Anyone else think in the pursuit for a ‘unique’ name children are getting called more and more ridiculous things?

people do judge on names though. If you said 'Janet in Accounts' you'd not expect a 25-yr old, or if you said 'Blessing or Dayana in Support' you;d make guesses about their heritage'. If it was 'Debbie and Ian in QA', you'd probably expect them to be middle-aged but the only issues on your assuming these things is your actions. So you don't treat Janet, Debbie or Ian differently because they're old not young and you don't treat Blessing or Dayana differently based on their heritage.

I can't recall it for sure (proving that when it's that ridiculous, you can't remember much other than you know it was ridiculous) but there was someone with a grandchild genuinely called "Storm-Water Puddle"

Yes. People will laugh.
Yes. It's unfair on the child because they had no control on the name that has been inflicted on them.
Yes. As parents you will be judged for calling your child that, and evidently caring less about them being bullied or laughed about, as it's more important you look edgy and yoo-neek.

There were 40 pages of people feeling so sorry for this boy and sympathising with the grandmother. Pages of people saying how they had a mother like that, for her own image, they had been blessed with birth names such as "Rainbow Dance" and "Moon". And how they had a miserable time for it, and they had all changed their names at the first legal opportunity. Good job mum.

And those pretending "it's other people with the problem if they don't like the fabulous yoo-neek name I've imposed on my child" are only demonstrating how self absorbed they are, because it's their child that has to deal with their choices.

I really dislike the name snobbery on mn. I often hear names that o don't personally like, but my children's names are also unusual, so presumably some people don't like them either. One of my best friends has a very unusual name and she loves the fact that she's never met anyone else with the same name, and doesn't struggle to think of email addresses. It makes less sense to me to call your child a name knowing they will share it with many others, probably even within the same class group, but I totally respect that decision.
I also agree that there are often undertones of racism and classism in these discussions. And I would get very cross with my children if they ever laughed at someone's name.

@monfuseds. Yes, you probably did.

On MN it is fine to say a name the way you want to say it not how the name is pronounced in that language. Any name that a poster suggests might cause problems is fine because apparently you only have to explain once how to say it. The other poster explains that this is once to each person so actually quite a lot of times in a lifetime.

DC have MN-approved nice safe names and aren't from a tenuously-linked 'heritage'.My examples were examples of mispronunciations that would probably be ok on MN

Tbh prefer out there names to one of those godawful dull names Grace/Olivia/Lily/Isabel/Eve every other girl called one of those.

@FayCarew I mean what I said. I find it strange as in real life I regularly meet people with names I've not heard of. I'm fully aware that the world has lots of different languages

every time there's one of these threads, people post the "ridiculous" names they know and they turn out to be perfectly normal names from another language or culture, like Tomasz or Princess.

Yes, this. A lot of Welsh names get this treatment like Alys, Mari and Betsi and Tomos, Jac and Harri.

You can borrow a name from any culture. We chose a scandi names because we've been to Ikea a few times, and out DC are called Ivar and Tove which we say as Ivor and Toe-vee

What counts as a ridiculous name though? MNs seems to have a problem with names that aren't English.

I don't think there's anything wrong in wanting your child to have a distinctive name, OP. 100 years ago the name pool was very much smaller which resulted in thousands of people having the same names.

Maybe it's a backlash against that era that led our parents, and now us, to seek ever more unusual names for our own children.

E.g. the name pool in Scotland in 1925 consisted of 1121 different girls names. The top name (Margaret) was given to 6576 girls, with Mary close behind on 6084. Between them they account for more than 20% of the girls born that year.

In 2020 the girls' name pool had expanded to 4347, with the top name (Isla) being given to just 347 girls, with Oliva on 334. That's less than 3%of the total girls born. Isn't that much better than every 5th girl you meeting being called the same two names?

Long live individuality!

@RestingStitchFace

The name Jack for example sounds like it is not a complete name. I don’t know why.. but it seems like more a nickname and not a full name. It could also be because the way we pronounce J in Swedish is yo.. so this name is Yack.. I know in English it’s a different sound for J but I do struggle with that I tend to still pronounce J as y.. so yack? This doesn’t sound right to my ear.

It’s sometimes a joke about how Swedes say j. But I can’t imagine this name for my own child. Or Harry.. this is weird. Harold yes.. but Harry I don’t like. For me Harold is a name.. and Harry (hairy) sounds funny.

But also English of course is not my first language so you have to understand the sounding of names that you grow up hearing you will just tend to not be used to hearing other names. Of course I’ve been exposed to British names before living in the UK for a couple of years, but your names are not common for Swedish people to name. I know no one who has a son named Jack or even Tom. Thomas or Toumas yes.. not no one called Tom.

There have been other English names I have heard and I didn’t like but cannot remember. I remember my English friend telling me there were many Toms and jacks ar her sons school and many Olivias. It just made me wonder as these just aren’t names I would want for my child.

But I imagine no British people would want to name a child Ivar or anders.

[quote merryhouse]@WhoppingBigBackside but...

(a) falcon and phallus have completely different vowel sounds

(b) the vast majority of the kids likely to bestow a sniggery nickname are unlikely to have encountered the word phallus yet[/quote]
They do? News to me.

As for (b), you think???

@Marcipex

I like traditional Scandinavian names. My son will be called Ivar (eeee-var). It’s a Swedish name.. old Norse actually but not uncommon all over Scandinavia.

Anders, Karl, Mads, Ole .. These names sound better to me than Jack or Tom just because these are names I hear in Sweden or know from other Scandinavian countries are normal names for us.

Of course we have men names thomas, but Tom i don’t like the sound of. Thomas Is ok.

@MarshmallowSwede

That's fascinating insight. Can you explain more - what in particular about English names sound odd to you?
Just curious....

as Calennig's DH would probably agree, it was actually weirdly dispiriting to have a name that felt like it in no way denoted you as an individual as a child. You just got used to assuming that when someone said 'X!', they meant one of the other Xs. It made me feel very generic

Slightly different perhaps because they were boys but DH and his friends got used to being called by their surnames even beyond the school and college years by everyone even by family with same surnames.

DH very much wanted less common names for our children - he also want reasons for the choice and middle names as his parents always said it was a last minute first thought name and only one for him as MIL was adamant he would be a girl.

So I don't think his first name ever made him feel individual - even now it's so common many collgues still often use his full name to denote him in meetings or to other collgues - as there are others in office and department.

I suppose if you call your child something thousands of other children will be called and they then turn out to be a dreadfully talentless, boring beige individual, they will have nothing memorable about them at all.

If they are talentless, beige and boring and called Flagrandia Gonzo, at least they'll have something.

If you're a foreigner in Germany it's not hard to get a name from your native culture approved, you just have to get confirmation from your embassy that it's a real name and not made up. It's not discriminatory unless you want to use a really odd name.

Naming culture has changed. That's it.

When I was out the other day I only heard three children being called (upper middle class area). These were three girls - Emily, Bluebell and Everdean.

@WhoppingBigBackside but...

(a) falcon and phallus have completely different vowel sounds

(b) the vast majority of the kids likely to bestow a sniggery nickname are unlikely to have encountered the word phallus yet

@Calennig, yes, DS has a name of which there were fewer than three, or two, or whatever is low enough to mean that actual numbers aren't reported in the stats for his birth year. Having said that, it is an old name, and commonly used in other countries, it's just currently unusual in the UK.

@LuckyAmy1986 -- as @Calennig's DH would probably agree, it was actually weirdly dispiriting to have a name that felt like it in no way denoted you as an individual as a child. You just got used to assuming that when someone said 'X!', they meant one of the other Xs. It made me feel very generic. (It didn't help that two of the other Xs had the same initials, so there wasn't even that way of distinguishing.)

It took me until well into my 20s, living abroad, to start to respond automatically to my name if someone called it.

@Anotherdayanotheropinon
“what about the impact on the child’s life being saddled with a ridiculous made up name? They do have to live as adults eventually!”
The only thing impacting the child / adults life in this situation is judgemental people like you! It’s a name FFS. Make your judgements based on how people act, not what their parents called them.

As someone who had four classmates with the same name all through primary, I’m more puzzled as to why people go on and on calling their children Charlie, Jack, Oliver, Sophia and Olivia YES!!! I would far rather have a 'unique' name than just the same old same old. Yawn!!!

It's the 'unique' spellings that make me think wtf. Skyy and Jnr being two examples off the top of my head. Just why?!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_law