"Old person" names are fashionable, BUT...

Lynette LOL at you in your nursing home.

I am very old (born in 60s) and my secondary school register started Karen, Nicola, Tricia, Angela, Joanne - now those are names you rarely hear on a baby now.

You will, though, you will

My DCs' names except DS2's surprisingly popular one feature heavily on this thread

Some are lovely, the majority are ugly sounding IMO

I worked in nursing homes for years and many of the residents used nn or middle names because they disliked these names so much

I love all the really old fashioned names...Maud,Mildred,Ethel,Agnes etc...I always have,
I do not like the names everyone insists are 'timeless',I think they are just massively overused,and,quite frankly,dull.

Each to their own,eh?

"her old" not Harold, even autocorrect is obsessed with old people names!

I've been thinking about this; heard Thora Hird mentioned and thought, you know, now that she has been gone for a few years, I can separate the name from Harold lady image and it is actually quite an unusual, interesting sounding name. Also ( although I don't much like it ) why is Beryl not popular when Pearl and Ruby are, also Ivy and Marigold are not liked but Rose, Lily and Poppy are very popular?

Oh I can't believe I forgot the worst one ever: Gertrude! My gran's real name was that and she HATED it! Said if any of family named their child Gertrude after her she'd come back and haunt them! (long term illness that she went on to die from) She always went by her much nicer middle name from the day her mother died. (She didn't want to offend or upset her)

Some are lovely. I like Nancy, Annie, Maggie and Pearl.

But some of the others like Edna, Ethel, Enid, Maud.. not so much.

My sister once did a work placement at a school while she was in college and there was a little boy in the class named Egbert. He was born overseas but his parent's knew they were moving here and wanted to give him a "timeless english name." And came up with Egbert.....

But some of them just sound so ugly: Maud, Enid, Ethel, Edna, Doris. None of these sound nice at all. Gertrude, Mabel, ditto.

Susan is known as Suki rather than Sue.

I know recently born Howard, Susan, Freda.

I like a few of the 'old lady' names but when I see people on her oohing and aahing over names like Elsie and Gladys I think it is going a bit too far. They'll be swooning over names like Muriel and Bertha next.

I think it's far more important for a name to work in adult life, then it work on a baby, given that humans are only babies for a very short period of their life.

Maud might not work well on a baby (in the opinion of some), but it works as a 'grown up' name.

Whereas in my humble opinion, a cutesy tacky name like Honey might work on a baby, but on an adult, I think it would be ridiculous.

Oh dear, my name isn't cool.

manic nope... Sadly you don't get a pound you can keep guessing though... My age won't help either (I'm 30 btw) as my name is right at home in all the best nursing homes...and the worst ones being honest

My children both have "old person" names, I love them although I have had a few from people about DD's name (Dorothy). I don't care. I love Maud, Nora and Ethel and pretty much all the names considered over the line on this thread.

Personally I'm not keen on the Hayden, Jaden, Cayden, Febreze, Brickette style names but I'd never say it to someone in RL.

I like Cecilia, but now I can't get the Simon & Garfunkel song out of my head!

Just realised this thread isn't quite what I thought it was about - sorry everyone! Opinions still welcome though!!

Sorry to crash in on the conversation, but this thread is exactly what I've been thinking about. We heading into a surrogacy arrangement (in India, donor egg - whole other thread...) and thinking about Cecilia with Cici for short? My husband's late papa was called Cecil, so it would be nice. Our first child is called Imogen and has already been shortened to Ima - thought I'd get in there first with the nickname this time.

Outrunners are Kate, Amity and Beatrix.

I just don't think it's very cool ... sorry!

What's wrong with Norman???

What's all this Maud bashing about? I think it is lovely.

I like Edith too and Sybil (damn Downton - I'll never like Mary thoough!).

Not 'never jar' but 'never did'!

I think that Doris and Beryl and just too old. Try as I might, I just can't see those names coming back.

Norman, Kevin and Clifford are names that I dislike.

I did actually know a Norman, when I was in my teens, who was born in 1981 ... Never jar I come across a name that suited someone so poorly!

Every generation is always looking for 'different' names which don't sound like those you grew up with like your classmates or, worse, your parents' names.

That is why 'granny/grandpa' names are popular - as the old population dies out, we have no associations to these names and see them as 'different' to those around us.

I also think that the more 'solid' names will continue to rise in popularity as people get tired of the cutesy names used so often recently. I like Josephine, Violet, Ursula, Vera, Sidney, Quentin, Arthur and Clement in particular.