Fashionable names

Good luck choosing your kids’ nicknames. The poor soul in my primary one class who had a small accident in his first week of school still answers to the name of Pisher to this day.

when i was a child, our elderly neighbour had 3 middle-aged sons, Dan, Den and Don.
sounds rather like footballer's offspring now.
reading the baby names threads on MN is amusing/instructive.
they want to not only choose the name, but decide what the nickname will be also. no room it seems for the child's input.
that list of names from 1880s is American, so there would be some differences re UK names.

kittylester

MerylStreep

I’ve lead a very full life and met I don’t know how many people but I’ve only met one woman with my name, and she was a neighbour. It’s Geraldine. Are there any here?

I have a friend called Geraldine and was at school with another one.

yes, had one at school.
it used to be popular among families with Irish ancestry.
i once met a Geraldette, at an irish dancing group.
never heard it before or since.

My Granddaughter will soon be 14, and was born in the Era when ‘May’ became just about the most popular middle name for a new Baby Girl, just about rivalling the very common ‘Louise’ of the 1970s and 80s!

In her tutor group alone they have an Ellie May, Molly May, Lily May, and a Sophie May!

My Christian name is French, so not very popular in UK. I can count on one hand the number of people I have met with the same name. My brother and sister both have very nice English names.

With my Sister.

Same thing happened with my s8. Her name was virtually unheard of when we were children. But a generat8later and it was ubiquitous.

I have a name which was unusual at the time, and I was the only one with the me in my school. It became popular 15 or 20 years later so if we are aged by a name I was years older than expected.
I just can’t get my head round Colin Malcolm Keith Janet Susan Linda Barbara as names for babies but would get used to it as we always do.
What comes around etc.
C’est la vie!

JackyB
I love all those names remembered by your mum, there are lots of Poppy’s and Daisy’s
around, such pretty names.
I had two old aunties called Daisy, but we always called them Auntie Daze, I thought that was actually their names.

Drew Barrymore and David Tennant both have little daughters called Olive.

I was named after an aunt that died very young before I was born.

I almost became a Doris, fortunately mum put her foot down, and I was given her middle name instead, although not many of us about, my name appears fairly low on the 1800 list.

My middle name is a name through several generations in honour of my maternal grandmother Marý, I tweeked this for my second daughters middle name and used Marie.

My resident grandaughter has to my mind a beautiful middle name Charmaine

My name was used as a heroine of a saturday morning cinema film
The Perils of Pauline

My parents went out of their way to avoid giving us family names, so my sister and I have French names.

In our year at school (a very small school) there were 4 Lindas. In the year above there were 4 Christines and in the year below there were 4 Susan's.

Having read the thread through, I am surprised that the name Mary is not considered one from our generation. I always thought of it as the standard name, along with John.

My German daughters in law have chosen names for the little ones which sound very odd to my English ears, but I have got used to them and have never judged them for it.

I must admit, my 3 DS all have names of Catholic saints, possibly subconsciously to please my mother in law, but the main criterion was that they could easily be recognised and pronounced in several languages.

In my mother's memoir she remembers that the girls in her class were all named after flowers : Violet, Ivy, Poppy, Daisy, Iris, Rose. Those names would not sound dated today, somehow.

What goes around comes around.

NotAGran55

My dad’s sister was called Queenie which I love . I have never heard of another one .

My mum had a friend whose daughter was called Queenie. She would be born in the mid 1930’s I imagine, probably around the time of the Coronation of George V1.

My dad’s sister was called Queenie which I love . I have never heard of another one .

I don’t think Gladys, Doris, Ethel, Phyllis, Bertha, Edna will make a comeback yet, but perhaps they are already out there.

In more ‘modern’ dated ones, I would put Sheila, Maureen, Joyce, Marjorie, Brenda, Joan, in that category.

A friend has a GD called Cora, not keen on that.

I have heard of an Enza, which sounds like a disinfectant.

An old name I like and never hear is Dulcie.

Beswitched
I must admit, I’ve yet to come across an Audrey, but I know of several Olives, at my granddaughters nursery there is Norman, and I heard a little girl in the park being called Barbara.

My mother was quite put out by our choice for absent daughter. "That," she firmly stated, "is an old woman's name." She was a little taken aback when I pointed out that the old women in question were once babies. Absent daughter has since changed her name and meanwhile the one we gave her, that we thought was fairly unusual, has become very popular.

When I was at school there were 5 Susans in one of my classes. There were 7 in the year level. My cousin is Susan,too. They were all pretty brainy girls, good at maths. I could imagine that name coming back. The youngest ones in our family are called Leah, Isla and Noah. I like all those names, especially Isla.

Having a new baby GD last week called Olive I was very surprised by the OP. Olivia I have come across frequently, but Olive not so, it doesn't appear in the list of baby names on that website Varian quoted for the last decade. Do you have little Olive's in your family?

I love that my youngest granddaughter has a fairly unusual modern name, but her middle names were given in honour of her two great-grandmothers. One of the names is fairly timeless, but the other is really old fashioned yet gaining in popularity.

One of my grandsons has an old fashioned Saint’s name - and I absolutely love it, but other family members, including his parents, call him by the diminutive. There is only one name in my whole extended family that I dislike and it was chosen by the mother in opposition to the father’s wishes.

Sara1954

All of my grandchildren and nieces and nephews have ‘old fashioned’ names, or ‘maids’ names as I call them.
I think they are all so pretty, but I can’t really see the names of my youth making a comeback, all the christines, Carols, Jackies, Tina’s, or even less likely Maureen and Audrey.

Audrey is back on fashion now.

And I imagine our parents felt the same way about Lily, Ivy, Freddie and George as we do about Jackie, Michelle, Trevor and Nigel. All names eventually become vintage and cool.

All of my grandchildren and nieces and nephews have ‘old fashioned’ names, or ‘maids’ names as I call them.
I think they are all so pretty, but I can’t really see the names of my youth making a comeback, all the christines, Carols, Jackies, Tina’s, or even less likely Maureen and Audrey.

Susan goes to school is one of my favourite comfort reads. I still have my childhood copy. I have bought others on Abe books for quite reasonable prices.

It seems to me that great-grandparents name are on the come-back, the next generations too close, so 3 generations back.

I know a baby just named Millie Rose, and think it is sweet. However, when we were having our children, my MIL was Nellie, her sister Millie, and another sister Mary, we teased that they sounded like dairy maids. The names have come back again.

So I may have to wait to be a great-grandmother before I hear anyone naming a baby with my name.

MerylStreep

Thank you Jane I’m just eternally grateful that my father didn’t get his way: Ethel. Apologies to all the Ethels ?

There's not a lot you can do with Ethel!

I had a school friend whose glamorous mother was called Elise. We all thought it was very exotic but then my friend told me her mother was actually called Elsie but changed the letters round a bit