Quote Originally Posted by kaycountrygal View Post
I have two peeves about names in general.

1) The first name of a child should be the name that the child is called. It can be confusing. At home I was/am called by my MIDDLE name. At school and work I was always called by my first name. One time my brother called my work and asked for me by my middle name and noone knew who he was talking about until he said the last name.

2) I dont like names that are not easily identified as male or female. Often these days, children are named with a name that can be male or female and it is confusing to me.
My legal name is Meredith, which I hated because it was unusual back when I was growing up and therefore gave bullies in school more ammunition to pick on me. My family and friends called me "Merrie" which is what I'm used to. My parents thought it would be cute, and then assumed I'd use "Meredith" when I grew up. Never assume anything that important! I believe my life would have been easier if I'd only had one first name with everyone, preferrably something short, easy to pronounce and spell. Now that I live in the south, I tend to use "Meredith" more frequently because people with southern accents often can't say and/or hear the difference between "Merrie" and "Mary," and I despise being called "Mary" - it's not my name.

I agree also about unisex names. Isn't growing up difficult enough? So many of them (including "Meredith" at one time) were male names that were taken over by females. It must be getting more and more difficult to name boy babies. But with so many unisex, unusual and contrived names nowadays, maybe a name is no longer a reason to be harrassed. I hope so!