4 ms·

Society for Preventing Parents from Naming Their Children Jennifer

19 points by docdeek 6y ago

nefitty 6y ago
I remember an interview where someone with a very common first name, something like Sarah or Anna, described what it was like living with that name. She said it was so common that it basically represented the concept of “woman” or “girl” in her mind. When she would hear her name called in a crowd, it was like someone yelled “Hey girl!” She became conditioned to ignore it unless the comment was unequivocally directed at her. When I started my current job I found out that there was another person with my first name on the team. My name is not common in the US. I expressed my slight anxiety over this (will people be confused, will this affect my career, etc) to my manager who has a name like “John”. He said, “Oh dude, there’s three other Johns on the team. It’s working out fine for me.” I suddenly felt very silly, and then curious about what having such a common name would be like...
- randrus 6y ago
  Semi related - my wife and I taught our kids to call us by our names in public to avoid confusion with all the other Dads and Moms.
- dharmab 6y ago
  I work with multiple variants of John. We use different variants exclusively for different people (Jon, John, Johnathan, and some non-English names that share etymology). We also have multiple Alex-es. They go by their last names in any overlapping contexts.
- bsder 6y ago
  It ironic, because the place I worked that had the most duplication was where we had 5 guys named "Rohit" on the team. And this was in the US. :)
- Andaith 6y ago
  I'm one of 4 Andrews in my company. All different teams, and we often get emails meant for each other. It's quite fun guessing which Andrew an email is meant for. Also, we're winning, as there's only 3 of the next most popular name. Other than that, I've never thought about it and it's never really impacted me that I've noticed.
exabrial 6y ago
Gah I miss the days of the early internet.
myrandomcomment 6y ago
I dated 4 Jennifer's in a row and at the same time had 2 close friends named...Jennifer. I had to give them nicknames for anyone to tell who I was talking about.

19 points by docdeek 6y ago

I remember an interview where someone with a very common first name, something like Sarah or Anna, described what it was like living with that name. She said it was so common that it basically represented the concept of “woman” or “girl” in her mind. When she would hear her name called in a crowd, it was like someone yelled “Hey girl!” She became conditioned to ignore it unless the comment was unequivocally directed at her. When I started my current job I found out that there was another person with my first name on the team. My name is not common in the US. I expressed my slight anxiety over this (will people be confused, will this affect my career, etc) to my manager who has a name like “John”. He said, “Oh dude, there’s three other Johns on the team. It’s working out fine for me.” I suddenly felt very silly, and then curious about what having such a common name would be like...

randrus 6y ago
Semi related - my wife and I taught our kids to call us by our names in public to avoid confusion with all the other Dads and Moms.
dharmab 6y ago
I work with multiple variants of John. We use different variants exclusively for different people (Jon, John, Johnathan, and some non-English names that share etymology). We also have multiple Alex-es. They go by their last names in any overlapping contexts.
bsder 6y ago
It ironic, because the place I worked that had the most duplication was where we had 5 guys named "Rohit" on the team. And this was in the US. :)
Andaith 6y ago
I'm one of 4 Andrews in my company. All different teams, and we often get emails meant for each other. It's quite fun guessing which Andrew an email is meant for. Also, we're winning, as there's only 3 of the next most popular name. Other than that, I've never thought about it and it's never really impacted me that I've noticed.

exabrial 6y ago

Gah I miss the days of the early internet.

myrandomcomment 6y ago

I dated 4 Jennifer's in a row and at the same time had 2 close friends named...Jennifer. I had to give them nicknames for anyone to tell who I was talking about.