The name River...

My dd started high school recently. In her class there are:

Berry
Princess
Cayman
Fiesta

Ooo if you’re going to name your kid after a car, go Porsche not Ford. Was there also a Passat and a 3series?

I suppose Octavia Spencer has done ok for herself.

2 of those are cars!

My dd started high school recently. In her class there are:

Berry
Princess
Cayman
Fiesta

I had to have a lie down in a dark room.

As a pp said, I’d make no comment in real life but the amount of times a new child joins a school I have worked in, with a certain type of name, we do shudder a bit because we can normally predict the behaviour and parents that go with the name. Unfair maybe but it’s true!

If River Phoenix hadn't died he would be 50 now . I am sure there were lots of late 80s/early 90s babies named after him - so people in their 30s now. I doubt they are all unemployed because of their name.
I remember a line once in a TV show (can't remember what - possibly something like ER or CSI) were a character had one of these nature names. They were off the age to have been born late 60s/early 70s. Another character said something like "Hippy parents?" and the answer was something like "yup".
And that was it....on with their professional working day doing the jobs they were qualified for.
One of River Phoenix's sisters I believe has a child called Rio. A variation on River. Named for his deceased uncle.

olives are vile things

Worst comment of the thread 😱

Wasn’t there a character on Firefly named River? Of course, she was kind of a crazy person though ....

I absolute love the name River and its on my list aswell ☺️

@CountessFrog River is not "out there" though. It's in the top 200 names for both boys and girls now. Approaching top 150. If a parent wanted an out there name these days they'd pick something else

I absolutely love it. It's not super common, nor is that unusual, not too cutesy, not too stuffy, easy to say and spell, it's a winner all around in my book. Unfortunately I couldn't use it for either of my dc because my DH doesn't like it.

Do you know that until quite recently, the French insisted that a child’s birth could only be registered if their name was taken from a pre- approved list? I may have the finer details wrong, but I remember that being the case.

I do feel sorry for kids with ‘out there’ names. I know somebody who called their child Melena without realising it’s a medical term for a type of dark coloured bloody faeces.

I love it

I like it. Makes me think of River Pheonix but also Rivers Cuomo and River Tam (Firefly) and River Song (Dr Who).

I'm surprised by some of the comments - I live in a very small town (NI) and have 3 kids - there is a huge variety of names in school encompassing the traditional British/Irish (e.g Kate, Toby, Cillian, Maebh) to names from other parts of Europe, to inanimate objects/countries/nature names (along the lines of Mercedes, Georgia, India, Rowan).

It seems very closed-minded to assume the only way a person can be taken seriously professionally is to be called something like William or Elizabeth (purely using as an example - nothing wrong with thise names!).

I like it.

The latest I have heard is 'Tiara'

Tiara is mostly used by the black community btw, quite like 'Precious'.

I think it's a bit daft but if it's either River or something more 'out there' then I would go with River. I know one (boy).

*God

I just hate this competative ' coming up with the most unusual name'
The latest I have heard is 'Tiara'

It has beautiful connotations and then not so beautiful ones:

"Got look at that filthy river!"
"A body has been pulled out of the River..."

At least they're actual names!!

.... All names started somewhere. All names were "new names" at one point. You sound like one of those people who object to "nickname names" too. God, my grandfather is about 70 and he is more open-minded towards modern names than you are!

Lovely name, River.
Works as a sophistication test. Anyone who actively disapproves of River as a name needs to open their mind a little and let some sunshine in.

imagine choosing weird names for their offspring makes them seem cool and edgy to others.

Or they were going through baby name books/websites and... Shock horror... Liked it? River is in baby name books, you know. Or maybe they wanted a nature name so Google "nature name for boys" and River would have been on there.

Well olive is a name too

On a scale of weirdness, I find Olive way weirder than River, and genuinely cringe when I meet an Olive. Sounds horrible, makes me think of olives, olives are vile things.

• and River is on an upward trajectory too so it'll be top 150/120 for boys and girls in the next few years. Can't see it ever being top 10 but it's really not obscure or "out there" at all these days.

I was a big fan of River Phoenix so I think of it as a boy's name. However the only River I know in real life is a teenage girl.