Kids With These Names May Be Destined to Be Naughty

Lisa Milbrand

Are some baby names destined to be bad? That's the premise behind a survey conducted in the U.K., in which two British companies, My Nametags and CensusWide, asked 1,500 teachers, parents, and children to rank the naughtiest baby names. What they found was that Jack was the worst-behaved boy name, and Mia topped the naughty list for girls.

According to the list, Jack, Harry, Oliver, Charlie, and George were all mischievous names, while Arthurs were very well behaved. And on the girls' side, some of the most popular baby names are indicted: In addition to Mia, Ella, Isabella, Sophia, and Amelia are all poorly behaved, and Isla is the name to give if you want a well-behaved child.

Of course, there are also a few famous names that may connote bad behavior—and that you might want to think twice about. For example, there's a whole genre of evil kid horror movies, from Children of the Corn to The Omen to The Exorcist. You might want to skip names like Damien, Regan, Gage, Esther, Samara, and Rhoda, which carry a little baggage from the association. And if you name your kid Michael and your last name is Meyers, well, your kid may decide to change it.

Kid lit is equally full of spirited (and sometimes troublesome) characters—most of them girls. Maybe you don't want your Pippi, Matilda, Ramona, Junie, Harriet, Max, Eloise, Huck, or Peter to be exactly like their literary counterpart—or maybe you do?

You'll probably also want to skip naming your child after characters that are genuinely not-so-nice, like Draco Malfoy or Bellatrix LaStrange in Harry Potter, Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or retroactively, Khaleesi/Daenerys from Game of Thrones (sorry, all you parents who helped the name rise on the popularity charts). And Kylo and Anakin kinda deserve to be on the naughtiest baby names list, too—though maybe Kylo will come back from the dark side in the final installment of Star Wars.

Of course, getting a naughty-list name could simply inspire your child to thrive in spite of their name—there's the story of parents who named their kids Winner and Loser, and Loser ended up being the big success, while Winner landed in prison. Because as the saying goes, a rose by any other name would still smell sweet—and your child will be just fine, no matter what name you pick.