Choosing your name

I've never liked my given name and have already shortened it. I also wanted to be called Helen when I was little and it's what I called my favourite doll.

I have a common short name of one syllable. My surname is only one syllable too. One of the reasons I took my DH surname.

My mother told me she chose my name after a character in a novel she was reading but interestingly it happens to be my paternal DGM name.
My husband was Roger, the name chosen for me had I been a boy. She was desperate for a boy . So she got her Roger after all.

DD didn't like her name growing up as it is old fashioned. She likes it now as an adult.

It's hard to get away from fashion when it comes to names. I told an acquaintance the unusual name of my DGD and she said her DGD had the same name and there are several at her school.

Nannan2

Sparklefizz- when i started secondary school we were all amused to find two girls in our class with same first name and surname but had different middle names, so were known as Julie E.and Julie I.(even by teachers) But i dont think they were as amused by it as the rest of us.

In my primary school class, we had five boys called Andrew and two boys with the same Christian name and surname. Thankfully, their Christian names were spelt differently - Stephen and Steven so as a result they were known as PH and V.

Peaseblossom, I like the anonymity of Gransnet and although no-one is likely to recognise me on Gransnet from my first name, I prefer not to give it. Maybe others feel the same! I’ve nothing to hide, but that’s just the way I feel.

My parents could not agree on a name for me, both wanted their mothers' names. So at the last minute my mother opened the newspaper and saw a story about a local mother throwing her baby from the window of their burning house! The baby's name was Sharon so that is what I got!

I have four. A boy was wanted so I was always going to have my father's/ grandfather's name, but mum rebelled thankfully and I was given his second name, also with a long family history. I spent a lot of time spelling it so shortened it.

I would love to have had a pretty girly name - Daisy, Lily, Aurelie, Evelyn...

I would have preferred anything rather than cheryl . So I picked cherie and nicole for my daughters. Only for "my cherie amore " to be popular and then the nicole! Papa ! Advert ! I give up ! Sorry girls .

3 great aunts were given very long names which they had to write in full, middle names included, at the top of their school work. The eldest decided to change her name and called herself Mona after a singer of the day. She remained Mona ever after.

Her next sister was christened MacGregor (a family name) so changed hers to Roma and the third again gave herself a short name she liked!
These three were strong women who are are proud of.

My parents considered calling me Muriel. Thank goodness they didn't! Apologies to any Muriels out there. 😊

Muriel is an Irish name meaning of the sea so should be a perfectly nice name. Why do we wince? Is it just that it has associations for us which we don't like or is just old fashioned?

We nearly named our first born Ethel. Luckily for him he was a boy so didn't have to suffer 😂. We must have liked it at the time.

Never liked the name Gillian so I use the shortened version Gill. Gillian is old fashioned but not one that will come back into fashion. I've noticed that this was quite a popular name for women born in the early 1950s as I was. I would have liked the names Isabella, Ellen or Lydia. I don't have a middle name.

Beware unusual names. At primary school sometimes I would have to spell it for the teachers I would get a boys coloured medical card. Now the name is much more common but is likely to be spelt incorrectly. There are many versions of the spelling.

I have always disliked my Christian name and never use it if I can help. I don’t know what my parents were thinking of! Only my GP gets away with using it. If I had my choice I would be Eleanor. Eleanor of Aquitaine was my heroine. A strong, beautiful, feisty woman. I am also strong and feisty (two out of three ain’t bad😂).

I have never liked my Christian name, it’s so old fashioned, people I meet often say, ‘oh that was my mother’s name’. Like Greyduster I don’t know what my parents were thinking of! I think they’d been hoping for a boy. Far too late in the day to change it now, but could have switched to Rosie, being a derivative of my middle name.

An aunt of mine was called Peggy, but this bore no relationship to her actual name. Her husband was very surprised, standing at the altar, to learn that he was present at the union of X ( himself) and Y, of whom he had never heard.

I would have liked Tamzin or Jade (probably due to children's books with heroines of those names) - I nearly called my daughter one of these but ended up going with an Irish name to reflect on our ancestry - which was also what we did for our son's name.

Parents shouldn’t choose names which are difficult to pronounce or spell. If you’re anywhere outside Ireland that includes most Irish names.
It’s also a nuisance having to spell your name every single time you’re asked for it because there are alternate spellings.
Today’s parents want something ‘unique’, without knowing what that word means, so they make up bizarre names or change the spelling. There’s a lot to be said for classic names. My family tree is full of the same few names for hundreds of years.

I don’t like my name at all, it was very common in my class . I often wonder if we call our daughters our favorite name?? I called mine Kirsty which was very unusual in 1970’s .

I am called by variations of my name - Elizabeth for formal occasions and when I was naughty by Mum (and find it an awkward word to pronounce), and now answer to Liz, Lizzy/Lizzie and occasionally Lee/Leigh. I don't mind those but also like Lillian or Lily so would have been happy with those.

As a child I was only called by my given name when I was being rebuked for some misdemeanour. As an adult, it is just the NHS that insist on using it. Why my parents chose it was that supposedly it was a modern version of my grandmothers but I know no other person named the same! My second name is that of my other grand mother.as was the custom.

My friends call me by three different names, I do not know why! I always wanted to be called Anna, after a very pretty girl at school I always wanted to be friends with but she was a butterfly, I still find it attractive.
Consequently my sons names are very traditional.

I'm happy with my Christian name but would love to change my surname back to my maiden name. It's French and double barreled so much nicer than my common surname now.

I like my name. If I had to choose another then I would go for Ella.

Always thought my name too short and plain (?) but then when you were named after a race horse what do you expect? It’s a little amusing that people say what they would like to have been called here but we don’t know what they actually called !

I once heard someone explaining her unusual name by saying, ‘My mother got it off a gravestone’.

watermeadow

I once heard someone explaining her unusual name by saying, ‘My mother got it off a gravestone’.

When my mother was pregnant, my parents too went to cemeteries for inspiration. Curiously, although I had been already named, my father saw his grandfather’s first wife’s gravestone. Same name as me. He had forgotten…