What would you do if your child told you had given them the wrong name?
Would you ignore it, or treat it as a game?
What it if continued, more than just a phase?
And your child was distressed, or determined in their ways?
Would you simply change it, or insist it stay the same?
My child did just this.
When we chose the original name, I thought it was a nice name, but perhaps wasn’t The name. When my child first started speaking and ‘playing’ at having a different name, we rolled with it. But didn’t really take it as more than a game. What was interesting, however, was the insistence on The Name. It was always the same.
As time passed, we had more and more days of this ‘game’.
It got to a point where it seemed no longer a game. This was serious.
At first we thought about using it as a nickname. But this was fell short of acknowledging how important this chosen name was. It wasn’t a nickname. It was The Name. So we changed it. Legally.
And our child was content. There was no awkwardness in this change. We were simply correcting our mistake. We had given the wrong name.