Beware of 'unusual' names...

Just read the end of that article and she has called her 3rd daughter Bridie.. OH YUCK.

Well even in Ireland you wouldn't find baubles or mugs with Bridie on them. Maybe tea towels and tat sold at the back of cathedrals?

Bridie on somebody under 90??? That's far worse than Merrily which is quite upbeat and pretty and a word.

I wonder about how Bridie feels about her name. Poor girl. Now that is hideous. Write an article about the cruelty of calling a baby Bridie.

ny ds2 and grandson have names that ive dont know any other kids called the same but im sure they is

I can't get things with my child's name on it (either of my children's names actually) and I now regret it. Well, my dc1's name her father's choice, btu I see lovely christmas baubles with Zoe, Phoebe, Lydia on them and I think now, why the hell did I rule out those names....

I don't think Merrily is that unusual though. My Mum knows of one, and I also know of a Merry and a Verian and a Verrily.

it's not like Moon Unit or something really random or foreign or bananas. It's a word. I don't think it is that unique.

Maybe it's the ding dong merrily on high thath the child doesn't like.

Or maybe the mother is trying to eke an article out of very little.

Brave to confess that she called the other one Bronte after the lead character in Green Card rather than claiming to be an avid student of English Literature.

I'd have thought Bronte would have been constantly called Bronte-saurus.

Merrily makes me think of Joy from Drop the Dead Donkey. And with Halliwell for a surname? God help her when she's at the dentist and has to book her next appointment after she's had an injection.

my 2 ds's have quite common names for boys....BUT despite this my ds1 is the only "Ted" in his YEAR at school and I havent haerd of mnay kids with my ds2's name yet either1

Meh.

I think its pretty hard to have an unusual name these days.

Ds's class alone has at least 6 names that I was a bit 'huh' about when I heard them.

I think its MORE unusual these days to have a 'normal' name like Diane or Maria.

I don't think this is about giving children unusual names. It's about giving them names that are going to cause them trouble through life. The other daughter in the article has an equally unusual name but because the teasing potential is limited she is okay with it. Merrily inevitably suffered (and probably will always suffer) teasing and comments. Parents need to consider this when choosing names. Even the most ordinary names when combined with certain surnames can give rise to teasing. I was at school with a Jo King. You can imagine how she felt about her name.

sorry, unique

Are people really concerned that they can't buy tacky mugs/pens with their name on them, honestly?

You can always get items personalised yourself. Yes, it costs a few pounds more but 1) the quality is much nicer and 2) you can still have a lovely, more uniqu name .

I hadn't met another one of "me" (first name) since I was much younger (and they were generally rather old, retired people).

I got most confused at nursery the other day as I was getting DS3's coat on and I could hear a voice saying something to "me"........then I realised it was actually one of the nursery receptionists!

The mug thing is slightly annoying, neither of my DCs names are at all unusual but DS's name hovers round the Top 10 whereas DD's name is relatively rare in her age group (lots of them in my age group). We can always find mugs etc with his name on, none for her. So we don't buy them at all. They are not old enough to really have noticed this for themselves yet though.

There were 3 of me in my class at school and I didn't mind that at all. As a grown up I hardly ever seem to meet another one of me though, wonder where they all went?

Funny they mention Annabelle as a more 'common' name, then note the problem of personalised crap souvenirs. My sister, an Annabelle, always used to moan that she couldn't buy things with her name on them.

besides - there's plenty of places on-line that you can have just about anything "personalised" these days - no matter how unusual your name is

I think there will be at least as many, if not more, children who hate 'sharing' their common names with loads of others. I did/do.

I don't like my name that much, but I do like that it is unusual. I like that all my friends only know one - me. So when I leave a message I just have to say S called not S Smith IYKWIM.
I can't believe that not being able to buy a mug with your child's name on it would put someone off using a name but it does!

I've met a Merrilees before but never a Merrily...

I hated sharing my name with 2-3 others in my class at school, always being known as little XX or XX surname initial. I honestly wish my parents had spent a bit more time finding a more 'special' name just for me .

I don't think that Merrily is such an unusual name, but combined with the surname it is quite difficult to pronounce.

My DC have unusual names (not for UK but we live abroad) and like having unusual names. DD has said that she is glad that she is not called Sophie or Laura like so many of her friends.

fluffle - my mum has a name that is in the English dicitionary.

She once rather upset a neurologist when she was involved in some research stuff for Parkinsons Disease.

Asked to give a list of words beginning with "F" and she reeled a load off - including her name.

She was stopped in her tracks and told that wasn't a word - and she told him to get a dicitionary -and there indeed is Felicity

I'm sure there's probably more like that........

i'd like to give my children an 'unusual' name but not one that is a word in the english dictionary (no nouns particularly)

But while it's easy to presume that there has been a huge increase in unusual names recently ? certainly if celebrities such as Jamie Oliver (Buddy Bear), Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (Suri) and Gwyneth Paltrow (Apple) are anything to go by ? actually, that's far from the case. The top names chosen by parents remain remarkably stable, with no new entries in the latest list of the top 10 boys' names, and just one, Evie, among the most popular girls' names.

Actually she's wrong about that - the proportion of children being given the most popular names is a fraction of what it once was.

my first name is pretty common for girls born in scotland in the mid to late 70s (then again more recently in the US) but not so common in england, i went from being one of many in my home town as a child to being unique among everybody i knew in london as a young adult. now back in edinburgh it's relatively common again and i have to use my full name at work with surname all the time.

i preferred being unique.

I can understand someone not wanting an outlandish, off the wall name but at the same time I can understand parents/children not wanting a name that will be shared by 4 or 5 other children in the class.

Currently in the DCs school there are 6 boys with the same first name in a KS1 of 60 pupils. They are forever known as .