Opinion: Choosing name for child a serious business

Naming a child is a serious business.

But this is a message that doesn't seem to have sunk in for some people.

Triple M, Saint, Legion-King and Ida-Qween are just four of the baby names rejected by Internal Affairs last year.

A name is a label that will stick with that child until the day they leave this planet.

Even changing a name by deed poll doesn't completely erase this legacy, it still appears on official documents as your birth name.

There is a field of study that looks into "nominative determinism" - the hypothesis that people gravitate towards jobs that fit their names.

For example, some researchers have found that people called Dennis and Denise are more likely to become dentists.

There are other examples out there, many humorous, of people who have really grown into their names. Sprinter Usain Bolt is a good one, as is the woman who was born to be a lawyer, Sue Yoo.

It makes you wonder what sort of life the parents of the almost-named Triple M (a Mongrel Mob reference) want for their child.

My guess is the parents don't have dreams of their precious newborn growing up to become a lawyer or police officer.

The child's life would also likely be a struggle in many ways - imagine how hard it would be to get a rental property with a gang-associated name like that, even if they were the best tenant on the planet.

Us humans are susceptible to biases, no matter how hard we may try to treat everyone fairly and without prejudice.

Knowing this, soon-to-be parents should take naming a child as a serious responsibility, one that can cause a lifetime of trouble and frustration.