If you named your baby an unusual name

I called my son Balonz and he is now a high court judge.

Mine name is unusual (as in 4 people named it in the year I was born) I'm now 27 and I love it, it can be shortened very easily though and I have a about 30 nicknames.
I admit as a child I was embarrassed telling people my name as they'd 90% pronounce it wrong or not believe me

I have a very unusual name and when I was a child I was teased and laughed at because of it. It really affected my confidence as a child and I'd often make up a different name when meeting new kids, just to sound "normal".
I don't have this problem as an adult (maybe because I moved abroad and here nobody knows this name is unusual) and I actually like my name now.

Surely once a name is used so much in your family you all have to start spelling it wrong it’s time to think of a new name 😂

Mine has definitely been a real difficulty. No one can say it properly so I’ve ended up just being called a name that is similar in spelling but pronounced very differently a lot of the time.

I also hate not having the option of anonymity.

I do think my name indirectly led to a lot of problems, although that’s probably because of where I grew up as much as anything else. Jayden would have similar problems at eton, I imagine.

My best friend at school had an unusual name and was fine with it. She does have to spell it for some people but then I have a bog standard name and I have to spell my name too (along the lines of Catherine/Kathryn). Oh (shocker) she's in a very conservative profession and no-one has had an issue taking her seriously at all.

On MN though there is a lot of opinion on what is unusual. For instance lots of Irish/Scottish names are dismissed as being too unusual and difficult to spell but that's only the case in England, they're perfectly normal in Ireland/Scotland.

If you are looking for someone to admit they made a mistake then mumsnet is in the place to look.

I also think names should just be spelled properly but that’s probably because my name was spelled differently and it pisses me off.

Absolutely fine, only challenge is finding tat with the right initial as it’s not a common letter either!

2 of my 8 have uncommon names, I wouldn’t say they were unique or unusual though, but they aren’t popular on Mumsnet and I remember asking about one of them when I was pregnant ten years ago and getting an absolute bashing for it 😂 but I’m so glad I used that name and my daughter loves it too.

Only ever had nice comments too, I’m sure there must’ve been people over the years who didn’t like it but they didn’t have the balls to say anything and you get that with all names!

I have an unusual name. Hated it as a kid, still hate it now. As a kid I could never find stuff with my name on. As an adult I constantly get called the wrong name, or people try and shorten it. No. Just call me by my name. I'd change it but it's the updating of everything.

My brother has an unusual middle name which he hates so both his DC have short first names that can't be shortened and no middle name. My name is fairly unusual and over the years I've had every spelling variation you can imagine and some you can't!! But my name isn't very out there, it's just an old fashioned French name!

DS16 has an unusual name, which was pilloried here on Mumsnet when he was born. He loves it (it can be shortened to a less unusual name, but he likes to make sure people know his full name), and has never experienced any negativity about it. It suits him down to the ground. I'm so glad I wasn't swayed by the boring name brigade.

I have an unusual name.
Only ever use it professionally- no one calls me it.
I wish my parents had called me something boring and easy to pronounce.

DS has an unusual name (only boy named this is Scotland between 2000-2018) & he's never had any issues with his name other than he doesn't like the shortened version me, his dad & sisters use it's what he called himself before he could say his name properly

We got the usual "where did you get that from?" from older family members but 15 years on it's just his name.

It is easy to pronounce & spell though so not sure if that has anything to do with it not being an issue - if he had to constantly spell it or confirm the pronunciation it may have been a bigger issue.

I was just talking with a friend about this yesterday. She is of Egyptian heritage on her father's side but has always lived in the UK. Her British mum gave her a transliteration of an Egyptian name which people do sometimes struggle with as it's unusual (although her mum was correct that the transliteration is easier to pronounce). However, she has had a couple of employers assume she is Muslim, which she is not.

My DD has an unusual name and she loves it. I did give her a more common middle name in case she wanted an alternative (my mum did the same for me and my sister).

My DH, however, has a traditional English/Scottish name and people really struggle to spell it, including members of his own family!

Might as well please yourself!

Depends what you mean as unusual. My DC go to a very multiethnic school and no one has the same name as anyone else in their year group. There are no Olivias or Olivers or Freddies or Evas etc at all, for example.

My 16 year old has had no problems from her peers at all other than misspelling (which happens even with more usual names). She’s had problems with teachers who couldn’t be bothered to remember how to say her name after 5 years of teaching her, and one who skipped over her in the register every single time. It’s an unusual name but it’s said how it’s written so no excuse to not even try!

My ds has an unusual name (but easy to spell/pronounce) and loves it so far aged 10. It really suits him. We didn’t have any negative comments so far really but didn’t tell anyone before he was born and took a few days to choose so I think people were just glad he had a name!

I've had a couple of friends with unusual names and both hate them. One uses a shortened version that is more 'normal' and another uses their middle name. It does greatly depend on the name and the reason for it being unusual. If you're just using something outside the top 200 for example then that's quite different from calling your DC something that's not really even a name.

I'm Natalya, other than spellings I've never had an issue with it. My family are Eastern European so that is the link. My baby is Yelena and sometimes people mishear but it's not a massive issue. She gets called Lena too.

She loves it. It is definitely marmite for others though, and because I live in a small socially conservative town where 95% of kids have names from whatever is top ten (multiple Jack, Harry, Olivia, Emily in every class) people definitely look askance at us as ‘odd’. It is a slightly old-lady name that is a saints name and still very popular in lots of european countries with slight variations, and we have a strong family connection to the area where the saint was from. But STILL people are a bit side-eye!

But she adores it so that’s the main thing!

My DD has unusual (but not made up) first and middle names. I don't know what I was thinking, I was quite unwell after her birth. She hates them. Everyone gets her name wrong, which embarrasses her. I wish I had chosen something simpler.

My mum and my grandmother had very unusual names (so unusual that I'm not going to say them as it might be outing!). They both hated them and went by a nickname / middle name instead. Hence my DC have pretty ordinary names.