"Have you saddled your child with a name that needs constant spelling-out?"

Asks Elizabeth Scalia, and I wonder what name does not need constant spelling out? My older son is named John, a very common name, and yet earnest educated people never assume it's not Jon, and some even expand the name to Jonathan, which feels like a rebuke — as if we should have chosen something fancier.

And you'd be surprised how often younger folks would spell John "Jhon." I assumed that was a combination of 3 things that they did know: 1. "John" contains an H, 2. There are very few English words with an HN combination, 3. Many common English words begin with a consonant followed by an H (e.g., the, she, child, ghost, phone, rhyme, who).

And, look, it's Jhonny Peralta, playing for the Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship Series. What's that Jh about? Is that the way to keep the Spanish last name from causing people to pronounce "John" as "Hone"?

"It's weird, I know," Peralta said. "My father spelled it that way in the Dominican (Republic). A lot of people actually spell the name that way in the Dominican. When I first came up to the Indians, fans would shout, 'Hey, JAY-honny!' It's not a problem. It's OK however people say it."

That's a relaxed attitude, and who's to say where that relaxed attitude came from? Perhaps having a name that needs constant spelling out causes a person to grow in patience and understanding over the years.

And I say that as a woman with the simplest common girl's name that must constantly be spelled out.