Children's names

Our SiL has a nephew whose surname is Gordon so his parents called him Flash! Only in America! He actually seems to have grown up surprisingly normal!

My GD's middle name is Ophelia which I love, despite its unfortunate Shakespearean connotations. I'm glad it isn't Desdemona though.

My young neighbours have a newborn girl called Elsie. There was a young lady on something the other day and she was called Jezebel.

My GG Aunt was called Hepzibah; all the names in their family were very biblical including my mother's middle name which she hated. However, my mother's middle name is back in favour and was in the top 10 of girls' names last year!

hildajenniJ They all had Old Testament names, but in their case were Huguenots!

My friend's GGS is called Frank. Had he have been a girl he would have been Elsie May.A neighbour narrowly missed having Hepsibah (sp?)when the baby was a GS and not a GD. She was very relieved.

One girl at our school was called Faye Wray. Another was Joy and another called Gaye. I do remember thinking, as a child, that they were not actually proper names.

Probably thought this though as my name is a traditional, I think, boring name and there were three of us in the class.

www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2011/06/top-100-drop-outs-where-are-they-now-.html

I love the return of old names, our GD is Florence Rose, my mother was a Florence. I know they were considering Agatha.

Old people were babies once. Names go around, in and out of fashion. Carol, Linda, Jacqueline, Susan, Christine, Brian, Ronald, Martin, Alan, David, Thomas, John – very common in our childhood – are today's old people's names.

I'm horrified by the return of what I think of as old peoples' names. I know babies called Walter, Agatha, Mabel and Stanley.
I wonder when Susan, Carol, Brian and Colin will come back? Of course we all gave our own children lovely names so I suppose their mums liked Ty and Phoenix and Ashleigh-Mae!

And I knew an Olive Branch and a Rhoda Horsey.

My class at school had three Margaret's, three Susan's and two Linda's (iPad insists on the apostrophe - should there be one?) and DD2 was one of three Catherine's in her class - all spelt differently) so perhaps widening the range of names isn't such a bad thing. But silly spelling is just affectation!

I do wonder if Gaye ever changed her name.

I heard a mother call out "Timber" on the Common a few weeks ago. I looked for a falling tree but then a little girl came running

I knew an Isobelle Bell, a Pat Pratt, and Olive Green. When I was at junior school in the 1950s, I desperately wanted to be a Susan, Linda, or Jacqueline. My parents were Irish immigrants and my name is very Irish. I hated it at the time as I wanted to fit in. I am happy with it now. My DD works in a school and some of the names she tells me that some children have are very strange to me.

Trying to work it out now, FlicketyB!

My sister had a really unusual name, but, despite having to put up with a host of misspellings and mispronunciations, she quite liked it. But then someone with the name became famous - and she considered her problems got worse. People knew how to pronounce her name and spell it. Instead every one kept saying 'Oh, you have the same name as Xxxxxx Xxxxx', a woman who was more infamous than famous.

hildajennij

DS has a saint's name - I do remember chatting with another playgroup mum who remarked that perhaps we give the boys saints' names in the hope that they will behave well - and that it doesn't work!

Actually, all my DC have saints' names come to think about it.

The DGC do not.

My DGC all have Biblical names.
My DD once received a phone call from the child tax credit people who were dealing with her claim. He said "I don't need to ask your religion, You must be Orthodox Jews". To which she replied, "No I'm bringing them up Pagan, but for the form you can put down C of E".

Precious reminds me of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
It is a pretty name, but I never had the courage to give my DC unusual names.

I knew a support worker of African origin who was named after the doctor who delivered him: he was called Doctor!

Or ask if her Mum liked Jilly Cooper books!!

I've posted before about a girl DD2 went to nursery with who was salled Sammy Sunshine. Her mum went to register her on a really wet day and remarked that she brightened up the day. The Registrar said that she could call her sunshine and the Mum took him at his word! I often wonder what the father said! The child, when I knew her didn't live up to her name!

I knew a Precious when a girl so she will be in her 70s now. My GD has a friend named Pagan, we often speculate if people remark on her "Christian" name.

In Mexico I met a young man called Rainbow Skye descended from the N . American Indians. I think it is a lovely name. My son has an Indian friend called Kindness ,and Precious is in my DGS's class. Lovely.

Honor Kermode. (A friend swears she knew a girl with that name.)

GS1 was playing Skylanders and showing me a wolf character called Wolfgang. I told him there was a little boy called Wolfgang in his little brother's music group and he was amazed to find that it was a real name! He asked me who on earth would have a name like that so I said "lots of German people for a start!" He has an eastern european name and his brother's is italian so he can't really call other people's odd.