Update on Baby Boy or Girl Cadaret, Sibling to Gabriel (Gabe)!

For the nth time, a Taco Bell employee (it could just as easily have been anyone else in the world) asked me for my name and, when I said “Kristen,” wrote “Christine.” Why. Why why why why why. I can kind of understand why someone might see “Kristen” and say “Christine”: maybe the -en makes them think of -een/-ine. And I can understand why someone might misremember my name as Christine (or Kiersten or Kirsten): they ARE similar names. But why when I SAY “Kristen” and they immediately write down “Christine”?? I wrote something on Twitter that expressed my feelings:

And within minutes got in reply:

Clearly this is a thing. Here is what I would like to know: What is the name people think is your name when IT IS NOT YOUR NAME? And/or what is the name people think is your child’s name when it is not your child’s name? Not misspellings (I can understand “Kristin” or even “Christen”) (though not “Chusen“), not unwanted nicknames (I might not go by “Kris” or “Kristy,” but I get how those are nicknames for my name), but WRONG-NAME names?

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Update on Middle Name Challenge: Zoey ______ Hildebrand!

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Swistle,

Curious to your thoughts on what makes a name “cool” or “hip”. My current conundrum is the name William vs Phillip.

I have always loved William, nicknamed Will, it has been “my” baby name since high school. As we all know, it is extremely popular- I currently work with four people who have children with some variant of it. (Counting Liam.) The name Phillip has recently entered my top name list, which I love. However, I HATE the nickname Phil. Seems odd, right, because Will/Phil are just a slight difference. What are your thoughts on to why? Is it all the cycle of current names? Do you think Phil will grow on me, and others? Another example I thought of was Teddy/Freddy. Teddy seems normal on a baby and I’m not sure I would expect a Freddy. Rob/bob, the list could go on.

What are your and your readers’ thoughts?

Isn’t that an interesting phenomenon? For example, I have the name Evan on my own list, but Devan and Bevan and Kevin and Evanie and Devany wouldn’t make the first cut. I frequently try to sell people on the name John, but not on Don or Lon or Ron.

I think it’s that the stylishness of a name depends partly on the actual sounds (so that, for example, Ella and Bella and Annabella and Isabella are all in style together), and partly on the image of the particular names (so that, to continue the example, we’re nevertheless not seeing much of Louella and Prunella and Cinderella). I think that’s why a fashionable name and an unfashionable name can sound surprisingly similar: we all still like the actual sound, but the image of the name has become dad-like, or we’re all just tired of it for now. What strikes us as “freshness” can be a new sound, but it can also be a similar sound with a fresh image: for example, Jason leading to Jayden and Mason. Someone who loves the name Aiden may very well also love the names Hayden and Caden—or may very well NOT, depending on whether it’s the image or the sound (or both) they like about the name.

The names Phil and Bill drifted out of style; Will has that same sound people used to like so much in Phil/Bill, but with a fresh new feeling to it and less of an association with our friends’ dads. I think it’s likely it will continue the cycle: as the boys named Will grow up and become dads and then grandfathers, that name in its turn will feel like a dad/grampa name; we’ll be so familiar with it, it’ll hardly hit our ears anymore, let alone feel special. Then a few people will say, “We’re naming him William—but we’re calling him Bill.” And a few other people will come upon a vintage classic in their family tree: Philip! And everyone else will say “Bill! Philip! Phil! We hadn’t even CONSIDERED those names but suddenly we LOVE them!” And so on, round and round, generation after generation. I suppose even Billy and Willy and Bobby have a good chance of coming back, though it feels hard to believe right now.

Whether Phil will grow on you/others for a baby born today is another issue: even when a name is almost guaranteed to come back into style, that doesn’t mean we’ll like it if it’s brought back before its time. I remember feeling very sorry for a co-worker named Charlotte: such an ugly name! SHAR. LUTT. And now look at the name: almost certain to be in the Top 10 next year, and doesn’t seem ugly at all. That’s the surprising thing to me: that a name can seem objectively ugly when it’s out of style—and then not seem ugly at all anymore when it comes back into style, and it can be hard to even remember why it seemed that way. It just wasn’t time yet when my co-worker’s parents gave her the name, but it’s time now.

Also, just because a nickname hasn’t come back into style doesn’t mean the full name can’t be used. Willy and Billy aren’t in style, but William still is; not many little girls are going by Beth but Elizabeth is still used; Jim and Jimmy are on hold for now, but James is still popular. So if you love Philip, I think you can use Philip even if you don’t love the nickname Phil. I do generally advise against using a name with a nickname the parents HATE, since the child might very well choose to use that nickname later on (my example is my friend Liz, whose parents HATED the name Liz and only named her Elizabeth to get the nickname Beth), but in general this is a great time for people who don’t want to use nicknames, and I suspect most people would call him Philip. Or you could call him Pip, which I think is beyond adorable for a baby/toddler.

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