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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe teacher took to Reddit<\/a> to tell the story. Upon investigation, she learned that instead of the entry being a mistake, as she might have assumed, the student’s parents had legally named him \u2018…\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “His parents thought they were really clever,\u201d the teacher said. \u201cIt’s just inconsiderate in my opinion. On a parent’s evening, I asked them about it. They said something about it representing his unlimited potential for greatness.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Parents appear to be opting for more quirky names in recent times. While these differ from state to state and country to country, having a numeral in your name is mostly not allowed. Some states also limit the types of characters that can be used, including pictograms, obscenity, foreign characters, symbols, emojis, or offensive language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certain states also forbid the use of accents and\/or non-English letters, often because their information systems are unable to process vital records that include these characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Kentucky, parents can name their children whatever they like. In California, they are not allowed to use accents. The Golden State still allows parents to include hyphens and apostrophes in their baby names, as Elon Musk and Grimes did when naming their child X AE A-XII, but no numbers. Unfortunately, this means you will have to refrain from calling your child R2-D2 or C-3PO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teachers have talked for years about how unusually spelled or symbol-based names can throw off everything from roll call to first impressions, simply because they fall so far outside what the system is built to handle. Researchers have even found that names themselves can throw people off more than they expect. A study titled “The name-pronunciation effect,<\/a>” published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, found that people tend to respond more positively to names that are easier for their brains to process. When a name is unusual, symbol-based, or visually unexpected, it creates a small moment of friction that can shape first impressions without anyone realizing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In reply to the teacher\u2019s story about \u2018\u2026\u2019, Reddit user u\/valiantserpent<\/a> said: “My cousin teaches high school math, and he had a student whose parent spelled her name with Roman numerals – Caitlin spelled Cviiilyn.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/d34zo9lcvfe257.cloudfront.net\/49f6cf00-46c8-4ae9-baa9-3172e2d9a21b.png\")
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