Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

Original poster

Would it be odd to name my daughter Margaret...

41 replies

CheerfulYank · 14/02/2013 21:03

If my name is Megan?

She would be Maggie, not Meg. And it's the only name I really like.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Set a reminder
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
weegiemum · 17/02/2013 14:26

I like it. It's my middle name and my best friend is Maggie or Maggs. It's great, classic, timeless and very versatile. As long as you don't use Peggy, IMO!

bigkidsdidit · 17/02/2013 12:16

I love love love Maggie but it still says Thatcher to me so I can't use it. I'm jealous!

Graceparkhill · 17/02/2013 10:20

I think it is a lovely name. I know a couple of teenage Margarets- one goes by the full name,the other is called Meg.

Sunnysummer · 17/02/2013 10:12

It's a lovely name, and definitely not too similar! Smile

corblimeymadam · 17/02/2013 06:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

runawaysimba · 17/02/2013 05:50

Notactually, so sorry to hear that. You made me cry a wee bit too! My Margaret is named after my Grandma, who died of cancer when I was a teen. I never knew, until we told the family that DD would be known as Maggie, that Grandma always loved that nickname and wished people had used that for her!

Sorry to slightly derail the thread, OP, but there's obviously no shortage of lovely Margarets to honour :-)

mathanxiety · 17/02/2013 05:39

A lot of older people have a bad case of newisbetteritis imo. Every single one of my DCs had a Margaret (or in one case a Margret) in class with them. In the case of DD1 there were three of them, two Maggies and one Margaret. The other big names for girls were Emily, Grace, Sarah and Rachel, with three or four in each DC's class. On Grandparents' Day in their school many of the grandparents shook their heads sadly when they saw the names but seemed to like the Ashleys and Addisons, etc..

tadjennyp · 17/02/2013 05:03

Margaret is my mother's name too and I have really got to like it recently. Molly is also a nickname for it! Sounds lovely, CY!

Original poster
CheerfulYank · 17/02/2013 04:13

Most people seem to like it, but when my mother told her friend we were thinking of it, the friend let out a horrified gasp and said "can't you talk them out of it?!" Hmm

OP posts:
stringbean · 16/02/2013 21:57

Conversely, I know a Maggie (Margaret) whose dd is Megan. Not odd at all. Margaret is a lovely name, strong and elegant; I like Maggie too. Margaret was my grandmother's name and I've always liked it.

mumzy · 15/02/2013 21:18

My friend named her dd Margaret her nn is Mags which i like a lot

Original poster
CheerfulYank · 15/02/2013 18:27

There are Maddies everywhere here too :)

OP posts:
magbob · 15/02/2013 14:31

I have a Margaret, known as Maggie. No regrets at choice. Some people mishear the name as Maddie which i hadn't expected! She went through a stage of wanting to be called Margaret as she then had the longest name in her class!

MortifiedAdams · 15/02/2013 14:27

You could just have Maggie from the start? As in, on the birth certificate.

greenhill · 15/02/2013 14:25

It's a great name, go for it. As long as you call her Maggie from the start, no one else can change it to anything else, as you have already shortened it.

One thing, do you watch The Simpsons? The baby is called Maggie.

AmandaPayne · 15/02/2013 14:18

I always think that the thing with nicknames is that, if you don't use one, people will often shorten the name for themselves. Margaret in the UK would normally get shortened to Maggie as the default, not Meg. So if you don't use a nickname, Maggie may well develop as the nickname. If you want the nicknames like Meg, Pearl, Daisy, Mags, you need to encourage them IYSWIM. Unless it's very different in the US, I wouldn't expect you to have to fight against Meg as a shortening.

Original poster
CheerfulYank · 15/02/2013 14:12

My concern about the Megan/Margaret thing was just that both have Meg as a nn. But if we call her Maggie from the get-go it shouldn't be an issue.

OP posts:
Original poster
CheerfulYank · 15/02/2013 14:10

Oh NotActually. Thanks Sorry for your loss.

Margaret Thatcher has no associations here, or Princess Margaret.

Thank you for all the opinions! Margaret is a very old name here, more a great-grandmother or grandmother name than a mumsy one...mums for my generation are Linda or Barbara or similar. :)

OP posts:
NotActuallyAMum · 15/02/2013 12:28

This has made me cry a little Blush our Mum was Margaret, we lost her suddenly last year to cancer. I didn't think I'd see the name become popular again

Please do it OP, you've made my day Smile

diddl · 15/02/2013 12:21

Not odd, although I find it really old fashioned compared to Megan-which is a much nicer name imo.

squoosh · 15/02/2013 12:04

I love the name Maggie, and find it quite easy to disassociate the name from 'that woman'. And you're in America so that's not even a consideration really.

It's a strong and sassy name.

amck5700 · 15/02/2013 11:21

I would cheerfully dance on Thatchers grave.......I still like the name Margaret though and I don't associate it with her.

MidnightMasquerader · 15/02/2013 07:26

But that's just your perception, MrsJamin - it's not an objective absolute. As you can see from all those coming on to say they like it on this thread.

Everyone said that about my name in the 70s, well before it was ripe for revival. It's Isobel. It's great now being in my 30s and not just being another Joanne or Claire or Karen or Sarah.

Besides, people in other countries inevitably have very different associations of names. :)

MrsJamin · 15/02/2013 06:23

It's my middle name and I have always hated it. Not helped by growing up in Thatcher's Britain I guess. It does seem too soon to revive it. There are so many lovely girls names I have no idea why you would choose Margaret! It's not at all romantic, just really mundane.

runawaysimba · 15/02/2013 05:13

I have a Margaret, nicknamed Maggie, and I love it. Get so many positive reactions to her name.

Swipe left for the next trending thread