How important is a name?

i would agree that once we meet a person in the flesh are opinions of them are not necessarily based on the name they use .however, more often than not first contacts are often made not in person but by phone ,email, letter , job application etc and in this situation people will have an opiinion on name and may make immediate judgements on this basis eg whether to even an offer an interview etc .

Exactly, you can do what you like with James-there are lots of possibilities.

I knew a lovely posh bloke called James and I called him Jimmy, which he thought was very funny, because it made him sound like an old working class bloke!

James and Elizabeth are classics which is why I chose them for my post. As seeker says they don't put their owner into a box, you can't tell which class they fit into and you can't make assumptions about the parents. They give the DC lots of choice and they can decide for themselves whether they want to be Betty, Liz, Lizzie, Beth etc etc. I know a James whose parents gave him the name intending him to be know as Jamie but when he got to 7 yrs he insisted on James, but equally he could be Jimmy etc.
Names should give the owner scope to personalise them but still keep their identity. You can't do much with Hector or Humphrey or Hilda (at least not in a nice way!)

Priceless. My old music teacher was called Aileen Pigg.

My dh went to school with a Wendy House - I kid you not.

Because James and Elizabeth are established but not particularly common names, which are easy to spell, have lots of abbreviations and will not put their owner into any particular box.

If you're a teacher like me you get very paranoid about names! You can't call your kids any names that remind you of very naughty pupils and you see some very unfortunate names on the register e.g. I once taught a lovely boy whose parents had called him Wayne...which was fine but his surname was Carr! This didn't go unnoticed among the other pupils! I also taught a girl called Tia whose middle name was Maria because her mum liked the drink of the same name (not kidding) and two cousins in the same year group who were called Paige. They told us that they wanted to be called Paige one and Paige two! My mum taught a brother and sister called Luke and Pia...I've also taught a girl called Racheal (that's how her mum spelt it) and a girl called Abbie-Joe with an e. Now these kids are all lovely and they will all be fine and of course names don't define you but still...a little bit of thought wouldn't have gone amiss :) And when you teach kids all day, you really see how names go in waves of popularity. I use to teach loads of Kayleighs and Kylies and Leigh-Annes. Then it was Chloes and Camerons and Callums. Now it's Jessicas and Hernrys. And it may be awful but the naughty boys are usually called Liam or Callum. And kids who have the same letter for first name and surname are always somehow the "characters"...goodness knows why.

"especially if the parents have the luck to be called James and Elizabeth"

Not sure what is lucky about being called either of these names ....

Most kids at our local primary have quite unusual names (coming from lots of different cultures) but nobody bats an eyelid. To most kids, a name is just that, their friends' name.

I think that it is vastly unfair to think of it as 'character building', especially if the parents have the luck to be called James and Elizabeth themselves and will never have to find out! Some children just can't handle it and unfortunately you can't tell that in the first 6 weeks. My name is quite common and there was generally another in the class, this sems to be a MNetter's nightmare, but I loved it!

@ Basingstoke and Foo-Foo

Hmmm....they could be growers!

You have to remember that the received Mumsnet wisdom is that giving a child a "unique" name is character building - it teaches a child to be strong and to not mind what other people say.

Oh, and that it's the parents who have to be "brave" to use the name, not the child who has to be brave to go through life called Basingstoke or Foo-Foo.

I was reading Freakonomics a while ago, and there was a piece in there about baby names. What they found was that in the US (so not only here) that if you gave your child a certain name, maybe one that was associated with the African-American community (D'Shawn, for example) you were less likely to be employed than if you had been given a traditional name. This also applied to white children who were given names that were perceived as 'Trailer trash'. Wrong, but happens everywhere, not just the UK. In fact is seemed much more obvious there than in the UK, as the names and communities are so polarised.

My aunt, unofficially, changed her name when she was very young and it was years before I knew that it wasn't her real name. Some people never knew, she kept it secret all her life. A name does matter and it is unfair of parents to say it is just a name!

"They weren't really bulied} I meant, niot bullies. That would be a whole other problem!

I've posted before about some children in my family who had very "out there" names and were made very unhappy because of them. They weren't really bullies, but their names were constantly being mentioned and talked about. The first thing anybody ever said to them was something about their names. They sort of became their names, if you see what I mean.

In the end, the oldest one became so unhappy abpout the prospect of going to secondary school and it all happening again that he was refusing to go - so his grandmother came up with the idea of a renaming ceremony - a family party where he chose his own new name to go into year 7 with. His sisters did the same when they left primary school, and they are all much happier now.

People should think carefully - and remember that they are naming another person - not just a baby. And that person will have to take that name forward into teenagerdom and adulthood.

I know a woman in her mid 30s called Hilda and everytime I hear it I think 'poor thing'.

I think it is OK if you are not the one with an outlandish name! A name is not 'just a name' to the person who has to bear it and this is the reason they often change it as soon as they are able or settle for a nickname or anything to get away from it!
The parents may be flamboyant extraverts who choose a name to be noticed but they may have an introverted, shy child who wants to be the same as everyone else.
People will be prejudiced and make assumptions, names like Ethel draw a picture in my mind, I might banish it eventually but the initial reaction isn't good!

I agree with the OP. A name is just that, a name and once you meet a person then he/she becomes synonymous with that name. It does get confusing when too many people are called the same name though .

That racism is shocking - really makes me angry. Even more important therefore that we teach our children to be more open minded than some of us adults...!

racism study

eva - that's the thing. I'm not Asian, but before they have met me people have often assumed I was. And given the evidence of racism in employment practice (there was a study recently where identical CVs were sent to a range of companies, with half having Asian names, half not - and those with Asian names being significantly less likely to be offered an interview), I do wonder. I'm not saying it has blighted my life, but it's an example of people making judgements based on nothing more than a name

Jamie, sad to hear about the discrimination you felt. Are you Asian? You mentioned you felt discriminated against due to your Asian name - but I wonder whether this discrimination was against the name or your heritage. Very sad in either case.

I think it's very important. I have a very unusual name, a name which people may make judgements about. I have often wondered whether it has affected me in job applications - it sounds like an Asian name (I'm in Britain) - maybe adversely - racism, or not - positive discrimination.