Tell me the truth: Are the initials "H.A.M." really bad?

[sadie_beth_1124]

The favorite names (for a boy, if it is a boy) I keep coming back to sound cute together but give me those initials. Like most moms, I really wanted to avoid anything that would warrant a lot of teasing. But DH said it's not that bad. I *kind of* agree, but really wanted some feedback on this.

Thank you! :+

[heidiann]

I don't think its bad at all, those are my initials LOL....

Heidi
Mom to Jillian 10/20/05

[bostonsmama]

Well, they're certainly not as bad as D.A.M., F.A.T., or R.O.T..

I know you said boy, but I immediately thought of Mia Ham(m)...not just the sliced pork you eat over the holidays. So, not a bad connotation.

Besides, in the years that I've been in the classroom both teaching and observing, I've NEVER noticed kids teasing other kids about their initials. Besides, your son won't have to confess his middle name in class or to friends...and it's not openly used in a school setting. You can even have his monogram so that the big M is the middle and H and A on the sides: hMa

See? Not so bad at all. Plus, if you really like the names that match those intials, who gives a care! If kids are going to be mean, they can work with much less than initials that spell a food.

Larissa

We're doing it! IVF orientation & consult scheduled for May 2nd!
Saline Sonogram--May 5th

Proud Aunt to Jack Dorian, born to my brother and SIL on 3/06
http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/32719.jpg

[Tondi G]

I don't think it's bad. My DH's initials are EGG... his bro is WIG and his sister RAG. I don't think any of them got teased as kids! My younger DS's initial are AGG.... almost made them ARG (Made me think of Pirates! LOL)

If you love a name don't worry about the initials!

~Tondi
Mommy to Mason Liam 7/8/01 and Aidan Gabriel 5/4/05

[aliceinwonderland]

I wouldn't let the initials stop me, I don't think it's bad at all!

[kaylinsmommy2]

Honestly, I wouldn't do it. I agree, it's not that bad, but I wouldn't do it - research shows that people who have bad initials (more on the lines of D.A.M or F.A.T) are more likely to die a more violent death than those who either have initials that don't say anything or initials that spell something good. Sorry, just MHO.

Caroline
mommy to Kaylin 6/5/04

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/bunbunadb20040605_-9_Kaylin+is+now.png[/img][/url]

[ChunkyNicksChunkyMom]

"research shows that people who have bad initials (more on the lines of D.A.M or F.A.T) are more likely to die a more violent death than those who either have initials that don't say anything"
Is this for real or are you pulling our legs?? And please tell me this was federally funded GOVERNMENT research. Hee Hee.


Susan

#1 Nick 11-18-04
#2 ETA 05-22-06

[Mamma2004]

Sara, I definitely would not let the initials "H.A.M." stop me!!!!!

Stephanie

[hez]

I think it'd be fine. Then again, I willing accepted the initials 'HMS' (I always think 'Her Majesty's Ship') when we got married. We just had to be sure not to name Payton 'Andrew Scott' or something :)

[alexsmommy]

It wouldn't stop me. Of all the things a child could be teased about (and they will be teased about something at some point), that's actually not that bad. I guess having the maiden name "Bacon" I know first hand that the teasing is short-lived and definately mananageable.
Alaina
Alex 2-4-03

[elliput]

Nope. My Brothers initials are M.A.M., and mine were E.L.M. Most people will never know.

[brittone2]

I don't think it will be a big deal at all. I think a lot of kids don't even realize what other kids' middle names are, and I can't remember many people being teased about their initials in school.

In addition, I just don't see "HAM" as being a particularly terrible thing that a kid would get teased over. There are some initials that would definitely be less than desireable, but "ham" is kind of neutral in my mind...

[MrsZaz]

My husband and I went through this discussion when I was pregnant. They only thing he asked was that we not use the first initial 'E' (for a girl) because her initials would be 'EZ' and he didn't want to make the wrong impression LOL.


Colleen

[zuzu]

If you really like the name, do it. My initials are M.A.D. and I do remember being teased a few times in elementary school, but it really wasn't that bad. Really, I wish that was the *only* thing they teased me about growing up. :)

[tarahsolazy]

I'd love a reference on this, too.

[aliceinwonderland]

LOL!!!!!

[lilycat88]

I wouldn't worry about H.A.M. One of our short list names would have ended up with A.$.$. as the initials. We passed on that.

[sadie_beth_1124]

I appreciate it ladies! I'll tell DH I did a poll and the ladies agreed with him. :)
We've taken the "B" names off the table already, I'd hate to lose more good ones. :)

[MelissaTC]

I would do it if I loved the names, ykwim? My cousin went to college with someone that had the intials F.A.G.. You can imagine the torment!

[kijip]

>Besides, in the years that I've been in the classroom both
>teaching and observing, I've NEVER noticed kids teasing other
>kids about their initials.

Where did you go to school and teach? What grades did you teach? Sorry, I must have attended school, camp and church with mean kiddos but IME kids get teased about their names and initials all the time. RAT, HAM and HO are the ones I remembers distinctly from childhood. Heck I knew a Stu that was teased since his name is in the alphabet. Kids of certain ages will find ANY reason to tease kids about their names, even if they don't make since (like Stu). 5th-7th grades seem to be the hotbed for this kind of teasing.

[NatalieM]

I don't think it's a big deal. DD's initials are R.A.M. :-) Go for it!

[KBecks]

I don't think people pay attention to the initials much, other than the person himself. That said, HAM is kind of funny.

I don't think I'd want my initials to be HAM. Would you want yours to be?

Sorry!

[kaylinsmommy2]

Yes, this is real. I personally know the professor who conducted this research. His lab is interested in the social psychology effects and their implications on some more general theories of psychology. I assume he has a grant (public universities get mad if you don't) and his paycheck obviously comes from the government. At the same time this type of research is really cheap to do: grad students and undergrads provide cheap (free) labor to collect the data.

I'm interested in the effects of names, and have also seen other research suggesting that people who have suffixes (is that the correct plural?) at the end of their names: Jr, II, III are more likely than the general population to end up in mental institutions. I don't have that ref here, but it's in my files at home - I can post that one later. There's more, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

Here's the reference and abstract of the study with initials.

Title What's in a name: Mortality and the power of symbols
Author Christenfeld, Nicholas; Phillips, David P; Glynn, Laura M
Source Journal of Psychosomatic Research. Vol 47(3), Sep 1999, pp. 241-254
ISSN 0022-3999


Studied the relationship between individuals with "positive" initials (e.g., A.C.E., V.I.P.) and "negative" initials (e.g., P.I.G., D.I.E.) with life expectancy. Using California death certificates, 1969-1995, 2287 male and 3512 female decedents with "negative" initials and 1200 males and 533 females with "positive" initials were isolated. Males with positive initials live 4.48 years longer, whereas males with negative initial die 2.80 years younger than matched controls. The longevity effects are smaller for females with an increase of 3.36 years for the positive group and no decrease for the negative. Positive initials are associated with shifts away from causes of death with obvious psychological component (such as suicides and accidents), whereas negative initials are associated with shifts toward these causes. However, nearly all disease categories display an increase in longevity for the positive group and a decrease for the negative group. These findings cannot be explained by the effects of death cohort artifacts gender, race, year of death, socioeconomic status, or parental neglect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

Caroline
mommy to Kaylin 6/5/04

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/bunbunadb20040605_-9_Kaylin+is+now.png[/img][/url]

[mudder17]

I know you've already decided that you will probably go for it, but I just thought I'd add a few more comments. I think the initials HAM aren't really bad, unless you're the one who has it and is being teased by it. My last name growing up sounded just like Tang, the instant breakfast drink (but it wasn't really pronounced that way if you were to do it correctly, but most Americans either couldn't or wouldn't bother to pronounce it correctly). So I was teased a lot about being an instant breakfast drink. There was one guy (and this was in High School, btw, who would hang out with his friends and make fun of me every time I passed. He didn't actually tease me about the drink, but would say, "Tang!!!!" to sound like Twang! with the vibrations and everything. In retrospect, I think he probably liked me (LOL), but it made me so mad. So one time I came back and spelled his name backwards and made fun of that. He had the most surprised look on his face, which makes me think he wasn't trying to be mean-spirited, exactly. Anyway, it didn't last THAT long and obviously I survived. :P Later, people also realized that my initials, if you either exclude the first or middle name (they both begin with E) were ET, so I got a lot of the ET movie thing, but that didn't bother me because I liked the movie.

So what does this mean? I guess it can be painful during the time that you're suffering through it, and it may or may not have lasting effects depending on how mean the kids are and how long the teasing lasts and a whole host of other things. So would I give my child the initials HAM? Not sure about that, but I did think about the initials my daughter would have and actually, for the longest time I was trying to give her the initials CAT, but I couldn't find any decent names. :) Her initials are now an innocuous KCT. DH's is PAT and mine is EET. I was also considering giving my daughter the same initials as DH but again, no good names. I may try that with the next child, especially if it's a different gender. But ultimately, it's the name I want to love, not the initials. And like most people said, a lot of people don't know your "other" name (I go by my middle name), so chances are, they would use your first and last name as initials rather than first, middle, and last.


Eileen

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/candle.gif for Leah
http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_sapphire_24m.gif

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/catcatcvi20040222_-6_Kaya+is.png
Kaya will be a sister, ~11/14/06!

[jesseandgrace]

I wouldn't do it because I just wouldn't like the way it looks if I were monogramming something (and I am vegan, so it grosses me out), and yes I know that is just the stupidest thing in the world to say, but you asked :). Also, I've only monogrammed one thing for my kids, an LL bean travel bag, so obviously it is totally irrelevant, but I wouldn't want to see HAM on there. On the other hand my last name rhymes with a bad word, and it really was never a problem for me on the teasing front, so I wouldn't really worry about that. I did read about the study mentioned above in a magazine a few years back, and it just seems like self esteem played an issue for these kids with initials like PIG. I don't think HAM is bad like that, but the pp might be right that it could bother a child.

[kaylinsmommy2]

Thanks to the person who brought this to my attention - there is a new study that tries to refute the above findings. From the abstract, it looks like the difference in effects has to do with how you do your statistical analyses. Becuase I haven't read the specifics (I have to get back to work), I'd have to it and think a little more about it before making my own decision on the topic. Here's the reference:

Monogrammic Determinism?
Morrison, Stilian; Smith, Gary
Psychosomatic Medicine. Vol 67(5), Sep-Oct 2005, pp. 820-824

Abstract Objective: Attempt to replicate a report that people whose names have positive initials (such as ACE or VIP) live much longer than do people with negative initials (such as PIG or DIE). The primary analysis in the original 1969 to 1995 study grouped decedents by year of death; however, average-age-at-death calculations for decedents grouped in this way can be misleading if the frequency of initials changes over time. Grouping the decedents by birth year solves this problem and provides a more natural test of whether there is a statistical relationship between initials and longevity. Methods: The California Department of Health Services mortality database was used to identify the birth year and age at death of decedents with positive or negative initials, as defined by the original study and as chosen by a new survey. Results: There is no substantial or statistically significant relationship between either set of initials and longevity when decedents are grouped by birth year, either for the original study period 1969 to 1995 or for the longer period 1905 to 2003. Conclusion: These data do not indicate that mortality is affected by one's initials. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)



Additionally, I found another article that talks about the effects of first names - again, I only had time to read the abstract of this one:

The First name: An attribute of self-identity that affects one's evaluation of oneself and that of others/Le prénom: un élément de l'identité participant à l'évaluation de soi et d'autrui
Guéguen, Nicolas; Dufourcq-Brana, Maya; Pascual, Alexandre
Cahiers Internationaux de Psychologie Sociale. No 65, Jan-Mar 2005, pp. 33-44

Abstract The effects of first names have been of interest to research psychologists for more than half a century. It is now known that first names are an attribute of one's identity and that they influence both the individuals' psychology and, to some extent, their social interactions. Many studies, mainly Anglo- Saxon, show the effects of individuals' first names on their self-esteem and on other internal factors, such as their abilities in school and organizations, their self-evaluation, mental health, social skills, etc. Such studies also show that individuals' first names are related to their judgment, evaluation and behaviors towards others. We hereunder present a synthesis of the social psychology studies on first names, which is probably the first review of scientific literature on this topic addressed to the French scientists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)

Caroline
mommy to Kaylin 6/5/04

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/bunbunadb20040605_-9_Kaylin+is+now.png[/img][/url]

[jbowman]

Caroline--Isn't there a chaper in Freakonomics on naming? Slightly off-topic (no discussion of initials), but interesting nonetheless.

[lisa56308]

Not bad at all. FIL is A.S.S. I always joked that if we had a girl we would make sure her initials were P.M.S (This was done to get a rise out of MIL. LOL)
Lisa
Jacob 6/95
Tyler 10/03

[emily_gracesmama]

I married a D.A.M. Biggest problem I've had with it was embossing a briefcase with his initials, definitely opted for the periods in between. Totally doesn't matter IMO. If they don't get teased for one thing, it's usually another :)

[kaylinsmommy2]

Jill, I haven't had a chance to read Freakonomics, but I remember someone else saying that there was a discussion about names. Reminds me that I should read it! :)

Caroline
mommy to Kaylin 6/5/04

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/bunbunadb20040605_-9_Kaylin+is+now.png[/img][/url]