Keeping everyone happy can be complicated.


The most popular babies names for children born in the UK at the moment are Olivia and Jack and for the first time the name Muhammad entered the top fifty but how difficult is it to find a name for your child when you're in a mixed-race or mixed faith relationship.

In some cultures, the naming of children falls to the grandparents and modern day parents often have to find ways to keep everyone happy. Problems arise when they are seen to be favouring one side over the other, leaving grandparents feeling snubbed in the process, according to a study by London South Bank University for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The obvious answer is give your child a name that reflects all of their heritage. Professor Rosalind Edwards who led the research says, ‘Most parents wanted names for their children that they liked, perhaps drawing on popular culture or adapting or constructing idiosyncratic names, but they also wanted names that symbolised their children's various heritages.’

‘This desire for individual taste within cultural limits can involve parents in quite complicated practices around who names the child and what names are chosen,' adds Professor Edwards. 'While most parents said that they chose names together, the discussions sometimes indicated that one parent had far more influence where a name reflected their particular background.’

Professor Edwards goes on to say, ‘It is common for parents to give a run of personal names reflecting each aspect of their backgrounds, but in some cases parents felt that the principal name of choice was not well received by one side of the wider family.’

‘Efforts to acknowledge both heritages and satisfy the wider family can sometimes go awry," adds Professor Edwards. She gave the example of a mixed race couple, called Jafar and Chloe, who tried to pick a name for their son that sounded both Asian and British, reflecting his Muslim and Pakistani origins and her white British background.

‘They settled on the name Kiran, which could also be Kieran. Unfortunately, on informing Jafar's parents, they found the name was Hindu rather than Muslim, and this caused something of a rift between them and Jafar's father in particular.’

In some cultures, tradition demands that the father or grandparent chooses the name, or that a particular name be given.

Edwards explained: ‘Bucking these conventions can cause difficulties in intergenerational relationships and parents often try to avoid this. One mum, Jinglei, originally from China, is married to a white British man.

‘They have two children with English names, which they chose together. As a way of reflecting the other side of their heritage, the children also have Chinese names which Jinglei took responsibility for choosing in consultation with her father.’

More typical were a couple called Paul and Katy. He was a black Ghanaian with a Christian background, and she was of white British and South African Jewish descent. They did not follow the Ghanaian custom in which the grandfather names the children, nor did they have them christened as Paul's family would have preferred. They simply agreed to give their children Ghanaian ‘day names’ as their middle names in an effort to placate Paul's family.

Remember no matter how you come up with your baby's name, one thing is for certain; it will follow your child from birth, through childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. With such a long lifespan, it's important to get it right - even Deed Polls can't change a Birth Certificate!

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Source:Sundayherald.com