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Hubs and I are TTC (and may have done it, i'm late!) so we've started talking baby names. We have one we like for both a boy and a girl - the only problem(?) being that our kids would have the initials B.O. for a the boy and H.O. for the girl.
Am I setting kids up for merciless teasing? Does it matter? I mean, if not initials kids will always find something to taunt each other about, so am I overthinking the baby-naming game?
I think it only matters if you want it to matter. DH and I were talking about it and we know the name we want for a girl but not the middle name. I suggested Elizabeth but then her initials would be HEF and he said no way, kids would tease her for being a heffer! I laughed and it isnt a big deal to me, but it is to him.
Good luck with the possible pregnancy, fingers crossed! :)
How often do KIDS use initials? I guess on their school supplies? Maybe instead you could write "Henry O" (as a quick example). Or use the FULL initials with the middle name?
I dont think it matters too much. Like you said, kids will ALWAYS find something to make fun of.
All I know is that my dad went to school with a girl who's initials were E.Z. and he STILL talks about it (He is 66). So you can imagine how much she was made fun of during school.
The only thing I have to say on the matter is that you want to avoid 'giving' other kids something to make fun of!
It really is up to you but I would probably stay clear as those initials are pretty bad!
I think it matters only if the initials are really obvious. There was this girl in my art class when I was little and we would do ceramics and we would put our initials at the bottoms with pencil and here initials were F.A.T. I mean, who does that to their kid?
I have to say that kids can be merciless ... ANYTHING name-related they can latch onto to make fun of, you can bet they will. I mean, obviously you've thought of it, so other people will, too. The initials B.O. and H.O. are just asking for it ... but what about the middle names? That could make it OK.
BO is my uncle's initials and he always hated it. I grew up as T.O. and my first name is Tova so often my name was shortened to "To" and I always thought it was cool that is was my initals.
As an elementary school teacher, I have to weigh in on this one. The other kids WILL notice and WILL tease! Just yesterday I had a little girl (MF) upset because people were telling her her name was a curse word. Sure, it might not really matter, but I would probably want to save my kid from that if it was avoidable.
I think it matters.
My initals are B A H...which i love, my mom calls me sheep all the time and I love it....kids never really said anything...i think just bc its cool.
My initials are changing to B A G soon and already i have been mocked and teased (at the ripe age of 27!) I could only imagine what it would be like if i was younger!
Children are fairly cruel to each other.....
Initials can be really cool or really bad. Mine are the first three letters of my first name (ASH), which I've always liked. FFIL worked for the government and his initials are SPY (I really want to steal the SPY thing! The middle name could be Pierce...as in Pierce Brosnan...as in James Bond....geddit?). It's certainly something to take into consideration, anyway. But I suppose it's more important to have a first name that doesn't lend itself to cruelty, haha.
Ugh. It sucks that we might not use really solid names we love and have family meaning because of potential teasing! With middle names the initials would be B.P.O. and H.A.O., which is certainly better, but it doesn't change the fact my kids would be BO and HO! Ugh again.
Kids will find something to tease about if they want you. It's best not to make it easy, but I think if you add a middle initial you might avoid teasing from the initials.
it matters - i went to elementary school with a girl named pat marie smith.... thats right... guys had a field day.
When i went through School initials were used all the time. If your name was written on the board it was with initials. This included being on dentention, being praised for work and also being put on task lists. Intials were put in clothes at the schools direction, I went through Primary and High Schools with my now bridesmaid and her initals are CAB. She was teased non stop all through school, yes even in high school. Not so much in the senior grades, but it became very hard for her to lose the nic name Taxi.
Kids will take the smallest thing and run with it. I myself was very aware of it. When I was deciding on a name for my daughter I had a list of names I liked and I was trying to decide on what I wanted. I knew I wanted her first name hyphenated as my first name is and I thought it would be nice to pass that on to her. My mother wanted me to use Peta-Rose Ava Tenbosch. And when I looked at it all I could see was PRAT.
Needless to say I discounted that very quickly.
The initials my parents gave me were EHO. So i had the "HO" also :) Honestly, it so rarely came up it was not even an issue.
I've had the same thoughts. Our last name begins with a D, and one of my favorite boy names was Vincent, until I figured out that the initials would be VD. I wondered if kids would even know what that stands for anymore, but as my hubby pointed out - they'll figure it out eventually. I agree, maybe best to avoid the easy targets, although the kids will surely figure out something to tease about.
It mattered to DH and I a lot. We were very careful to try not to have any initials that would be joked at, like COK, DIK, or KKK. I definitely notice initials, and I know kids do too. Plus kids are merciless and mean, so anything that would call negative attention to my kid? I just couldn't do that to them! (I learned a lessong from A Boy Named Sue!!)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22185233/ Interesting article that came to mind.
My MOH's initials are RAP, and she has always hated it. She said she could never marry someone whose last name started with a "T".
Our kids will have a last name that starts with J. There's a couple boy's names that start with B that I really like, but I just don't think I could inflict the intials BJ on my kids.
i have 3 kids a never thought about initials, but i was obsessed with writting their names for some reason it was really important that their names looked nice when i wrote them out.
I wouldn't do it. Kids can be so mean, and you would be setting up your kids to get picked on.
Names and initials are important. I have a funky spelling on my fairly common first name and it has been a thorn in my side my entire life.
I would probably avoid bad ones (like PMS or HOE) but I don't think initials are used that much.
Also I have a co-wokers whose initials are EZ and she has always liked it and was not made fun of. Funny too because her maiden and married name start with a Z so she will always be EZ!
Also, funny side story. My Dad's initials are TED and yup, his name is Theodore nn Ted. haha
Wow this post made me really think twice to be careful when naming my baby. :) I have been teaching elementary school for over 10 yrs and I can't say I have remembered any weird initials. Weird names, yes but not weird 'memorable' initials.
They put their initials on the side of every tablet. If my kid had weird first/last name initials, I would teach them to add their middle one.
My hubby's brother's initials are B.O. I'm assuming he didn't like it too much. Just figured out my hubby's initials are J. L O after this post so I teased him about it. He has two middle names so he maintains it's JLTO. But I will tease him anyway. :)
I talked to the hubs about it last night, we've also been discussing name changing and he suggested we give our kids both our last names and register them for school with my last name only so their initials (as far as mean kids are concerned) are a non-issue. It seems a little drastic (but also progressive) but the names we want to use are family names and are important to us, so it might be worth it...
Thanks for the thoughts, ladies!
I don't think it is really that big of a deal...just teach your kids to write their middle initial as well. I had my initials put on a backpack (OFA) and unfortunately that is what my friends call me! It's annoying but hey, I did have it put on my backpack in middle school. My brother's are BAA and I'm the only one who says baaa as in what a sheep says. There could be many worse initials out there! Though my FI does not want us to name a boy with a P name cause the initials (without middle) would be PP...but he says it is fine for a girl since boys are more obnoxious.
@SapphireSun (message) July 9, 2010 Vancouver, BC
Our kids will have a last name that starts with J. There's a couple boy's names that start with B that I really like, but I just don't think I could inflict the intials BJ on my kids.
That is actually my fiance's first initials (first and middle name) and he loves it :) It would be much worse for a girl with that, but I don't think boys would tease much about it. He actually wants to name our first son something this those initials and call him BJ, but I have flat out refused that one!
With all the acronyms popping up in cyberland...you just never know what they could come up with by the time your kid is in grade school. Not to scare you all but I'm sure the parents of WTF, had no idea what they were walking into. ;) There's only so much you can do to prevent teasing and probably a lot more we could learn to do to help build up our child's sense of humor if they are joked with in a harmless way.
Depends on how much it worries you.
My parents literally changed my middle name on the way to the hospital to have me when they discovered what my initials would spell. Heather Alicia is a very nice name, but not when the last name is M--. So they decided to pretend they wanted his mom and her mom to both be seriously happy that they gave me the same middle name, and I ended up Heather Elizabeth M--. A HEM instead of a HAM. I think of it as pretty considerate of them, but at the same time, I know it isn't a huge deal what my initials spell. As soon as I turned 18, I could have easily changed my name if I wanted to, anyway.
lol my (first two) initials are BJ...I never realised the connotations until recently and most of my family has called me BJ for years so i just shrugged off the negative bits of it. I never got teased for it.
However...my dad's parents originally wanted to name him something that would have given him the initials A.P.E They thankfully avoided that one and named him something different!
I know that kids do notice them, my intials are SMS and I got some lame jokes at school, so I'd try to avoid anything that can be an obvious insult.
I agree that kids notice. Kids will find anything to make fun of, though, so having great initials won't necessarily make your kid immune from teasing...
In talking about names with my husband, we both love a girls name that would have the initials GOP (using a family middle name). I LOVE the name, but I absolutely refuse to give my kid the initials GOP. Back to the drawing board.
My fiance's last name starts with a K. When we found out we were having a little girl, we decided on the first name C. He liked the middle name Olivia. I said there was no way we were giving a GIRL the initials COK.
They can matter. Look at the new movie "You Again" with Betty White. The grand-daughter who is the main character Marnie, had the middle initals of "M" "O" "O" which is Moo is in cow and she was teased pretty bad about it.
My mom always complained that as a kid her initals were either EAT or ATE how you arraged them in a monogram. Mine were always fine so I never thought about them but she hated it.
I just met a guy and his baby daughter Holden. The dad was taking great pride in telling everyone her initials are HOF and saying "She's the Hof! Don't hassel the Hof!"
I guess it works both ways :)
My initials were the same as my high school's initials. My parents had no way of knowing this but our high school was only known by its initials and it was pretty annoying. I'm not in therapy for it or anything, but you know ... weird things happen with initials.
A friend I went through school with's initials were F.A.G.
No one noticed it until we were a little older because he was called "Ricky" instead of Fredrick. But once they noticed his initials, the nickname stuck and teasing began. I really couldn't understand why his parents gave him such a horrible name. Apparently it was his dad's name too...
@Baileyh: I went from BAG to BAA. My stepfather adopted me when I was 10 and when my initials changed my whole family started calling me the Baglady. Nobody has said much about being BAA.
Just had to pipe in-- since it sounds like Miss Earrings and I have the same initials but different experiences. My initials with my maiden name were BJ. It was never an issue until middle school when some of my "friends" pointed that out. I made every attempt to use my middle initial when possible (BNJ), but there just wasn't any overcoming it. BJ still stuck through high school. I'm still (perhaps irrationally) sensitive about it. When it came time for the wedding, t made my name change decision a bit complicated too-- didn't want to lose my maiden name, but was anxious to lose the BJ thing.
So yeah--- I would say initials matter.
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