Too try hard.

@leelawadee this was on 'active' tab. People can have an opinion but dont be so rude using example i.e the person who said about augustus and rupert on a croydon council estate.

Mum, you might want to step away from the baby names forum, then, given that it exists precisely for people to ask for frank, anonymous opinions on names.

Fucking hate people that use name examples when being offensive. Name your kids whatever you like. You mught win the lottery then the apparently 'posh' name will be quite fitting or the apparently 'chavy' name might stand out. Does my head in. Stop being so fucking rude about kids names... its like a load of Katie Hopkins followers on here sometimes

when perfectly ordinary people choose names which sound incredibly posh to my ear. Look at Rees-Mogg’s kids, for example. Sixtus
Can you give an example that isn't a stupid name given by an idiot?

But I imagine Sixtus is primarily for the ghastly JR-M a way of stamping his nasty brand of reactionary Catholicism on his child especially given his other names, and his siblings' names partly to make sure his child isn't mixed up with bog Irish Catholics like me. (He is far from a joke -- his voting record is disgusting.)

I hope little Sixtus will kick over nominative determinism, change his name to Ernesto 'Che' Mogg, get a lot of neck tattoos and sell the Socialist Worker Party paper in Parliament Square.

SundayMorningSun in that case it's absolute try hard wankery of the highest order, and exactly what is wrong with try hard names - they're not about the child, they're about the parent, and they don't achieve what they're trying hard to achieve (making JRM look clever) they make him look like a wanker using his child's name as a weird way to score cheap points or make a joke!

Tbh I wish more people from council estates in Croydon would call their children Augustus or Rupert...

Sixtus is even more annoying than it seems - it's unrelated to the Roman name Sextus ('sixth'), it's a Latinised version of a totally different Greek name. It's clearly so that JRM can catch people out and show how clever he is when people assume it means 'sixth child'...

So, yes, probably fairly try-hard in his case gah.

Sixtus isn't try hard, it's can't be arsed to think of a name for the sixth child, or can't count it's try a bit harder ...

Some names are daft, ridiculous, regardless of who you are. Apple, Blanket, Princess Banana Hammock, Zippety-Dodah, Zgrucstkhepyz pronounced Fred, Maverick, Saber. Not try hard except trying hard to be different for differences sake and sod the poor human saddled with the stupid name.

tiramisu1 why should we be encouraging name diversity exactly? Obviously a range of names are needed, but there are a range of names. Giving a child a name with an invented spelling, or something that you know that they'll spend their life spelling out and correcting everyone about is just cruel to the poor kid who has to bear the name, and setting yourself up for many opportunities to post "aibu to be raging that everyone gets DD/DS's name wrong?" on MN, until the day you post "AIBU to be hurt and in tears that Luisant-Jablka Agnelia Morning Star has instructed everyone at her new school to call her Lucy and won't answer to the name I gave her?"

Look at Rees-Mogg’s kids, for example. Sixtus. I mean ffs, if my next door neighbour called her kid Sixtus I would think ‘try hard’.

For a 6th child I think Sixtus is cool! But if you feel the need to think 'FFS' that says more about you.

Shouldn't we all be encouraging more name diversity? Names are meant to identify us, the more variety the easier and more interesting this becomes.

That's interesting, Josepheen. I had my son abroad, and haven't lived in Ireland since though we're likely to go back within the next year or two and gaelscoilleanna will be debarred, as DS has only really heard Irish if DH and I are hissing something surreptitious at one another in it (we're both rusty, though me less so because I lived in the Gaeltacht for a bit in the early 2000s.) And while we're educated, we're definitely not middle-class.

I can't remember what the cut-off age is for a child to transfer into an Irish school and be excused from Irish? I'd be sad, as I'd love DS to learn it.

SleepingStandingUp I don't think Arabella is try hard regardless of where you live unless it's coupled with 5 long flowery middle names.

The anti-Irish derail aside...

I admit to sometimes thinking some names sound ‘try hard’. I’m trying to analyse which names and why I feel that way, and I think it’s when perfectly ordinary people choose names which sound incredibly posh to my ear.

Look at Rees-Mogg’s kids, for example. Sixtus. I mean ffs, if my next door neighbour called her kid Sixtus I would think ‘try hard’.

I’ve also never met anyone who can’t pronounce “how do you say your name?”. I have met a few who can’t be bothered to say it though.

Niamh? That’s the example that was help up earlier in the thread. Niamh isn’t hard to pronounce even if you’re reading using English phonetics. You’re still going to get pretty close.

There’s loads of languages that I would struggle to pronounce correctly. That doesn’t mean someone giving their name a child from that language is being “try hard”. My inability to pronounce a name shouldnt be a consideration when someone else is naming their child.

So what, though? Lots of Irish people can't manage any Irish beyond 'An bhfuil cead agam dul amach?' but I don't think anyone needs to consider someone else's inability to pronounce a language they are almost certain to have studied for 13 years at school when naming their offspring.

I'm Irish in Ireland and I find some of the Irish names unpronouncable. You look at some of them and have to have a moment of quiet reflection before you make an attempt at them.

One does, Josepheen. And hear, hearMaxBondi.

Why is it always Irish names that people are just tripping over themselves to ridicule and tear down on MN? It’s always Irish names that are held up as the example of “unspellable” or “unpronounceable” (and yet so many in England manage to pronounce them when naming their child!) there are a zillion other nationalities and languages existing in England with lots of different rules about pronunciation and spelling. But it’s always the Irish names that take the kicking here. There’s something in that.

Oh I love Arabella.

Misses point of thread...

And honestly, we live in a working class area, school is in middle of a "council estate" and I don't think anyone would bat an eye at Arabella, although the local accent might quite ruin its charm