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As someone who was, to some extend, bullied for my unusual name as a child, it's not really that easy. You enter a spiral where your lack of confidence in somet

As someone who was, to some extend, bullied for my unusual name as a child, it's not really that easy. You enter a spiral where your lack of confidence in something that is fundamental you (your name) makes it worse, and that in turn makes it easier to pick on you for other reasons (or no reason at all). It's like the famous thread, when pulled unravel everything. And you're right, it could easily be something else (children are cruel) but a name is an easy place to start. This is also why I look in wonder at some of the names parents give their children these days and why I gave my own a very common name.

Brian_K_White 5y ago
I think there is no single right answer for that. I hate boring common things. If I had an unusual name I surely would have been bullied for it, but I was bullied anyway for my own innate behavior. And those are facets of me that I own and love, and did even as a child. As a very ypung kid I didn't consciously recognize the potential value of standing out, I just mean I knew the things that made me different were good things that I was not going to change. I love being distinctive and interesting. I wish my name was special. I have very common first and last names so it's hard to prove I would have liked living with a weird one, but I have a somewhat uncommon middle name and I actively incorporate that into my identity. I include my middle initial everywhere I write my name, and I use f.fullmiddle.l as my gmail etc. Those little things mean it gets remarked on and every now and then I end up explaining it to someone, and the relative it comes from who I admire. This is all just to say that different people react differently to the same inputs. There probably is no safe default for everyone. That which was bad for you would be good for someone else, and the reverse is also true, that which would have been good for you would have been bad for someone else. For some people, the very safeness of a safe choice is itself the harm. In the end, life is a dice roll. You don't get to choose your parents social standing or your genetics or country of birth, and as a parent you can't know ahead of time what decisions today will turn out to have been the best. Today I wish I wasn't circumcised, but I don't hold it against my parents because in the US in 1970 I think it was just plain universal, and my mom especially is not the weird-loving eccentric willing to buck the system that I am. She had to make decicions the only way she could. There is physically no other possible way to do it.

Brian_K_White 5y ago

I think there is no single right answer for that. I hate boring common things. If I had an unusual name I surely would have been bullied for it, but I was bullied anyway for my own innate behavior. And those are facets of me that I own and love, and did even as a child. As a very ypung kid I didn't consciously recognize the potential value of standing out, I just mean I knew the things that made me different were good things that I was not going to change. I love being distinctive and interesting. I wish my name was special. I have very common first and last names so it's hard to prove I would have liked living with a weird one, but I have a somewhat uncommon middle name and I actively incorporate that into my identity. I include my middle initial everywhere I write my name, and I use f.fullmiddle.l as my gmail etc. Those little things mean it gets remarked on and every now and then I end up explaining it to someone, and the relative it comes from who I admire. This is all just to say that different people react differently to the same inputs. There probably is no safe default for everyone. That which was bad for you would be good for someone else, and the reverse is also true, that which would have been good for you would have been bad for someone else. For some people, the very safeness of a safe choice is itself the harm. In the end, life is a dice roll. You don't get to choose your parents social standing or your genetics or country of birth, and as a parent you can't know ahead of time what decisions today will turn out to have been the best. Today I wish I wasn't circumcised, but I don't hold it against my parents because in the US in 1970 I think it was just plain universal, and my mom especially is not the weird-loving eccentric willing to buck the system that I am. She had to make decicions the only way she could. There is physically no other possible way to do it.