Naming a baby 30 years ago was much easier. Parents just needed to pick a name they liked, say Lawrence or Michael, add the surname, and that was it.
Enter the Internet, and everything changes. Now you need to think twice before naming your kid, else he will have a lot of trouble on his digital interactions. Below we cover 5 new considerations parents must make when naming a baby these days.
1. Is NameSurname.com Still Available?
In the future it is very likely that every person will need to have an online presence, and having the namesurname.com domain is the best way to go. How would you feel if your child needed to build her website on namesurname.biz or namesurname.info? Pretty bad I bet.
2. Is @NameSurname Still Available on Twitter?
Another cornerstone of your online presence will be your Twitter account. Make sure to secure @namesurname for your kid, else he will need to use some crap id like @marksmith1253 or @TheRealMarkSmith.
3. Will the name trigger email spam filters?
Email will probably remain the digital communication channel of choice. As such, it is essential to make sure that the name or surname of your kid will not trigger spam filters. Name your son Mark Cumming and no one will ever get his messages….
4. Will it be easy to rank in Google’s first position for “name surname”?
Evaluate whether or not it will be easy to get your kid’s website ranked in the first position of Google for the “name surname” search query. Virtually everyone will use a search engine to find information in the future, and you don’t want people who are searching for your kid (i.e. to make a job offer) ending in the website of some footbal player or rock star.
5. Will the name of your child need disambiguation in Wikipedia?
As a parent, you certainly hope that your child will be famous one day right? If that is the case, make sure that when people search for him or her on Wikipedia they will not need to go through the disambiguation page. It is really annoying….
Bonus: Is NameSurname still available as a vanity URL on Facebook?
Personally I think that Facebook is overrated, but people seem to be using it. So it would be worth to check if the vanity URL with the name and surname of your child is still available.
Obviously I used a satirical approach while writing this article, but some of these points are becoming more serious that what you might think. Feel free to leave a comment below with your take on the issue.
Very funny…. but when I get married and name my kids(probably in 10 years from now), this may be a serious issue to consider.
Enjoyed reading..
If you take this approach, you’ll also want to check the availability of the Facebook vanity URL for that particular name.
@Mark, I amended the post, check it out.
It’s funny to read this because I took care of all of those things a couple years ago when my son was three. There’s nothing personal about him on any of the pages but the space is reserved for years to come.
Thanks, Daniel. I always appreciate your quick responses here and on Daily Blog Tips.
Wow :). I’ll keep this in mind! My wife and I have our first on the way in March. They’re going to grow up in a whole new world.
Check if a (big)entrepreneur with same name is no internet!
Child might get some benefits of same name later(or it may be an identity crisis! Is their something like “identity crisis?” Anyway, so Daniel Scocco, Darren Rowse etc. may be good names!
What if you’ve already named your kids?
Does this warrant a rename if it’s taken?
My wife and I are expecting our first child next spring, and if it’s boy there’s no way it will be named after me because I don’t need the competition.
lol, the post tickled me!
There would a few long-years between:
1. When you name your child and
2. When he/she actually tries to registers the name (or its permutations) in the virtual world and shows his/her online presence.
The child has to learn ABC… (literally) before (s)he starts to use a keyboard. So some implications:
You have to be pro-active as to select a name which would have a lesser risk to be taken until your kid is computer literate. And given the technology changes soooo lightening fast, a few years in this decade would be like a hundred years of civilized human existence. So predicting 2-3 years in technology is predicting 100 years in human sense. By that time you might have machines powerful enough to recognize you, and your child might not need a registration. I mean the unique ID can be anything: User-ID, Finger-Print, Retina-Scan, Vocal Password. And then the kid might not need to learn English or be computer literate to work on it if the machine is intelligent to read his/her expressions. So why worry? And Identity theft? Also, the kid might not like that you registered his/her name on Facebook even before (s)he said, “Mama”. I mean he/she wouldn’t even know what’s going on!
@Jagmeet – Domains are cheap to buy and keep. I would buy the domain for my child as soon as we knew the name and keep it forever. Just because they don’t know what’s going on doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be worth it for them in the long run.
Names will still matter years from now. Even if we have all that technology…
Daniel, great things to consider that most people probably don’t think about.
LOLS! That was a very good one. Even the comments posted here are hilarious. Thanks for sharing. Keep up the good work.