Names in fashion

I taught a girl called Nike. At parents evening, I remarked that it was an original choice to name your daughter after a Greek goddess. They asked me if Adidas was a Greek goddess too.

The way names go in and out of popularity is an interesting subject.

One name may indicate the age of a person, but if you have a group of names, like schoolfriends, you can be pretty sure when they were born.

A lot of my schoolfriends were Margarets or Marys, but there were also Catherines and Elizabeths (which haven't dated so much) and others like Jennifer, Susan, Helen, Linda, Christine, Valerie, Shirley, Barbara, Maureen, Rosalind, Isobel, Frances, Ruth, Marjory, Brenda, Patricia, Pamela, Sheila, Anne, Rosemary, Judith, Wendy, Alison, Gillian, Yvonne, Jeanette and Carol.

I wonder how many GNetters have grandchildren with these names?

We were standing in a queue with our DGs last week. There were two very madeup, Kardashian lookalike Mums in front of us. They were talking loudly about their friends' children. One child was Indigo, another Saffron , Magenta and Epiphany (?) Bet the parent didn't know the meaning of the last name ?

I find names, I perceive to be of Anglo Saxon origin, such as Edith, Ethel pretty ugly sounding but it seems they have come back, often synonymous with an aged relative not good on a little girl my opinion, I imagine others love that sort of name though, Edie is quite popular at the moment. A name I completely changed my mind on, I hated the name Grace when I was growing up. Changed my mind completely about 15 years ago, I now regard it as classic, timeless and quite sophisticated.

I read that Victoria Coren and David Mitchell have called their baby Barbara so who knows, maybe it's about to make a comeback. It was always popular with my parents, one of my names,

I think you can really date someone from their name,mine hasn't been popular since the 50's and everyone I've met with my name is the same generation as me.My daughter has a name thats not popular in Scotland but is apparently common in the south ,so her English husband says and our GC all have fairly ordinary names ,all except one who says she's the only girl with her name and she is ,in her school and neighbourhood anyway.DoraMarr Barbara was my favourite name and my first daughter was called that ,she was born and died in the mid 70S

The royals influence popularity in names, I'm sure.

But no Paulines, Christines, Wendys,.....my original point was that these 50s and 60s names are not used any more. I was at school with three Susans, but I have never known a six year old Susan, and I’d forgotten about those other popular names, Jacqueline and Gillian! Victorian and later flower names-Poppy, Lily, Rosa etc are still used to name new babies, and we had lots of Eleanors, Hannahs, Emilys (I’m just thinking of girls names here.) And what about Barbara? I wonder how names fall out of and into fashion.

In our playgroup we have two Alberts, one Alfred, two Fredericks, three Williams, and the girls three Marthas, one Mary, two Constance, four Florence etc., oh and a Darcy and Scarlet.

My name is very Irish and I wanted to have an English name like the other girls at school - Susan, Jacqueline, Wendy or Gillian! I like my name now.

I wanted the name Prudence if my grandson had been a girl.
He wasn't though, so that was lucky, since my daughter didn't like Prudence.

There were five Carols in my form at High School and there are five in the choir I now sing in.

Other names from my school days are Alison, Karen, Susan, Amanda & Helen.

Boys were Paul, Kevin, Steven, Neil etc.

We had 5 Jacquelines in our class. Not heard of that coming back.

I love the name Mabel , OldMeg My DD loved it for when she had her baby girl recently but it clashed with her partners surname.

They settled on Evie instead which I love.

I do hope no poor child ever gets saddled with my awful name. Gilleeeeeannnn . YUK !

Someone had a new baby boy in our village so when I saw them out and about I went over to congratulate them. I asked what he was called and nearly fell over when they replied 'Roy'.

Most of my friends grandchildren are fairly normal names, although there is one Phoenix and one Wulfric amongst them to ring the changes!

I do hope Doris - my mothers name doesn't come back - poor child that gets that.

My good friend's 1 year old granddaughter is called Doris

In my daughters' school classes in Sweden there were plenty of girls called Ida, Frida, Wilma, Matilda, Agnes, Alva, Beatrice and Vera as well as boys called Dennis, Oscar, Felix, Walter, Axel, Kevin and Erik.

My DM was Ethel Mary, but never known by any other name than Molly. I suspect that Ethel is a name that is unlikely to be revived.

We have an Albie, Violet-Florence, Elsie and Frieda in the family. And know of Stanley, Isabella and Eva.

Charleygirl my mum was called Phyllis but she too was called Molly.

Here in Germany the fashions are very different. I get a lot of unbelieving looks because my name is associated with 20-somethings chav types.

Doris, however, is a common name, at least among people of my age, and has no unpleasant connotations.

They have only just caught on to Old Testament names in recent years and there are now classes full of Joshuas and Hannahs. Jessica is also popular now - that was my grandmother's name!

My mother and all her contemporaries (born in the early 20th century) had names of flowers: Violet, Daisy, Ivy, Iris, Poppy, etc.

It's nice that some variety is getting into names. We had 4 Lindas in our year, there were 4 Susans in the year below us and 4 Christines in the year above, and it was only a tiny school! The boys were all called Stephen or John. A little more originality, without having to go totally out of the ordinary, would have been a good thing!

And Reception age children called Annie and Chrissie. And a Jeff. They could all have been in my class.

I do know of a couple of baby Maggies. They're not Margarets though.

Your right DoraMarr I had class mates with those names too, unheard of now.
Quiet a few of the older names are adapted though. Ella used to be short for Elenor, Libby- Elizabeth I know a little girl called Suzi but you don't hear Susan.
I don't want to give my mum's name but until about 5-6 yrs ago she was the only person I'd ever known with the name. It's now very popular for little girls.

I do hope Doris - my mothers name doesn't come back - poor child that gets that.