Baby name regret: why Kylie Jenner changing her newborn's name is not too unusual

A naming expert explains the 'ongoing name regret' issue

Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott have announced that they have changed their son's name and he is no longer known as Wolf. AP

This week, Kylie Jenner announced that she and her partner Travis Scott, 30, have had second thoughts about their newborn son's name.

They had called the baby boy Wolf, but Jenner, 24, revealed a change of heart on Instagram, writing: "FYI, our son's name isn't Wolf anymore. We just really didn't feel like it was him.

"Just wanted to share because I keep seeing Wolf everywhere."

Our son's name isn't Wolf anymore. We just really didn't feel like it was him

Kylie Jenner

Jenner and her rapper partner are yet to announce their son's new name.

It seems the couple have experienced something known as baby name regret, which occurs when a child has officially been named and that moniker has been announced, but the parents have a change of heart. It's not an uncommon phenomenon, says US baby name consultant and doula Taylor A Humphrey.

"It's hard to say how often, or for how many, this occurs but recently I've worked with an increasing number of clients who are struggling with name regret," Humphrey tells The National. "It has become a very distressing issue for a lot of people; many claim to lose sleep over on-going name regret."

As well as running private naming consultations, Humphrey has a loyal social media following of more than 22.4k followers on Instagram and 46.5k followers on TikTok. She regularly posts videos guiding people with baby names, and says she often discusses the naming process in her DMs.

"I would say that 80 per cent of my clients are coming to me specifically with name regret, and they are debating whether or not to change their child's name," Humphrey said in a TikTok video about Jenner and her baby boy's changing name.

Name regret happens for a number of reasons, she says, including the name failing to match the child's personality, parents feeling coerced or pushed into making a decision or "postpartum anxiety or PTSD masquerading as name regret".

Most commonly, however, is pressure from people's reaction to a baby name, which is often a major contributor to change.

"I've worked with several clients who experienced name regret because the hospital team mispronounced their baby's name while reading it off of the chart," Humphrey says. This leads to the worry that "no one would ever be able to pronounce the name," she adds.

Baby name regret typically occurs when the newborn's personality doesn't match its given name, or when third parties have an adverse reaction to the newborn's moniker, says naming consultant Taylor A Humphrey. Unsplash / Jonathan Borba

She says that another factor for change has been "clients whose parents or in-laws offered snarky remarks about the name they'd chosen."

On TikTok, Humphrey said: "If you feel that your child's name does not fit their personality, then I do recommend considering changing it, but doing so as quickly as possible."

When it comes to changing their name because of outside pressures, she suggests "standing outside of that decision".

"Figure out whether or not the name suits your child; the child should be at the centre of every major decision you make for them," she says, reiterating that parents should read the baby's cues and feedback when it comes to changing their name.

"Once they are already born, it becomes a very collaborative process, use their name around them, are they responsive, are they happy, are they smiling when you say their name, or are they antsy, upset and wiggly?"

In Humphrey's experience, baby name U-turns, when a name is changed and then reverted back, are uncommon because "there isn't second guessing once a decision has been made thoughtfully, and with confidence."

Expert baby name recommendations for Kylie Jenner

Humphrey says the "fun part" of her job is recommending baby names, so she listed her top picks for Jenner and Scott's boy, a sibling of daughter Stormi, 4, on TikTok.

She says that her early name predictions included Great, Pharaoh, Nation, Alpha, Gamble, Favor, Cortez, Thunder, Nevada, Rake, Poet and Wilfie.

She described the name choice of Wolf as "sitting right in the middle" in the context of the "Venn diagram of weird Kardashian names and conventional normal names."

The newest member of the Kardashian-Jenner family is a cousin to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's children North, 8, Saint, 6, Chicago, 4 and Psalm, 2; Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick's brood, Mason, 12, Penelope, 9 and Reign, 7; Robert Kardashian and Blac Chyna's daughter, Dream, 5; and Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson's daughter, True, 3.

Of her new predictions, Humphrey lists: Mighty, Rilo, Egypt, Alpha, Caliber, Braze, Pose, Cosmo and Kyte, among others.