Unusual baby names have unexpected benefits.

Do you have an unusual name? Do you like it? I ask because I’ve never heard of anyone wishing they had a more ‘normal’ name. On the other hand, I have heard people with unusual names say they like the fact the their name is not common. Someone even told me that people with unusual names ‘do better’ but I have no idea how they did – or could – measure that.

It has always been a problem for Johns and Sues that they are likely to have namesakes in their classes and sporting teams. In the modern world, there is one more area where how common your name is will clearly make a difference; URLs and user names.

Would you believe it, but someone beat me to Malcolm.com (not that they’re doing anything with it. mal@yahoo.com and mal@hotmail.com were also snapped up. It’s a common name. That also means that someone trying to hook up with me on a service like myspace or facebook have to wade through pages and pages of other mals trying to find the real me.

If I had an unusual name, it would be so much easier.

That’s one of the reasons our children’s names are unusual. Our 10 year old boy is Jacaré. You pronounce it like the French name Jacque + array. It means alligator in Portuguese, which they speak in Brazil. That’s where we were when we decided to start a family. Our 8 year old boy is Tioram. It’s pronounced cheer+um with the emphasis on the first syllable. It is the name of a castle in Scotland, where he is born. Our 6 year old girl is called Eilidh. This is said Ay-lee. It is a fairly common name in Scotland where she was born. It means ‘light’ (as opposed to dark). Our 4 year old girl is called Caledonia. This was the first name give to the whole area that became Scotland, where she was born. We normally shorten it to Callie. Our 2 year old girl is called Wattle. This is the name of the national flower of Australia, where she was born.

(Did you notice our kids’ ages are 2,4,6,8 & 10? Neat, huh?)

The other thing you can do, depending on your family name, is match a first name to make a fun combination. So you can create names with meanings like Olivia Moore can be known as Liv Moore, Barbara Dwyer would become Barb Dwyer and Robin Banks is funny as it is. I've also heard of a Ball family that called their daughter Polly Ester.

Whatever you decide to name your baby, there is also the issue of when to let everyone know. You might decide to wait until after the baby is born. Negative opinions are less likely to be expressed by then.

Or if you want to announce it as early as possible to as many people as possible, you could get a shirt made with the name-to-be and an arrow pointing to the baby in the belly.

There are examples at PregnantByDesign.com and Materni-Tee.com.


If you would like a custom design with your chosen name on it, email pregnancydesigns at yahoo dot com (yep, that one was still available).

Or to browse other people’s name announcements, go to cafepress.com and type ‘baby names’ into the search box.


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