Posted this, since I see OkCupid blogs here regularly and this is quite interesting as well.
thenewgreen, have you chosen a name yet after asking for advice here? Might not be too late yet to get some in-depth insight in names!
Yeah, we are going with Atticus. We asked our daughter (3yo) which name she preferred, August, Atticus or Jude and she chose Atticus. She refers to him by name now and therefore there is no turning back. Thanks for the link though.
That is a really cool name. Where did you find it? The Kishi Bashi song, the Latin name or from To Kill a Mockingbird? I really think that confidence goes a long way to accompany an unusual name. As for myself, I have a name that is a female name in the entire world except the province I live in. It took me a long time to stand behind my name and to be proud of it instead of seeing it as the obvious point of ridicule that it was. It's just a name, after all.
You would have had the third young Jude among people I know. As it is you've got the second Atticus :) I never particularly cared for my name as it was a quintessential 'dad' name as well as literally my dad's name. Then Twilight came out and named a vampyre after me and I now get young baristas cooing "Ohhhh, I LOVE that name!" on enough occasions that I find it nhumerous. Actually that's died down a bit as the series has pretty much run its course, but for the past few years it happened multiple times. The only hard and fast rule I have for naming kids is you must attempt to mercilessly mock the name in rhyme and near rhyme. If it doesn't pass the Playground Test it must be discarded.
I would have made fun of a kid named Atticus by calling him "take-a-piss" -If that's the worst he gets, he'll be fine. Our last name provides more fodder imo.
The slightly unusual name will lead to more teasing and bullying. It will also be unforgettable - which can be handy if you want to be remembered. Since you're handing the kid a three-syllable first name and a three-syllable last name, you might want to consider a very short one-syllable middle name that he can retreat to if necessary. (Biff?) Meanwhile, are you ok with "At" for daily life? We have a neighbour who named his kid Didymus. He still calls himself Did. I just checked his facebook and Did seems to be in the funeral parlour business. Just sayin'
My son "@" will be oozing confidence and power from the moment he breathes his first breath. I'm not worried about him. For the record, my daughter was/is too :)