Is naming my baby after a casual friend weird

It’s fine. Unless you’ve literally spend the last decade walking a round in an I LOVE LAUREN Tshirt and trying to get people to join the Lauren fan club and having ‘Lauren and NewPeachCat - BFFs’ tattoos, people will just think you like the name.

All these doomsayers. I don’t particularly like my name but I am named afterwards a classmate of DM’s because, apparently, she was lovely.

I loved my mum and its rather special to think she liked someone so much for just being really nice that I was given her name. I am the embodiment of her opinion. (Got something in my eye now …)

Oh, and Lauren is sweet.

I think you are over thinking it op.. I highly doubt your friend is going to sit around after hearing and speculate.. I bet she’s named her after me, the weirdo. And if she does either lie or just tell her the truth.

I was once on a bus sitting next to a super cool woman with a gorgeous little girl called Hope. I really like the name. Also Lauren is a great name. I don't think it's a problem that you call your DD after your friend, just don't ever tell either of them!

You say you’ve always loved that name, so that’s perfectly reasonable.

OP doesn’t love the name Lauren, so it’s completely different. She’s wanting to give her DD this name almost as an act of hero-worship/fangirling, and that really is a bit weird.

Not really. The name embodies something very positive for the OP.

In that case no no no, don’t do it.

Give her a middle name you actually like or that means something in your family.

It sounds like you would have liked to be better friends with her than she was ever interested in being with you, and there’s something just desperate about giving your DD her name for that reason.

I named my daughter, not "after" an old school friend, but because I always loved her name, and we were really close at school so I always had a fondness for her and her name. Haven't barely bumped into her since school, but the one time I did, I had my daughter with me and she loved the fact she'd finally met the person who inspired her name. My friend seemed flattered when I told her she was the reason I chose that name for DD. Don't think it was weird at all tbh.

You know perfectly well that naming your daughter after someone won’t make it any more likely that she will be like that person!

Forget about naming her after anyone and just choose a name you like. If that is 'Lauren', fine, just say it’s a name you’ve always liked and don’t mention the friend.

Yes….that’s exactly the point.

Your middle names are in honour of grandmothers and sibling who died, even though they may not have been your preferred names.

Fine, standard, very normal.

Other people simple choose names that they love.

Again, fine.

The strange thing is using a name that you do not love, to honour a casual friend that you are not close to, and you are worried about her, and others, finding it weird.

It is weird.

It’s not that odd. My daughter and my two nieces all have namesake middle names. They are all ‘ok’, not particularly favourites. Two are grandmothers and one is a sibling who died. I definitely don’t ’love’ my daughter’s middle name. The name is very important, nonetheless.

But you're giving your DD a name that isn't one of your favourites just to honour this friend, that IS a bit odd. There's no way I would give my precious baby any name that I didn't actually love!

I’ll be honest, this jumped out to me as being unusual.

And then you added that Laur isn’t even one of your favourite names, it’s just becuase you like this woman.

And then said you fantasise about your daughter having the same qualities as this woman.

This all sounds very odd OP and i think you know it. The fact that everybody is going to know why you’ve done it because you’ve been so vocal in your admiration for this woman means that you’ve been a bit over the top, in my opinion.

If I were you, I wouldn’t do this, as it sounds like mutual friends and Lauren are going to find it strange and they might start giving you a wide berth, and I suspect you know this which is why you’ve asked.

Just choose a name you like.

I went to school with a delightful girl. She was small and dinky with lovely hair (I've always been the tall skinny one with a flat chest!) and she had a lovely name. I was 9/10 at the time?
Fast forward 20 odd years and I was having twins, both girls. By coincidence, my MIL, who sadly died when dh was 18, had a similar name (think Isabel/Isabella type of thing) so I called her Isabella (not really but you get my drift), ostensibly after my mil but really it was after that girl I met when I was 9.

I only found out 30 years later that a brief friend had named her second daughter after me! I wasn't offended 😄 and yes, it was a little dated when she gave her the name, most other women called it are about 20 years older

If asked, just say you always liked the name.

OK, bit weird!

This is borderline creepy.

This actually happened to me. I didn't find it weird, just flattered that the name had a positive association.

I agree with the first reply.

You like the name, then use it. It is a common enough name that no-one is going to make the leap to it being in homage to someone that isn't even close to you
Bit different if it were Petulia or Corinthia or something you don't hear in life generally, but a couple of people knew it was someone you had a bit of a crush on. Even then, it would only be the 1/2 dozen people that knew it.
No-one is going to think anything of a normal name like Lauren.

I mean, I suspect lots of us a subconsciously influenced in our name choice by either not using the name of someone we don't like, or by using a name that also belongs to someone we like / admire / are fond of.

Lauren like Lauren Bacall surely?

References are personal. If you have a name that someone else uses for their child the big compliment is that you aren't so awful as to put them off using it!

Is there an adjective that for you sums up the qualities of your friend that would work as a name in some form? Not an actual virtue name as you are using one for her first name, but like Elea, Alice/Alison, Carissa, Ada, Farah, Alaia, Felicia etc.
Or is there a character in a book or film that reminds you of Lauren?
It is a bit odd if Lauren isn’t a close friend and you don’t actually like the name.
I understand that you are expressing a wish for your daughter that is between the two of you, but it seems like by using the name Lauren you’ll make it everyone else’s business too, which might sour it for you.

I would go with a name that you like rather than the name of a cool girl from school that you admire.

However much you liked your friend, if you did not like the name, Lauren, you would not be using it!

Just caught up with the fact that it's not even one of your favourite names? Then it's mad and more than a bit weird to use it for your baby just because it's the name of someone you, to quote a PP, do sound a bit infatuated with.

Our DS has the same name as a friend/ex-colleague of mine. It's a lovely name, lots of people are called it and was the only name that DH and I both kept coming back to. Friend is absolutely tickled by it, but doesn't in any way think we named the baby after him or that it's weird. But then we didn't actively name the baby after him so...