Silly Names

Maybe I can steal Tallulah and Bugsie for my cat names (see another thread)

I tried to choose names for my daughters that were 'classics' from one ancient culture or another (Hebrew, Celtic, Latin) and which could be yelled up the stairs or the garden, at least (in two cases) in their shortened form. They all like their names and each of them has been the only girl in the school with that name at the time they were there although all three names are well known and always 'in use'. D'you know, I think I (and the fathers concerned) done good!

A while ago I was in the Dr surgery picking up my father in laws prescription, his surgery has quite a lot of young Mums, one of the Mums called across the waiting room in broad Geordie 'Chantelle get your ---- across here' the name and the statement did not quite gel !!!!!!!

Having got used to nursing homes occupied with ladies called Maud, Elsie, Nora, Doris, Edith, Mabel and others of the same vintage I do wonder what it will be like when the strange modern names are elderly. "Come on Brooklyn and Avery, time to get your teeth back in!"

That is a hilarious thought, Yogagran!! Even funnier when you think of Peaches and Tiger Lilly, or Michael Jackson's lad, Blanket.

My own choice was to eliminate any chance of embarrassment, so they got normal names. The downside is that many others have the same names, but that is the lesser evil, I believe.

Another thought - the length of the name! It was very difficult to fit JayeSavannah's name on to standard size labels etc. When typing up a class list her name always had to be in a smaller size font! Hyphenated names could always be split. By the age of ten she was insisting (against Mum's wishes) that she was to be called Jaye.

My first grandson was given the same name as a well known English ancestor who was born in 1813 and it's a popular name these days too.
When my son and dil named their second baby boy my son was happy to hear that there were four other baby boys born that week in the same hospital and given the same name they had chosen for their son. My grandson also has a great great great uncle with the same name.
My son had a name that became a bit more popular a few years after he was born, so he felt a bit out. He liked to be the same as every one else when he was young.

When my DIL went to register her second daughter she had problems because a baby with exactly the same names was born on the same day and the computer kept insisting that the child was already registered. The problem was eventually sorted but it was strange a child with two identical christian names and the same surname.

When I went for my post-natal after the birth of DS2, I met a woman who had been in the same ward. I asked what she had called the baby. Jacinta Alexandrina. I wouldn't mind betting that there's a middle aged woman in Nottingham calling herself Jac.

I teach and I asked a young lad his name the other day. 'Lord' he replied.
I tried to hide my disbelief and thought, Lord Jesus? Lord Sussex?
'Lord what?' I asked softly. He could not hide his embarrassment when he replied, 'Lord Nebuchadnezzar Smith'. At the end of the lesson he came and asked me if he could change his name when he was grown up. I told him that his name was fantastic, of course, but also that I had changed my own name when I was 15. I was called Gladys by my parents, a fine welsh name which became the butt of all jokes in the 1960s, I chose Samantha, off bewitched and it was that easy! Most babies grow into their names but it is something else when they don't.

i came across Oscar and Caspar last week -good names for cats as well
-(these were small boys)

There's a corker in the Telegraph Births today (hope her Granny isn't a Gransnetter!) - Serenity Lilac a sister for Ophelia and Peonie - different!

Can you imagine Serenity as a "terrible two" having a tantrum

Stansgran Oscar has a quite a venerable history and there have a fair few famous Oscars around – Oscar Wilde, Oscar Kokoschka, Oscar Peterson and (Uncle) Oscar after whom the film statuettes are named spring to mind. Caspar (or Casper) is not so well known in this country, but there have been and are quite a few in other northern European countries, such as Germany (often Kasper), not to mention its being traditionally attributed to one of the three wise men. I have just discovered a Caspar – a minor painter – in my own ancestry and my elder grandson is called Casper. It means treasure – and he is.

Or Serenity as an angst ridden stroppy teenager!

JessM

I had a dog called Casper a long while ago...

Having a very common surname, I gave my daughters fairly unusual christian names, including a Jessica. 20 years later Jessica was common in both senses of the word.
Now 1920s names are coming back and seem so ugly to me - Walter, Mabel, Iris. I'm waiting for Cedric and Gladys!

As a teacher I have come across some fairly unusual names, for example Agamemnon Elvis, who was known to his friends as Aggie. I wonder whether these children have the advantage of growing up mentally tough as in the Jonny Cash song 'Boy named Sue'!? When I was young there was a family of three girls called Heather, Briony and Fern - their brother was called Arthur. I also recall that our milkman had seven daughters whose names all began with V. One of my daughters has a friend called Rory Lyon, and another one I heard of was Drew Peacock.

I was at school in the 50s with a girl called Falullah (with an F). I've never come across this anywhere else. Most of the girls in my class were called Susan, Margaret or Jackie, and as it was a Catholic school there was a fair sprinkling of Marys. but when I called my own daughter Mary in the 70s lots of people commented on what an unusual name it was!

Yes Annobel we were 100 girls starting grammar school in the 50s - and we were 4 Margarets in each class. Still I find a good old (royal) name very handy living abroad and have given both my daughters names from the same source to be easily pronounced by both sides of relations.

I feel very sorry for Harper Seven and wonder about the mother a bit - to want to give her daughter such an ugly, impossible name. Its cruel.
In Germany it would not have been allowed as you have to be able to tell the sex of the child from its name.

I knew someone called Mary who married a Mr. Christmas! When I was nursing I had a patient called Ivor Biggen

When I was a Weightwatchers' leader, we had a member with the surname Eatwell.

In a shopping centre a few years ago I heard a Mum shout "Tarquin! Get your
a--e over 'ere!"
My granddaughter aged 7 is Florence Theresa (after 2 Grandmas) and her brother aged 4 is Tobias Andrew Xerxes!

Flo and Toby, then?

I was at school in the 50s ad I remember two girls in my class called Margaret Rose after Princess Margaret.There were plenty of Margarets, Annes, Valeries, Dorothys, Sheilas and Patricias.There were four girls called Carol who were all born in December, and two Cynthias.
My paternal grandmother chose my name.My dad told told me it had been the name of one of his mother's sisters who had died as a baby.
I agree that these modern names now will be sounding peculiar in 70 years time, but people might have said the same thing 70 years ago.