1: I have an email here from Valerie, and this is

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Speaker 1: also from her East infection podcast in which we men

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Speaker 1: and thrush in babies. And I'm not going to go

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Speaker 1: into all the details, but let's just say Valerie got

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Speaker 1: a bad case of thrush from her baby because she

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Speaker 1: did not because thrush is oral, an oral yeast infection,

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Speaker 1: and she didn't realize how contagious it was. And she

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Speaker 1: would let him put his fingers in her mouth and

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Speaker 1: wipe off her pacifier with his mouth, and you know,

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Speaker 1: of course kiss him because he's a go little baby.

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Speaker 1: And then she got a bad case of thrush. And

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Speaker 1: she said that she tried to do everything natural with yogurt,

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Speaker 1: probiotics and changing her diet so that it didn't have

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Speaker 1: any sugar or beer, just yogurt and vegetables basically, and

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Speaker 1: everything eating everything else was very painful and then she

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Speaker 1: said when it spread her vagina, she finally went to

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Speaker 1: the doctor. So the moral of that painful story is,

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Speaker 1: if your child has thrush, be careful. Be careful because

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Speaker 1: it can apparently spread like wildfire. And that's a good

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Speaker 1: name for a baby, wildfire wildfire connor like it. Well.

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Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

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Speaker 1: via social media, you can a email us at Mom's

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Speaker 1: House at works dot com. But that's not really social,

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00:19:14,720 --> 00:19:18,040
Speaker 1: so why don't you follow us on Facebook and like

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Speaker 1: us or follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.

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Speaker 1: And then finally, during the week, you can go to

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Speaker 1: our blog It's stuff Mom Never told You and you

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00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:32,400
Speaker 1: can find it and plenty of other articles about babies

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Speaker 1: and names at how Stuff works dot com. Be sure

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Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.

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Speaker 1: Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most

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Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, brought

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Speaker 1: to you by the reinvented tooth Ou some twelve Camry.

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Speaker 1: It's ready, are you