He, she or it? Family keeps baby's gender a secret

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by CutiePie2000

Storm? Nice to name your kid after an American Gladiator character......

Or.. um.. marvel comic character. Way cooler. I'd name a kid Storm
http://i.imgur.com/mtMrX.jpg
Huge pic, just linking.
Or Nightcrawler.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

Or.. um.. marvel comic character. Way cooler. I'd name a kid Storm

Or Nightcrawler.

I tend to stick with Swahili names.

It's interesting because my colleague believes that Black folks who give their kids Swahili names are setting the kids up for discrimination and potential failure (he's an extremist but not completely wrong). The same applies to other "strange names." He shits golf size hail when he hears about parents encouraging children to challenge gender. Reading about a "gender challenged" child named Storm would make him fart a thong bikini unicorn.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

I tend to stick with Swahili names.

It's interesting because my colleague believes that Black folks who give their kids Swahili names are setting the kids up for discrimination and potential failure. The same applies to other "strange names." He shits golf size hail when he hears about parents encouraging children to challenging gender. Reading about a "gender challenged" child named Storm would make him fart a thong bikini unicorn.

I think you should bring a camera and a copy of the article and see happens.

Yeah it's possible that some things for the kid(s) might be more difficult later, but there's nothing stopping them from going by another name as an adult. And, it raises the question of whether the parents' goal is to make the child's life easy or to raise their kids the 'right' way, or to make their kids 'happy' and so on. I don't think many if any parents really wish a child's life to be hard, but that doesn't mean they're going to compromise their values to make the child's life easier either.

[CutiePie2000]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

It's interesting because my colleague believes that Black folks who give their kids Swahili names are setting the kids up for discrimination and potential failure (he's an extremist but not completely wrong).

He would probably be interested in this article here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/...rticle1878414/

PS I personally think some names have certain connotations - Brandy and Destiny are total stripper names. Amber & Crystal are borderline stripper'y sounding. IMHO. I get it that Amber is a fairly "mainstream" name now, but I can't get past the image of "le stripper".

I also get annoyed when people try to give their kids "exotic" foreign names and they cannot get the spelling right. On the Bachelorette, some dude's daughter is named "Cozy", which is short for "Cozette". Nice try, Captain Genius, but "Cosette" from Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" is spelled with an "S" in it. FAIL.

I also know of a dude from my previous employer whose name was spelled "Juan" and he pronounces it "Jew-wan". This is because his parents were stupid and did not do their research properly. He would also correct people in a rather huffy manner, those who would address him as "Wan" or "Hwan" (which is my phonetic typing approximation for Spanish pronunciation). Sigh.....

And now back to our original thread about parents trying to raise a genderless child or whatever.....