My husband and I are expecting our first little guy in April and have chosen his first name no problem. The issue we struggle with currently is the middle name. My question here is that the baby's initials (if we go with our agreed on choice) are going to be N.A.G. Is this one of those avoid at all cost words that we don't want to stick our kid with or not so bad in the grand scheme of what initials COULD spell out?! Thanks for the help- K.

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Oh, K. I know you want the best for your son and that means carefully considering every option and what could go right and wrong. I always tend to err on the side of “who cares” but apparently it’s really true that you shouldn’t let your kids get sunburned and that the high-fructose corn syrup I so love in Sour Kid form must die with our generation.

The vast majority of initials don’t spell anything at all, so I appreciate that there’s extra attention paid to the ones that do. And I’m sure there are a couple of PADs or ELKs who get an extra chuckle out of this – I think I’ve even read that there are people who try to make an “extra” name in this way. But this is not something that’s going to be a problem. What’s the worst case scenario? Some kids in grade 3 figure out what his initials are, and call him “the Nag” for two recesses before getting bored? Unless your son really does fit his nickname – becomes a real little-old-lady worrywart – then I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about. Unless you are really devoted monogram people (and even then, doesn’t the last initial go in the middle? That’s weird to me), I bet he’ll never even notice. 

And yes, I can hear some of you all “Yeah but it rhymes with –“. Sure. So do a million other things. If kids are going to call horrible names, they don’t need any rhyming or initial reasons to do it. The seminal “Kindergarden baby, stick your head in gravy” is only the first of many examples herein.

The names you’ve chosen for him are great (I bet). Nobody will notice the initials.   Hell, nobody of his generation is even going to know what that word means. You’re good.