I love my first name--Janice--but hate my last name--Arenofsky. One sounds like a Gothic romance; the other sounds like a Russian biography.
I think it's important that you like your name since you're using it every day and others know you by that moniker.
What can you do if you hate your name? Well, you can legally change it. Or use your maiden (family surname) name. If I chose the latter, I would be known as Janice Moster, which was what I used all through high school and college. At first when I wrote humor I planned to use the Moster part as my surname. I was afraid that if I used Arenofsky, people would either not realize I was being humorous at times or would believe that all my magazine articles were funny and not realize the content was often serious. So I bit the bullet and now I'm Janice Arenofsky, for better or worse.
But back to the self-esteem issue. Some people are so low in confidence that their name rankles them. I wonder about a third-grader I once taught. Her name was Gina Catena, and I'm not sure if the musical, rhyming quality got on her nerves. I didn't mind it especially, but maybe she did. Then there are the people with porno-like names like Dickie Shitz or Shari Putz. You've got to wonder if the parents were just not thinking that day or they did it purposely. Perhaps the feeling was if the kids can overcome this negative in their life, they can do anything.
Do you think that's a good rationale? I don't. Forcing a weird first or last name on a little kid is not going to toughen the child up. It's apt to make a sensitive kid even more self-conscious and he or she might retaliate by bullying other kids or retreating inwards and becoming one of those aggressive little devils who run off to Sears and buy a gun for mass murder.
Of course I'm exaggerating the effects of a rotten name, but you never know. If you give a child the name "Satan," for example, he might live up to it. You may be tempting kharma and live to regret your choice although naming a child "Angel" is no guarantee this kid is going to win a Nobel Prize. There are probably dozens of "Angels" in state prisons serving time for major felonies.
The point here is if your name has been bothering you, don't be afraid to change it. The legalistics of name changes aren't that hard. In fact there's probably some kit on the Internet that helps you through the court and judicial steps. Of course if it's only your first name that you despise, you can take an informal approach and give yourself a nickname like Butch or KJ. That can work just as well. You just can't use it to sign documents and serious stuff like passports or drivers licenses.
I think it's important that you like your name since you're using it every day and others know you by that moniker.
What can you do if you hate your name? Well, you can legally change it. Or use your maiden (family surname) name. If I chose the latter, I would be known as Janice Moster, which was what I used all through high school and college. At first when I wrote humor I planned to use the Moster part as my surname. I was afraid that if I used Arenofsky, people would either not realize I was being humorous at times or would believe that all my magazine articles were funny and not realize the content was often serious. So I bit the bullet and now I'm Janice Arenofsky, for better or worse.
But back to the self-esteem issue. Some people are so low in confidence that their name rankles them. I wonder about a third-grader I once taught. Her name was Gina Catena, and I'm not sure if the musical, rhyming quality got on her nerves. I didn't mind it especially, but maybe she did. Then there are the people with porno-like names like Dickie Shitz or Shari Putz. You've got to wonder if the parents were just not thinking that day or they did it purposely. Perhaps the feeling was if the kids can overcome this negative in their life, they can do anything.
Do you think that's a good rationale? I don't. Forcing a weird first or last name on a little kid is not going to toughen the child up. It's apt to make a sensitive kid even more self-conscious and he or she might retaliate by bullying other kids or retreating inwards and becoming one of those aggressive little devils who run off to Sears and buy a gun for mass murder.
Of course I'm exaggerating the effects of a rotten name, but you never know. If you give a child the name "Satan," for example, he might live up to it. You may be tempting kharma and live to regret your choice although naming a child "Angel" is no guarantee this kid is going to win a Nobel Prize. There are probably dozens of "Angels" in state prisons serving time for major felonies.
The point here is if your name has been bothering you, don't be afraid to change it. The legalistics of name changes aren't that hard. In fact there's probably some kit on the Internet that helps you through the court and judicial steps. Of course if it's only your first name that you despise, you can take an informal approach and give yourself a nickname like Butch or KJ. That can work just as well. You just can't use it to sign documents and serious stuff like passports or drivers licenses.
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