Mumsnet Talk

I love Archibald/Archie and Alfred/Alfie, etc., but they're a bit overused in my neck of the woods now and any child would be one of three in the class.

Any less commonly used ones you that you like?

Wilfred
WW1?

Was also going to say Wilfred. I don't like it but it's very WWI

So are Rupert and Siegfried!

I have a George Henry who is named after my Great Grandad who died in WW1. I guess both names are quite commonly used though.

Herbert?

Arthur
Stanley

Yes, Wilf is definitely on the list.

WW1 = World War One. Chaps in the trenches and Rupert Brooke poems and all that

Wilf is very lovely.

manicinsomniac - er, perhaps I should have said, names of soldiers who fought on our side

Douglas
Ernest
Harold
Percy
Sidney
Bertie

Siegfried WAS on our side.

Edgar
Edmund

Or you could have a girl and call her Dulcie, as in Dulce et Decorum est...

MI

John
Francis
Clifford
Philip
Victor
Maurice
Vincent
Eric
Jerome
Sidney
Aubrey
Clement
Lawrence
Horace
Harold
Raymond
Clarence
Hugh
Wesley
Basil
Sylvester
Frederick
Edwin
Donald
Richard
Elmer
Anthony
Ernest
Walter

I did a search for a list of soldiers, and among them was

Ernest
Leonard
Basil
frederick
Sidney
Donald
Maurice
Rex
Walter
Guy
Claude

Here is the link

www.harrogatepeopleandplaces.info/ww1/soldiers/names.htm

Edward
Albert
George
Wilfred
David
Ernest

Think all authors of around that era in addition to all those beautiful lost boy poets....

Ps so far I love Hugh, Donald and Edwin the best, as old fashioned but not wet.

I had a grandfather called Edwin. Who fought in WW1. He was invalided out.

Can I ask, though, why you want to invoke a slaughtered generation?

Cecil
Cyril
Cedric

Or Joey, after the horse in War Horse? Lovely horse, that.

I really like Percy and it's not one of the 'old' names that has 'come back' as yet.

Why, are you interested in late Victorian / Edwardian names, or is there something evocative about the whiff of mustard gas and gurgle of mud for you?

Or Khudadad, after Khudadad Khan, one of the 13,000 Indian soldiers who fought?

Some great suggestions, thanks.

Yes, Gazza, I do have a soft spot for that style of name... they are strong, simple, masculine but not macho/aggro. Evocative of very old-fashioned virtues - noble sacrifice and bravery and less cynical times.

Of course any child of mine is likely to be every bit as sneeringly cynical of the world as I was as a teenager... the irony has not escaped me

We can but try...