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Living up to baby names

Posted: Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013
Moms baby names
Kristin Bull - KRT
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I was looking this morning through the list of baby names that have entered the U.S. Top 1000 since the turn of the decade — more, much more, on that later — and I was struck by how many of them overstate the case.

I mean that they are baby names that are too much, in one way or another, for any human being to live up to. Names like the infamous Precious. Or Legend. Well, we’ll detail the specifics below.

In early editions of our first book, “Beyond Jennifer & Jason,” we included a list called Names That Are Too Much, or Not Enough, To Live Up To. Then somewhere along the way, we dropped it. But clearly it’s time to bring it back.

Listen, there’s something sweet about giving your child a name to live up to — a name that carries a positive image, that conveys a quality they can aspire to, that references a person they can be proud to be associated with.

But there’s a point where a name seems to protest too much, as in the case of Precious. If not in toddlerhood then in adolescence, a child named Romeo may feel overwhelmed by impossible pressure to be a romantic superhero, and Patience may become determined to show you how thoroughly she refuses to live up to her name.


Names we are hearing today that may prove too much to live up to include:
Arcadia
Atlas
Bliss
Destiny
Fortune
Glory
Halcyon
Harmony
Heaven
Infinity
Journey
Justice
Karma
King
Legend
Merry
Messiah
Miracle
Obedience
Patience
Prince
Princeton
Romeo
Serenity
Sincere
Star
Temperance
Treasure
Trip or Tripp
Trust
Truth
Venus
Wilder
Zen
———
Nameberry is a baby-naming site produced by Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz, co-authors of 10 bestselling baby name guides, including the newest, “Beyond Ave and Aiden: The Enlightened Guide to Naming Your Baby.” See more at www.nameberry.com

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