Good or Bad, Baby Names Have Long-lasting Effects

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/goodorbadbabynameshavelonglastingeffects;_ylt=AuFknMUWDzoK20Fst9kgBRas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTRsc21lc2RkBGFzc2V0A2xpdmVzY2llbmNlLzIwMTAwNjE0L2dvb2RvcmJhZGJhYnluYW1lc2hhdmVsb25nbGFzdGluZ2VmZmVjdHMEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM4BHBvcwM1BHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDYmFieW5hbWVzaGF2

Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience.com jeanna Bryner
livescience Managing Editor
livescience.com – Mon Jun 14, 10:50 am ET

Choosing a baby name proves to be a challenging task for many parents. And they're wise to work hard at it. A name can have a profound impact on a child that reverberates well into adulthood, a growing body of research suggests.

"There is a reason why baby name books are extremely popular," said David Figlio of Northwestern University in Illinois. "We're always trying to think about the first bit of a child's identity and so if we as a society pay a lot of attention to names it makes a lot of sense that people's names might influence how they think about themselves and the way in which people might think about them."

Plenty of research suggests the name chosen impacts a baby's life well into adulthood. For instance, donning your newborn boy with a girly sounding name could mean behavioral problems later in life. And unique baby names that only your child will have can be a hardship too.

A British study of 3,000 parents released in May suggests one-in-five parents regret the name they chose for a child, many of whom were distressed over the unusual or oddly spelled names they'd chosen. And even those who didn't explicitly regret the name choice admitted there were names they knew now they wished they'd chosen then, according to the study conducted by Bounty.com. [List of history's most popular baby names.]

Boys with names traditionally given to girls are more likely to misbehave than their counterparts with masculine names, research suggests.

When in elementary school, boys named Ashley and Shannon, for instance, behave just like their more masculine-named classmates named Brian and other boyish names.

"Once these kids hit sixth grade, all of a sudden the rates of disciplinary problems skyrocket [for those boys with girlish names], and it was much more the case if there happened to be a girl in the grade with that same name," Figlio told LiveScience.

----- (skipping)

All this parents end up realizing, as the Bounty study shows: One-fifth of parents in the British study wished they had chosen a name that was easier to spell; 8 percent were fed up with people being unable to pronounce the child's name; and one in 10 thought the chosen name was clever at the time, but said the novelty had worn off.

..