M. writes:<\/p>\n
Hi! My husband and I don’t seem to have trouble coming up with first names (at least not yet), but middle names are another issue. One of my greatest holdups is initials. Do they really matter? I love initials when they work out well (my mom’s name is Deborah and after she changed her name at marriage, her initials are DEB), but sometimes they are very unfortunate. Are they cause for teasing? If we otherwise like a name, should we let initials stop us from naming our child that?<\/p>\n
We have decided on the name Cecilia if our next baby is a girl. I’m strongly leaning toward using the middle name Paloma. That would give the child the initials CPR though, because our last name is similar to Roberts. Is that an issue or am I over thinking the matter. My husband himself has medical lingo initials (DNR) which I don’t think much about, but CPR is a much more common acronym (and one that even young children might pick up on). I do have some “runner up” middle names, but none that my husband is completely sold on (he hasn’t offered any suggestions of his own). They include: Noelle, Rae, and Briseis. What do you think, should we stick with Paloma? Should we find another middle name that would make less obvious initials? Thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Asking “Do initials matter?” is like asking “Is football fun to watch?” It’s a matter of opinion, and the answers are going to cover the entire spectrum from “I would never use any initials that spelled anything” to “I don’t even mind using the ones that spell swear words.”<\/p>\n
My own location on the spectrum is that I won’t use initials that spell bad words or iffy words (for example, PEE, PIG, BRA); and I’d prefer to avoid initials spelling anything at all—but I can be flexible for the right name. That is, I’d prefer that the child’s initials not spell even benign words such as CUP or VCR, but I’d weigh my love of the name against my preference for not spelling words with initials, and it could go either way depending on my love for the particular name. This is also a good place for The Baby Name Wizard<\/a>‘s test about whether you’d want the name for yourself: I definitely would not want the initials PEE, but CUP wouldn’t be so bad. (And I have a soft spot for nursery-theme-inspiring initials such as BEE, and nickname initials such as DEB.)<\/p>\n
The initials CPR are benign or even positive, so I’d start by asking myself, “If other children learned of these initials, AND if they were familiar with that acronym, then what sort of teasing could they do?” I can’t really think of anything serious in this case. “Nyah, nyah, CPR, you…save the lives of millions. Nyah.” Perhaps there would be a little bit of “mouth to mouth” joking in middle school. That’s the worst I can think of, and that’s not so bad it would make me cross off the name.<\/p>\n
If you decide the initials outweigh your love of the name Paloma, then the next option is to change the name to something else (and maybe get another chance to use Paloma for a future daughter):<\/p>\n
Fiona
\nImogen
\nLola
\nMagnolia
\nMariah
\nNaomi
\nNoemi
\nNola
\nRamona
\nRoma
\nRomy
\nSimone
\nViola
\nZola<\/p>\nI like Naomi and Ramona best for coming close to the sound of Paloma.<\/p>\n
(Or of course you could change the first name, but it sounds like the first name is set and the middle is still flexible.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
M. writes: Hi! My husband and I don’t seem to have trouble coming up with first names (at least not yet), but middle names are another issue. One of my greatest holdups is initials. Do they really matter? I love initials when they work out well (my mom’s name is Deborah and after she changed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1ZX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7685"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7692,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685\/revisions\/7692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}