Babies being given unusual names.

One of my friends was named Tamara Knight.I don't think her parents had said it aloud.

I was determined that my children should have names that could not be abbreviated as I dislike the use of nicknames and shortened versions. Their surname was unusual enough and needed spelling!

But they all still acquired nicknames anyway!

My maiden name was difficult both to spell and to pronounce. If I gave my name I automatically spelt it out as well. The first name I’m known by is easier, but one of my first names is Katherine, and you would not believe how many ways there are of spelling that apparently ordinary name!

My great-niece has the difficult surname, and her first name is a sweet old-fashioned name but spelt very oddly. Poor child, a lifetime of explaining the spelling lies ahead.

My sons have traditional but relatively unusual names, not hard to spell but distinctive. One of the names is a great deal more popular now than it was when he was born 50 years ago. I think we started a trend!

I have two friends with unusual names. One of them loves the fact that it always made her stand out, the other one hates her name for the same reason. She didn’t like being conspicuous

I have spent my whole life spelling my name - and it's not even unusual! Consequently all three of my children have names which they don't have to explain/spell.

We deliberately named our children so that they had a choice of whether to use a shortened version (which we used when they were small) or the full, more formal one as adults. So far, they have both stuck with the shorter names, but they know that they have the choice to change if they want to.

I still like the names we chose for our children, and more to the point, so do they. They’re all uncommon, but not weirdly so.

Our grandchildren have interesting names for the most part. The Bishop who confirmed me was named for a very old-fashioned saint and our youngest grandson now shares the name. I love it, the name really suits him. Our NZ granddaughter has two very classical names (one is Shakespearean) and our youngest granddaughter was given the middle names of both great-grandmothers. One grandchild has a French name that sounds okay, unless it’s said by someone who’s not French - but the middle name is super.

My sister had an unusual name. Quite simple, spelt as pronounced, but she got so many other versions of it she started telling people her name and spelling it (it only had 6 letters, until, she said, the felt the spelling was becoming part of her name.

Then someone with her first name hit the headlines and all her problems vanished!

I was one of five in primary school with the same first name (which I dislike to this day!).

I've never liked my name. It was quite popular in 1900, but has dropped out of the top 1000 girls names. I was named after a sister of my grandfather who died earlier in the year I was born.
I gave my daughter a name I thought had not been used for about a century but when she started school there were two others.

Just smiling as recently son 1 and I were discussing his name and I did remark that, had he been a girl, the name would have been given to her. He laughed that off declaring it was 'positively masculine'. Oh aye.......

*grannyactivist^ One grandchild has a French name that sounds okay, unless it’s said by someone who’s not French

There is a name that I love when pronounced the French way, but not in English..
I wonder if it is the same name. I don't suppose it begins with 'Ag', does it?

So common names are given by timid parents are they? Try telling that to an Adam who was named a few months before Adam Ant hit the charts ?
And I once had a class with a quarter of the boys named Harry. Blame JK Rowling. ?

I have never felt that my given name is me. I know that sounds strange, but I could never properly relate to it. It is not an unpleasant name, but it was as if it was someone else's name, not really mine!

For most of my adult life, until relatively recently (when email addresses suddenly revealed my given name), I usually went by a slighty different version that my OH had always used for some reason.

Then I learned that my mum had being going to call me 'Karen' until the midwife who delivered me made a disparaging remark about it, and suggested the name that I was then given.

I can honestly say that when I found that out, I felt like I had found out who I really was and what my name should have been.

But that was before I learned how that name now being abused used!

I always spell my name otherwise people spell it Cybil!

MamaCaz, I did give my beautiful little baby that name and I apologised for it recently.
I can’t remember exactly what it’s supposed to portray but she is certainly white, middle class and bossy and I think those adjectives come into it somewhere.
She said she has no problem with that!
Lives up to the name.

A friend of my dil has given each of her 3 girls beautiful old fashioned names-Florence, Matilda and Cecily. I love them all.

They're lovely.
I do like names. (Well, some of them)

I grew up with a very usual name with a not usual spelling. There is a US common spelling, then a French spelling.

As a child, I was always upset because I could never get things with my name on it like my friends did. Think bike license plates in the 70's of key chains. Plus, I had to spell it ever. single. time. I said it.

Because of my experience, when I named my children, I gave them the common spelling. One of them still has to spell her name because of all the unusual spelling out there, there are many choices to spell this one name, the most common being 1 L vs 2 L's.

Now, my name spelling is more popular. I even found it on a Coke bottle when they were doing that thing here is the US. I gave up spelling it to people years ago and just tell them to spell is however they want to.

I am now having to spell my last name, though it is common. People usually ask with a D or without.

It is what it is.

*and key chains

My experience as a a teacher was that names come into and go out of fashion at fairly regular intervals.

Parents think they have given a child an unusual name, then discover when the child starts school that four other sets of parents had the same idea.

Often young parents choose names their parents found hopelessly old-fashioned or ugly.

I was blessed with both a given name no-one could pronounce and a surname no-one could spell. Both were the bane of my life at school!

Both my 2 where the only ones with their name throughout their school career. Until my daughters went into year 11 when another little girl joined in year 7.

DGD ended up with a name that, although her parents did not realise it, was/is a popular girl's name.

There were three other girls with the same name in her class in primary school. Each with a different spelling!

Hetty58

I like unusual names and my children and grandchildren all have them.

I do feel sorry for those given poplar names. They'll find others in their class or peer group with the same name.

People will assume that their parents are timid - also tend to guess their age by their name later on.

plus their parents are parents with little imagination

Oh gawd Hetty57 This probably says more about you than you realize.

And correcting a typo?

Were you were trying to be controversial?

Hetty57. Parents often do not know what the popular names are when they name their child. We didn't, when we gave DS one of the most popular names in the year he was born. Likewise DS & DDiL with their eldest.

Unless you have teachers or Registrars of Births among your family and friends, or lots of people you know have babies you really have no idea what names are the most popular.

Often it is a name you may have decided decades before that you would really like a child of yours to have because it was not popular or you thought was unusual and it is a shock when you finally have a child and give them that name to discover that the name you love is top of the pops.

I find the idea that parents might be 'timid' in naming their children a very odd idea.

My name has always been shortened outside of the family, despite picking people up on it.,I would give a name that you like shortened because everyone does. Theses sill names like Tixie bell,must be so hard in the bearer. I would change it by deed poll.