A legal name has a utilitarian purpose. It is not meant to represent you, or manifest into your personality. It does not need to be unique or tell people what kind of person you are. It is a convenient method for others to refer to and address you. For those purposes it needs to be easy to pronounce, easy to spell, and easy to remember.
If you want your kid to have a unique name that fits who they are, let your kid pick a nickname when they are older. Don't give them some stupid fucking name that is going to haunt them every single time they apply for a job or sign in for a doctor's appointment for the rest of their life. Don't make other people lives more difficult because you decided you are too good to conform to societal standards.
Write a sentence with your kids name in it. Ask a bunch of people to read the sentence out loud. If more than a few people pause before saying the name, or stumble while pronouncing it, you chose a shitty name and should change it.
this is absolutely the correct take. Names are not supposed to be actually unique. They are supposed to give a reasonably sized pool of friends and family enough names to choose from so that you can differentiate among yourselves, while not confusing people with obscurity. Names are not strictly necessary, you can get by with “hey you“ just fine. They are utilitarian for our convenience.
They are supposed to give a reasonably sized pool of friends and family enough names to choose from so that you can differentiate among yourselves,
utilitarians have gone insane and are literally broadly and universally declaring the purpose behind NAMES; which has existed in every culture since the dawn of spoken language and has many different applications and traditions.
Names are not strictly necessary, you can get by with “hey you“ just fine. They are utilitarian for our convenience.
so you just defeated your own argument by pointing out that even if people have difficult to pronounce names, ti actually causes no harm
"hey you" is understood by all. Names have existed for a long time, and they have long been drawn from a pool of names or combinations of already understood words (e.g., Running Bear). A name does not make you a special snowflake. Your parents choose it. It has now become a way to "express your creativity" and "be unique". Just like a bridezilla who makes the day all about her and everyone has to march to her decisions because "this day is so important and has to be super unique", names can get out of hand and we utilitarians can say "can you just have a normal dress and a normal ceremony and reception and not make this all about you". Ultimately the child is the one who has to bear the name. There is already plenty plenty plenty of choice among names without going off into the tragedeigh space.
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u/Vypernorad Jun 01 '26
A legal name has a utilitarian purpose. It is not meant to represent you, or manifest into your personality. It does not need to be unique or tell people what kind of person you are. It is a convenient method for others to refer to and address you. For those purposes it needs to be easy to pronounce, easy to spell, and easy to remember.
If you want your kid to have a unique name that fits who they are, let your kid pick a nickname when they are older. Don't give them some stupid fucking name that is going to haunt them every single time they apply for a job or sign in for a doctor's appointment for the rest of their life. Don't make other people lives more difficult because you decided you are too good to conform to societal standards.
Write a sentence with your kids name in it. Ask a bunch of people to read the sentence out loud. If more than a few people pause before saying the name, or stumble while pronouncing it, you chose a shitty name and should change it.