Like everyone else with a unique name, I can't imagine one worse than my own.  My full name on my birth certificate is Open Weaver.  My married name is Open Weaver Banks.  I have a hard time using my credit cards for personal items because clerks will accuse me of using a business card.  I have problems with airline tickets and any type of registration where people think that my name must be a typo and I become an "Owen."  I cannot tell my name to someone without having to explain it.  Some days it is exhausting and I can't even disguise the annoyance in my voice.  Even my husband says he tires of explaining it to colleagues every time he mentions my name in conversation.

This is now, when it is really just an inconvenience.  Childhood was painful.  I still give my mother a hard time about the name choice and she tries to explain that she was young, she liked how it sounded, it was 1970, and various other reasons.  Then she asks why I don't change it if I hate it so much.  I actually tried going by another name for a year and I realized that as much as I truly hate my name, it is embedded in me and so much a part of my experience.  I felt like I was keeping a dark secret and people couldn't truly know me if they didn't know that part of me.  So I went back to "Open."

The point I think people need to realize when they are naming their children is that unique is wonderful, but it can also be a burden when it crosses a line and subjects children to ridicule or makes getting through the average day difficult because of the number of times you have to explain it or spell it.  And parents cannot predict their children's personalities or futures.  So while "Open" might have been great if I had grown up to be an artist and moved in more "open-minded" circles, it is not so great for a 37 year old attorney who sometimes would just like to be taken seriously when I introduce myself, rather than have to explain for the umpteenth time "My mother just liked the way it sounded."