What's happened to boys' names?

Did they really say that the name you’ve chosen for your unborn baby is “boring”… to your face?

[quote merryhouse]@mumofEandE where would you put Tristan? (born in 2003)[/quote]
Going to Mount Kelly or Devonport Grammar School for Boys, mostly.

Nobody was seriously suggesting Jordan-Jayden. Not even someone on *gasps benefits, OP.

Call your kid a name you like and move on. Even the oddest names become normal after a while. It doesn't make you superior. Just makes you sound a bit, well, a bit mean really.

Ben is not boring. Ben or Benjamin is a lovely name. It seems to be a race to name your child the rarest name one can find these days. Don't join in on that trend. Ben is absolutely fine and is a lovely name

Ben is lovely (I’m assuming Benjamin on birth certificate?).

I haven’t come across any of those names. At our school it’s full of boys called George, Thomas etc - way less faddy than with girls names.

Ben is a lovely name. In the Friends episode where everyone is arguing about baby names, Ben is the only name the parents can agree on!

I don’t know any Jayden/Kaiden/Storm types. Lots of Theo / Frankie / Alexander / Andrew / Jake.

What has really happened is you’re now in a different demographic than the one you went to school with…

Ben is lovely, classic and not that popular anymore. The Kaydens and Jaydens of this world conjour up an image of a very much lower class family, as do the hyphenated names.

Stick with Ben.

Sorry, but pretty sure that most people do consider Ben, Will, Sam, Joe, Jim, Ted to be shortened names. Doesn't mean that that is bad.

Don't see the need for the 'benefits Britain' comment. Maybe stop watching trash TV that encourages you to mock the poor?

This. Noone here believes you're actually feeling insecure about naming your son Ben. You just wanted to be goady.

@mumofEandE where would you put Tristan? (born in 2003)

@Snowbell99 🙄 ok then, how about

"most people don't consider it to be a shortened name"

Couldn't agree more with you.

I can't stand the types of names your friends have chosen and I cannot imagine burdening a child with one of them.

It's sadly a sign of the times when people are choosing names that they feel reflect on faddy trends rather than setting their child up for success.

No one will judge or discriminate against a child called Benjamin. Sadly I don't the same will be true for a Jayden-Jaxxon....

My grandson has Benjamin on his birth certificate but we all call him Ben. When he’s older it’s up to him if he’s Ben or Benjamin.

Ben is a complete name, it's not a 'shortened' version. I have a well respected mid 40's 'head of' at work who is a Ben and a 30 year old free spirited / carpenter friend called Benn (slightly different spelling)

It's a classic name that doesn't date. Good choice

Ben is a nice name, I like it, it was on our list but ds just didn't look like a Ben when he was born so we went with Liam.

I'm sure I've read that boys do much better with 'classic' names?

FWIW at DS's selective state school, 25% of the boys in his year group had but four names!

I can't imagine Ben ever dating. It's got no era. It's always current.

Benjamin is a classic so it won't date terribly at all but it will still date a tiny bit. Just like Stephen doesn't sound very young right now even though it is a classic.

As for Ben, it will date more along the lines of Steve. I would therefore prefer to use a full name but it is up to the OP. Not that it is terrible to date like Steve, just something to consider.

Ben went from #21 in 2002 to #327 in 2020 which is a huge drop. Benjamin went from #6 in 2002 to #40 in 2020 so not nearly as significant. So Benjamin will date more slowly.

Kayden will date worse than Ben, no doubt about that.

When I met DH 20 years ago he said if he ever had a son he’d like to name him a very old man name, his grandad’s name, which I vetoed at the time as it was so completely different from other boys names and I thought imaginary DS would be teased. Fast forward 15 years and boys names have become completely different and anything goes - I think they’ve really changed over the past 10 years. DS’s friends are all called names like Cassian, Buster, Rex, Albert etc

I would put money on the fact you could plot the popularity of Jayden, Kayden etc against declining incomes. I understand the 'benefits Britain' comment isn't very pleasant but I don't think there is any doubt that these names are associated with a certain type of person, and those people, amongst many other things, don't have high incomes. That is not to say many people on a low income don't choose completely different names, nor is it to say there is anything wrong with such names. But schools in deprived areas vs middle income areas have very different name trends.

I suppose the more popular a name is the more likely you are to meet a naughty kid with that name.
I work in a school and the naughtiest boys are
Alfie
Charlie
Teddy
But they are extremely popular names so I suppose that’s not a surprise. I’ve no idea if it’s a social class thing but I work in a private school and we have no
Jaydens
Kaydens
Kians
But could be a coincidence.

Ben on its own isn't classic to me. Neither is Bill or Sam or Joe or Jim on its own. It is a decent name, but rather a 90s/00s nickname-name.

They are classic as nicknames for William, Samuel, James etc.