Opinions on Brontë

Not sure if it is pretentious or tacky. 🙈

Great middle name! I'd have been more hesitant about using it as a first in your case, since siblings Ralph and especially lovely Henry are more commonplace (I'd expect a Bronte to have brothers named Heath or Byron etc) - but as a middle it's perfect.

I've never understood why people pick middle names just because they sound nice to them (hence the generic Rose, May, Grace etc), that's more what first names are for imo. I think middle names are supposed to have meaning, especially since they generally aren't used every day so it doesn't matter if they are a bit different- I say go for it with honouring Great Aunt Gertrude, Dad's fave rock star or Mum's fave author !

I have a 24yr old Brontë and still love the name. She really likes it too and always has done. Our Irish, American and Canadian relatives pronounce it Bront-ay but we and she and all English people pronounce it Bront-ee. DD is used to both pronunciations.
My DD knows one other who is the same age as her. We, and she are in London. So I'd obviously say go for it.
If it matters, yes it does get misspelt sometimes but so does my name so it doesn't bother us.
She's definitely not 'tacky' whatever that means in terms of names; she's a successful young woman with her own flat (mortgaged) in outer London, works for a great organisation and has a fabulous partner and is intelligent, funny, streetwise, well travelled and beautiful inside and out!

I personally think it’s quite tacky, and doesn’t go with your other child’s names.

I love the literary connection but I really dislike the name for some reason! I used to ride a horse called Brontë though so that may be colouring my opinion!

Not keen but I have heard a lot worse.

Yep, I've only known 2 Brontes and both were from Australia!

It's never occured to me that the girl's name Darcy/Darcey has any connection to the character Mr Darcy though 🤷‍♀️

May I just be ‘that person’ to point out that the diacritic at the end of the name is a diaeresis, not an umlaut?

Wuthering Heights is my favourite book but I think I'd assume anyone who named their child Bronte hadn't actually read the books. It's so naff and obvious. A bit like all the Darcys knocking around that I can guarantee their parents haven't read P&P.

I read fairly recently that the Brontes had spent their short lives drinking water that was contaminated by the nearby overfill graveyard and the village privvies, which may have contributed to their array deaths.

I really like it, however, I had a horse called Bronte, so I can't help but feel it's a horse's name.

I absolutely love it.

Round here she’d get called Bronty. Brontosaurus? I’m not keen I’m afraid. I love literature too but just no.

No one is entirely sure, but the main theory is that Patrick, engaging in a little understandable self-reinvention at Cambridge (where being a poor Irish sizar (servant to more well-born undergraduates, with nothing but his intelligence to recommend him, wasn’t exactly easy), and being a Nelson fan, borrowed from Nelson’s new Sicilian (umlautless) dukedom of Bronte.

There’s no evidence he ever went home again, or stayed in contact with his family. Schoolmates of Charlotte’s remembered her as having an ‘Irish accent’ years later, though hard to know how accurate that was.

@TheLifeboat that's interesting, never knew that. So it's a francophilation [?] of Prunty!

He did a good job of making a very ordinary surname sound glamorous. I wouldn't use it as a name. Nms, but heard worse.

No, OP. I should’ve quoted @Rinkydinkydoodle who mentioned reading books.

I wouldn't say it was tacky but it's really try hard and not even a proper name.

No one will be interested if its a middle name though so call her what you want. FFS not Georgina though as she was a cow bag.

Catherine? Heathcliffella?

We live round t'corner from Howarth and I adore all things Bronte and often flail about on the moor. Would love to have called my dds Charlotte or Emily but they're both super common. Plus the kids would probably have been malnourished midgets who spent all their time writing depressing books before dying of consumption.

Never read a book in your life? Interesting take.

Brontë just feels like a pretentious, try hard name, as a PP said. Like you’ve tried to think of an ‘intellectual’ name, so have thought of a clever book and this is the rather naff result. Just give your child a normal name.

It always makes me think of Bronx raspberry.

I agree either the suggestion of using a name of one of the Brontes instead - choose your favourite Bronte sister.

I really like Brontë, I don’t know why it’s tacky. Maybe if you’d never read a book in your life it’d be a bit ludicrous but not the case if it’s a passion. Don’t like Georgina, and if it’s Jane Eyre’s cousin you’re thinking of, Georgiana Reed, I just think about her hoarding and lying and trading on her blonde-and-dimpled appearance to get away with being a little wretch. Possibly overthinking it though.

What about Adela, after Rochester’s little French ward? To go with Brontë as a middle name, hard to know what would work without a surname but Bethanne Brontë has a certain quiet dignity to it.

I love it, adult children here but if I could I would use it.

Sister?