It’s common for baby name discussions to bring up the “teaseability” element of a name. Will Dirk be called “Dirk the Jerk”? Will Cooper be called “Cooper the Pooper”? How about Bart and Huck—will anyone replace that first letter with an F? Will Ivy be called Poison Ivy? Will Clementine get heartily sick of hearing “Oh my darling”?
There are a few basic stances on this subject. Some people consider a bad rhyme/association a deal-breaker. Others say, “Kids will get teased no matter what, and it might as well be about their names.” Whatevs. Today, this part of the subject is moot. Here is what we are interested in today: DO kids get teased about their names? Or is that just something parents imagine/worry will happen?
I’m going to put a poll over to the right. [Poll closed; see below.] It is a LITTLE tricky, so pay attention. If you had a “teaseable” name (rhymed with a “bad word” or potty term, had an obvious association such as “poison” with “Ivy,” etc.), did you get teased about it, and if so how badly? If you had a NON-teasable name (Jennifer, for example, or Michael, where there’s no obvious tease problem), did YOU get teased about your name ANYWAY (“Michael Smichael!” “Mike bike!”), and if so how badly?
I’m wondering a couple of different things here: (1) Do teaseable names GET teased? and (2) Are children such little nutjobs that they’ll even tease the non-teaseable ones?
Poll results
(263 votes total):
Teasable name, teased a lot: 5 votes, roughly 2%
Teasable name, teased some: 14 votes, roughly 5%
Teasable name, teased a little: 24 votes, roughly 9%
Teasable name, not teased: 7 votes, roughly 3%
Not-teasable name, teased a lot: 12 votes, roughly 5%
Non-teasable name, teased some: 44 votes, roughly 17%
Non-teasable name, teased a little: 69 votes, roughly 26%
Non-teasable name, not teased: 88 votes, roughly 33%
My first name is Carmen and when we learned about carbon monoxide in Gr. 5 I got called Carmen Monoxide for a while. Not too bad. But…my last name can be altered to spell Hog. THAT was what I got teased with: Carmen the Hog. It wasn’t too bad though – just a little teasing for a few years, then everyone gave up.
My brothers name Gabriel for short Gabe didn’t seem so teasable at first glance but quickly turned into Gabey the Baby. This was mostly in elementry school, by middle school or so.
With the name Sabrina the most I have ever gotten is the random teenage witch comments.
Kids tease other kids for anything that makes them different.
If Ivy was the #1 most popular name in America, I doubt teasing a girl by calling her Poison Ivy would be as much fun.
No matter what the name, if it’s different, they will find a way to poke fun.
I got teased because of my name, but then in 7th grade I had orthodontia that gave me a gap between my front teeth and I was mercilessly called “The Grand Canyon.”
My point being, kids will ALWAYS find something to tease other kids about.
My name being Dawn (you wouldn’t think very teasable) there were often references to the dish soap mostly by my siblings though and not too badly. It was understandable coming from kids when I was a kid but, now as a grown adult I find it a bit ridiculous when another grown adult makes the reference and finds themselves funny doing so, it doesn’t happen often but surprisingly it does happen.
I have a Cooper. A co-worker said, “You do understand the ‘playground implications’ of Cooper, right?” Yes, I was aware. I figured, everybody poops … so there’s an easy retort.
A friend of mine, who was always made fun of for his name, said kids will find something to make fun of you about – if it’s not your name, they’ll say you smell, or make something else up. A name sort of seems like the lesser of all those evils.
It’s something to be aware of, and you should judge how well you would be able to handle it. (Sort of like the Anal or Annal discussions that go on here.)
I love the name Tucker and Fisher, but I can only image the comments … I’d rather not put my kids up against that.
My first name Jason was not suitable for rhyming or teasing. I always had the reference to Jason and the Argonauts of course….but what I got teased on was due to my last name. From K-3, we only put our first name’s and first letter of our last name on papers and stuff. Therefor, my name was always “Jason P”…which got translated to “Jason Pees”. :)
I am going to age myself here but does anyone remember Monchichis? Little monkey dolls that sucked their thumb and stuff? When I was 10 or so, a boy in my class decided that my last name was close to that (it started with the same letter and had 3 syllables but that’s as close as it got)and started singing the damn jingle whenever he saw me. My BFF from 6th grade still calls me it and now it is a term of endearment from her. No one else calls me that though! (BTW, to get back at him I called him Jeremy the jerk. I am original, I know!)
Kids will find a way to make up a name to tease if they really want to!
My name was (WAS) Ramona. There was the obvious Ramona the Pest reference, but that came out after I was born and wasn’t really brought up often. Instead Ramona was shortened to Mona which became Moan, Moaner and Boner over time. HATED it. Absolutely hated.
So I had an ostensibly unteasable name but they found a way to make it teasable anyway
I have a non-teasable name, Jennifer, but boys BARKED at me and called me a dog in the elementary school lunchroom. So although I think parents should be aware of obvious teasing factors to a name, kids can be cruel regardless and they will come up with interesting ways of teasing someone if they want.
I was teased mildly for my name, Hollie. The usual Holly Hobby stuff, which I didn’t care about. But as I got older, a few boys decided saying “Hollie would, wouldn’t she?” in reference to Hollywood, was just too funny to resist. It was a stretch for them to come up with, and I really hated it.
My name is Kelsall, which I have never heard before on another living person. It’s pronounced kel-cil, like pencil. I’ve never used it and have gone by Kelly all my life.
If kids didn’t know my real name, I got Kelly Belly or Smelly Kelly most often. Otherwise they would try to be creative in the ways they could torture me with my weird name. one boy called me Coleslaw all through seventh grade.
I think most kids will go through a phase of getting teased about their names, but it’s not always the obvious ones we might think of.
My name is Angel, which is pretty teasable when you think about it, but no kids ever made fun of my name. The only teasing I got was from adults (“do you behave like an angel?” or “you look like a little angel,” etc.) and then, when I got older, boys would adapt my name to cheesy pick up lines. (My husband actually still likes to say that he married an angel, and when we were dating he made me a CD of 18 or so songs that were all about angels. In his case I guess I didn’t find it all that cheesy. :))
So yeah, the only teasing I ever got out of my name was nice teasing or corny stuff, never anything negative.
I had a name that was featured in the Name Game Song (ie: Anna, Anna Bo Banna) It was annoying but not life altering.
Someone said earlier: kids are going to find a reason to tease regardless of the name.
I would worry more about my child being able to let it roll off their back rather than not using a favorite name because it can be made fun of.
My kids are still pretty little, but I have never heard them or their friends so much as question another child’s name, or tease anyone about it. I think that there is such a wide range of children’s names today that they don’t see anything as unusual (and therefore teasable).
I still don’t think anyone should name their kid @sswipe, though.
I was “Jennifer of the Jungle” complete with Carol Burnett – style Tarzan yell for years. Annoying, but not painful. The bigger problem was my last name, which started with “Vander.” Upon developing a chest in the late 70s before a lot of the other girls I was known as “Jennifer Vander-built.” Thanks, Gloria. *rolleyes* So basically it’s moot for me and I named my kids what I liked, without worrying that Garrett rhymes with ferret and carrot and Evan rhymes with heaven. And I definitely agree with Mayberry — just don’t name them @sswipe.
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So I answered the quiz with unteasable name/never teased. Then I realized that my unteasable name was teased in high school! My name is Jennifer, but I went by Jenny. My classmates at one point took to calling me “Jenitalia” (like genitalia) and “Jenitals.”
The last name I newly acquired thanks to my husband is Hirchert, which rhymes with circuit. Or, if you’re 15, jerk-it.
My SIL now (jokily, but I fear for our future children) calls me Jenny Jerk-It.
My name is Toni and I was always teased for it. Please do not give your daughter a boy’s name!! I was called Tony/i the Tiger and Toni Baloney. My name is constantly misspelled and I am still asked all the time what my “real” name is. I think the worst was when I was about 10 and my mother cut my hair very short and I’d get people (adults even!) asking me if I was a boy or girl. Way to give a kid a complex.
My name (Jennifer) is about as generic as they come so no, I was never teased because of my name. The “mean girls” in Jr. high simply chose to make fun of my height instead. I was Stubbs through my freshman year of high school, and I wasn’t even that short. I’m 5’3″! I agree with those above…kids will look for differences, and hone in on something they’re likely self-conscious of themselves. If it’s not a name, it will be something else.
I can’t remember ever having my first name (Susan) teased, but I did get a small amount of teasing for my last name, which was Harris (“Hairy Harris”). I think it was because I had hairy arms — or at least that’s what I concluded — and I found it so mortifying that I disliked my last name ever after … up until about a year ago when I suddenly thought, “You know, Harris is NOT a terrible last name! It’s a FINE name!” I think I REALLY over-reacted to what was in fact only mild teasing.
my name is leah. In grade school kids would sing the jingle for the chia pet (cha-cha-chia!) with my name–la-la-la-leah! But no one did it to be mean. It only takes 1 little kid to come up with something and pretty soon all the other ones latch on & do the same thing. It doesn’t matter if your name is virtually nickname proof. Where there’s a will there’s a way. My mother’s name is Phyllis. Her maiden name started with P. She was called pee pee merciliously.
Kids will tease about anything. I’m Jennifer. Never got teased for my first name. BUT, my last name was Mattox. I got called Maddog Mattox. Mad ox. And Mad ducks. Also, I have red hair, which added a whole ‘nother dimension.
I still to this day, sometimes call my brother Michael, Michael Motorcycle.
I agree, kids will get teased no matter what their name is. Growing up, my name was Cindy Rider and I was called “Cyndi Lauper” often and “Knight Ryder’s wife.” Both are ridiculous, but they had to find something to tease me about even though you would think my name is un-teasable.
My name is Annalise, and (shockingly) I never heard any “anal” jokes until I started dating a really obnoxious guy in college. In elementary school, the worst I got was “Anna Banana”, which wasn’t even really an insult.
I had a pretty unteasable name (Marcy), but for a brief period of time in elementary school I did get some playground teasing that was very upsetting. My middle name starts with the letter “R” and I remember for a week on the playground kids teased me because they said the initials M.R. meant I was a “Mental Retarded Monkey Raper”. How’s that for going way out on a limb? So I think kids will tease about anything. And they can be very cruel. I remember vividly how upset I was at this.
I got teased about my last name, which, as with most of the previous posters, is pretty innocuous and nickname-proof until it falls in the hands of elementary / middle / high school age boys determined to tease. The teasing I got was akin to taking the last name Fisher and teasing with “Fishy wishy wishy!” It was weak, it made no sense, but if you’re a 13-yo boy, you might think you’re awfully clever for coming up with that.
I’m really glad Swistle posted about this, as I find myself crossing out name candidates on the basis of tease-ability. Everyone’s responses prove no specific name guarantees teasing (except possibly @sswipe), and there is no specific name that will shield your child against name-teasing.
This is such a fascinating discussion , thanks for raising the topic, Swistle! I, too, had a fairly un-teaseable name (Erika), but was teased for being nerdy. (Boys chanted, “E equals MC squared” at me on the bus, but I was SO nerdy that I was actually secretly flattered by this.) So, yes, I fall into the camp of not worrying about a name’s teaseability quotient, because if it’s not the name, it’s likely to be something else. And you know what? Most of the time it’s not life-altering or scarring (outright bullying is different), and we come out of it on the other side with funny stories.
This discussion reminded me a Cosby Show episode where Rudy got upset because a classmate called her ‘Rudy Huckleberry’. Father Cliff went on to explain to her that because they couldn’t think of anything else to tease her about they picked her name. Some have big noses (like Cliff), others have big feet; the kids at school couldn’t find anything else to tease about besides her long last name. I would think the same could be true for those that have somewhat “unryhmable” names – they’ll probably just get picked on for something else (ie height, weight, acne, clothes, lisp, etc).
So as much as we want to protect our young ones from the cruelty of other kids, our efforts are best focused on teaching them how to cope and deal with teasing instead of the “names” themselves.
By the way, yes I too was teased as a child. My name is Tracy, and was called Spacey Tracey and my last name often mispronounced as “cock”. You know I turned it into a positive and it allowed me to get interested in astronomy. After awhile the kids lost interest in “teasing” and I gained a new love of the stars !
I do think that name teasing was far more common when “we” were kids than it is today. My son (3rd grade) has a classmate whose last name is “Butt”. I asked my son if the other kids ever teased him and he said “why would we tease him – he didn’t pick that name”
Awww
They got creative with my name, which wasn’t particularly teasable. My husband and my brother, though, are named Peter and they both got “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater” growing up.
I figure that kids will tease if they’re going to tease, however I don’t believe in making it easy for them by giving kids very teaseable names.
That said, I think there’s a difference in naming your kid Gram and having him called “Gram Cracker” and naming your kid Cooper and having him called Cooper Pooper. I named my daughter Anna fully aware of the Anna Banana issue, but figured it wasn’t gross or malicious sounding, so I let it go. I thought it would be more annoying than hurtful.
Great post! One of my girls is called Ellie, which for years was my favourite girl names. It was only after she was born (duh) that I realised she might get “Smelly Ellie”. Uh oh. But I’ve since decided that, yes, kids will find something to tease about no matter what.
I’m still trying to figure out retorts she can give … or what the best way is to deal with teasing anyway. But since the girls are only 20 months old, I have a while longer to figure it out.
I don’t recall getting teased about my first name, but my relatively rare last name (Boyette) garnered me some “Hey, are you a BOY YET?” b.s. in elementary school.
I simply called the offender (last name: Chesnick) David Cheese-neck.
My general thoughts on teasing are that if your kid happens to end up being the weird kid, a weird/uncommon/unusual name makes it so much worse. A weird Jennifer, Elizabeth, or Daniel, I think, probably has it better on average than a weird Jessamine, Elodie, or Dante.
Sure, if your kid ends up cool, he’s going to inspire his whole class to think that Cooper is the coolest name ever. But if he’s not, then he’s going to be Pooper for the duration. And if you’re already not cool, being known as Pooper is adding insult to injury.
My name is Allyson and my nickname as a child was Allo. One day that morphed to Alpo. Yes, like the dog food.
I agree, this can be a tricky issue. No one wants to set their child up for failure, but somethings cannot be foreseen.
My name is Brooke and I have not been teased. Mostly, I receive compliments on my name. I like it and believe that it ages well. Granted, Brooke could be a problem. For example, “Brooker the Hooker” is a rather unattractive nickname. Luckily, I was never called that :) On occasion, my parents called me “Babbling Brooke.”
One of my most favorite nicknames is Thomas, nn Tuck. I love it. However, Tuck and the Name Game song are a bad mix. I don’t know if I could do that my kid.
Everyone in my family has “different” names, mine being the most unusual. But, both of my brothers were teased more than I was about their names. My older brother, Ramses, wouldn’t put his first name on his Letterman’s jacket in high school because it was the name of a popular condom at the time; and my younger brother, Rafael, was always called a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle even though they didn’t come out until he was in junior high. I think if they want to, kids will find a way to make fun of any name.
I like the name June for a girl, but then I wonder what would happen if she takes after me and ends up top-heavy. As in…”June is bustin’ out all oh-ver!” But do people really know that song anymore?
We are naming our son Walker. I’m guessing that this could be made fun of but I hadn’t really worried about it. It was so hard for us to agree on a name! Plus, there are reasons behind it.
I am in the camp that believes that kids are going to tease each other about stuff and there isn’t much you can do. I also believe what someone else said about if you are cool- your name is fine. If the kids decide you are not, they just find something mean to rhyme with your name.
I was not teased but my name is not really teasable- Kristen. Where you teased for your name, Swistle?
Oh this is a fascinating subject. I like hearing about people’s names getting teased that I might not have thought of but that kids probably would…. Like my sister thought of naming her kid Zach (if she had had a boy) but then a friend told her that, with her last name, it sounded a little close to “Sack of Shit.”
I actually didn’t get teased about my name, Julia, very much at all. Until the Wedding Singer came out. And some people think it’s really funny (and creative, for some reason) to say “oh! Julia! Like Julia Gulia, right?! Haha!!” Yeah that was funny. TEN YEARS AGO.
Kiki- I got “Kristen Bisten,” but that was about the best they could do.
We considered naming our daughter Abby, but after we realized that it rhymed with flabby and crabby we decided against it!
I think it really comes down to how “cool” the kid is, even odd names don’t get teased if the kid is popular and if the kid just blows off any teasing it generally stops.
My last name is Scott. I got called Snot for a while in grade school, but it eventually went away. Didn’t have any problems with my first name that I remember. I was smart, so I got more teasing due to that than my name. Oh, and my weight because I was about 6 inches taller than most of the other kids. Taller = weigh more. Some kids will just look for anything.
Had an un-teasable first name, but my last name was McGee, got called McGee(k) in middle/high school. Funny to hear the same nickname used for the NCIS character years later.
my name is jennifer! i never got teased for my name actually quite the opposite people always tell me they love my name and stuff! but its not about what your name is like if you stick up for yourself and your confident in yourself like not afraid to tell someone off if they started on ya about some shit people wont giva yah any hassle anyway! but of course people dont want to be called somethin like milly or willy now do they? :L
easy target whaaa!
great survey! :)
love from the unteasable named girl Jennifer! btw people called this are always pretty cute bubbly and confident! always in the it crowd! laders :P xx