“Try hard”

Haha @Inching I was coming on here to say that!)

Naming a child after an unpleasant character in a book seems odd. More than one mother of a Rebecca has told me that she named her child after the book.

I think you've misread the novel, @MikeUniformMike. Bear in mind that it's narrated by a pathologically-jealous second wife who helps her husband cover up his murder of her predecessor for shagging around. Hardly an unbiased witness to the 'pleasantness' or otherwise of Rebecca, whom we have no unmediated knowledge of.

Naming a child after an unpleasant character in a book seems odd.
More than one mother of a Rebecca has told me that she named her child after the book.

What’s wrong with naming a child after a book character? How is it worse than picking a random name out of a baby name book or saying “we just really liked the name”.

For me it's when you can tell someone has tried really hard to be different, but usually ends up being something all the other parents who want to be different have used.

Names like Wilberforce, Fortescue, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Brassosophrolaeliocattleya, Zen, Tao.

She's right. I've bitterly regretted calling mine Bathsheba Everdene, Greyfriars Bobby and Tracy Beaker. Oh well. Done now.

My Heathcliff, Little Dorrit and Holly Golightly are nodding along mournfully.

I really really think that when adopted children have been saddled with a truly unfortunate name, social workers should discuss with the parents the possibility of conducting a stealthy/gradual name change.

And they do, but generally on the grounds of the child being very identifiable online, and their birth name constituting a potential security or privacy risk, rather than on the subjective grounds of a birth name being displeasing. (Or in one case I know of, because the adoptive parents already had an older child with the same name.)

I think kids' needs and futures need to come first, not the whims of someone who (in most cases) had to have their child removed from them by social services.

Yes, obviously, but adoptive parents and social workers are thinking of the child, and potential future identity issues bound up in early trauma, loss of birth family, lack of knowledge of early life etc. And of course most adoptions in the UK are not small babies, and many children at the point of adoption are old enough to answer to/recognise their birth names.

Whatever social workers' advice/regulations are (and they have defaulted in general to advising retaining the child's birth name when there is no perceived risk), once the parents have the adoption order they are under no legal obligation to carry out that advice.

David is religious the rest meh.. if you say oh i was named after this character then yes poncy x10.

Any names from literature. Poncy.

Wow. Really ?

A woman in one of my birth groups on another site called her daughter Wellington. I can see the trend she was going for but she wanted something unique and that's where she ended up. I would call that try hard.

@Saltyauntiepoop I assume you’re joking? Names like Emma and Eleanor and Jude and David (Austen, Austen, Hardy and Dickens)? I’d agree with Sherlock and Ebenezer, but most names in literature are pretty common ones.

Any names from literature. Poncy.

When I was pregnant me and ex decided on the names. Quite standard but we were happy. Near the end of the pregnancy I panicked as all my friends were calling their babies much more interesting names.
I started to come up with much more outlandish names because I was scared of being judged.we stuck with the original names in the end but sometimes I wish I'd been more adventurous. Not as adventurous as I'd wanted whilst hormonally panicked tho!

Oh! I always thought it meant when people messed with the spellings (I had a student named Jaiy-Sun for example), or names like Cadillac or Champagne or Michigan. I may have been misunderstanding this!

I think most names here fairly normal, depends on your class, my cousin is called Octavia.

I really really think that when adopted children have been saddled with a truly unfortunate name, social workers should discuss with the parents the possibility of conducting a stealthy/gradual name change.

It wouldn't be too hard to change Armani or Chandelier or Diamante (just giving a few examples of ones I have heard) to something reasonable via a few steps. Give a nickname like "Ammy" or "Shanny" or "Dee". Let the school know that the child is to be known by this nickname and not by their full name (a lot of families do this anyway--it's not unusual). As the child reaches their teens, give them the option of changing their official name to something else that they like and that the NN could be short for, like "Amina" "Amelia" "Sian" "Delia" "Deanna" etc.

I think kids' needs and futures need to come first, not the whims of someone who (in most cases) had to have their child removed from them by social services.

What if the parents really like their chosen 'try hard' name?!

There are literally thousands of lovely underused names, names that are interesting and memorable and beautiful! Names that aren't overused, are not nicknames and not hyphenated etc. I think there are so so many great names out there!

I think we should all try hard to find great names for our children.

The one person I know who chose a ‘try hard’ name for their child is also quite sneery about names she considers ‘common’. Her child’s name has been mentioned in this thread, but she looks down her nose at Callum for example.

I think that’s the difference between having unusual taste and being try hard.

@SaintofBats but if you pick a name that's popular, it's clearly "overused" and your child will be one of hundreds. Also, if you pick a feminine name for your daughter, especially a nickname (Evie and Ellie are the worst offenders), she'll never be taken seriously as a woman. Any child with a nickname name, even common ones like Charlie, will never get a job or function as an adult. Hyphenated names are "chav" central. I think there are very very few names that are acceptable to mumsnetters

Only pricks say things like 'oooh that's very try hard' etc etc so their opinion hardly matters.

I don't understand why parents shouldn't try hard to find a lovely name? A name that they love, that sounds great with their surname, that isn't overly popular, a name that will easily identify their child.

I hate having a 'safe' boring overused name.

@SaintofBats

It’s at the opposite extreme from that other name term beloved of Mumsnetters — ‘chavvy’. There are a tiny, fluctuating number of acceptable names in between ‘try hard’ and ‘chavvy’, so the consensus is just to call all offspring Jack and Sophie.

Haha this is spot on!!

Also Mike mentioned that it’s when people try hard to find something different for their child and this is correct. Not sure why it’s seen as such a negative thing though. The mumsnet majority clearly wants us all to be raising a herd of sheep. Heaven forbid we should try hard to think of something more unusual for each of our individual children