What makes a name officially ‘made up’

Yes. Fwendy wendy.

I personally like classic names but I agree you shouldnt judge others because they have differing taste.Did you know the name Wendy was made up by the author of Peter pan?

Nobody is going to waste time insulting someone named Butterfly about her name when she is 30, and if she happens to be famous at that time, "there's no such thing as bad publicity".

Most people don't become famous though do they, Butterfly will probably end up working in accounts at the local builders merchants and wishing she were called Yvonne instead

Look at all the backlash sianesse is getting on social media at the moment.

Nobody is going to waste time insulting someone named Butterfly about her name when she is 30, and if she happens to be famous at that time, "there's no such thing as bad publicity".

People shouldn't project their own propensity for mortification. Some kids are going to be mortified regardless of their ordinariness. When you are a teen, being mortified by everything about yourself is par for the course.

You say that butterfly is the type of person who will want to use the name butterfly as an adult.

I would have LOVED the name butterfly as a kid under ten. As a teenager and now a 29 year old....... I'd be mortified 🤣🤣
You cant say she's the type of person who will want to use it. You don't know adult her. People change a hell of a lot between 8 and 12, let alone 18, 28, etc.
Good job her name isn't actually butterfly then isn't it.

Of course they haven't experienced negativity because butterfly is adorable for a child. It just won't be so adorable when the child turns 30.

Look at all the backlash sianesse is getting on social media at the moment. I imagine Dracub would get similar if he was in her position.

I am glad that your experience has been different. I do genuinely hope I'm wrong.

You asked why made up names can't be chosen without judgement and the answer I think, is that it is human nature to make snap judgements. We form opinions about people we meet within seconds, often before they've even opened their mouths. Once we get to know someone, we are likely to revise those opinions.
It might be wrong to do it, but it does happen.
If you give your child a made up name, people will make all sorts of assumptions about you and them (even though in real life they are very unlikely to say anything out loud) and it's a possibility that it will work against them.
It's not being nasty to tell you that.

They are her kids and it is her choice. But she started a thread to discuss those choices. There's no point in doing that if she doesn't want honest opinions. I hope I'm wrong because in theory the OP is right - everything was made up at some point and it shouldn't matter. But I think it still will matter, when her DC reach adulthood.

Why so much nastiness to @ikeakia?
Her kids, her choice.
None of us know what the future holds in store when we name our kids (my standard English name has a negative meaning in the country I now live in)
I also definitely don't think all the kids being born now and being given made up or unusual names will be jobless bc of their names. The world will be a different place and our sensible names might seem ridiculous by then.

Whatsyourflava, I don't work in the legal field (am a former teacher). I would say that it's maybe easier to mark out your 'difference' once you have an established career, than when you are starting out and relying on people not to make negative judgements about you from your CV.
If things are changing, then I'm glad to hear it. I do think that some people still make judgements about social class and the type of family you come from, based on names.

There's another thread running at the moment about whether people are giving their children names they consider to be aspirational, in order to jump social class. It's very interesting. Iirc it does refer to studies conducted amongst teachers regarding how they view classes they haven't yet met, on the basis of their names. It probably is true though, that the more common it becomes for unusual names are used, the harder it will be for people to make snap judgements.

I know an adult professional who goes by 'sunshine' it's not her real name but it's the only name anyone ever calls her. More power to her of she wants to be called Butterfly into adulthood, I love it!

teacher threads on here where children with 'K' names are viewed as naughty before the teacher had even met them!

Really?! That's totally ridiculous.

@Aderyn19 just wondering if you work in the legal field as I do. There are SO many weird and wonderful names at the CPS and that’s only going to increase as names become increasingly unusual. No one cares about your name in the legal profession as it is let alone in 20 years. Infact a few of the Male partners at a large firm ive worked at actually changed their names to be more unique. I honestly think they see themselves a bit like pop stars and think that if they have memorable wacky names clients will be more likely to remember them when they are wracking brains about which lawyer to email.

All people are unique, special, individual. Whether they are called Sarah, John, Persemelia or Johnasteve.

It's a modern trend (mostly) to give your child a you-neek or very unusual name so that you can prove to the entire world just how special and unique YOUR baby is, compared with all those other babies who are just not quite so special.

I'm not a fan - there are so many "proper" names out there which aren't used any more with regularity, why do you need to be chopping up ordinary names and mashing them together, or putting random sounds together? In Scotland we publish full lists of all names given to babies in a given year. For 2018, there was only one girl born in the whole of Scotland called:

Yvonne
Carolina (and Caroline)
Ann
Bronwen
Denise
Diane
Christine
Claudine
Jayne
Estelle
Wanda
Thomasina
Kathleen
Judy
Theresa
Tania
Susan
Shona
Sinead
Shelley
Prudence
Lynsey
Margarita
Kay
Patricia
Pandora
Nadine
Monica
Lucille
Lorraine

OK so they won't all be to everyone's taste. But I'd far rather call a newborn baby girl Monica, Kay or Shona than some of the other "unique" names given, like Sassi-Boo or Peculiar.

I’ve never known anyone who wasn’t lower class that did this.

Did you see the post about Jacob Rees Mogg?

I only know two people with "made up" names. One is Jacelle although in fairness it was meant to be Giselle but her parents didn't know how to spell it The other is Cherian (pronounced Sherian) which is a mixture of Cherie - French parent - and Ann. I like both of them.

*Dracob does - I really need to read posts back before posting!