Americans huh? What are they like?

Brandon is a fairly common first name here. Totally normal.

Newshmoo, that's what makes it so hilarious. Barnaby and Archie are at least proper names with a bit of history behind them.

But this thread wasn't about knocking all Americans. I have looked at the American stats and clearly most people still give their children normal names..

Buddy

I used to work with someone called Shawn Shaw. Everyone called her Shawn Sheep (not to her face, she was very senior)

my aunt had a lovely cocker spaniel called Shawn.

he was adorable!

he loved jumping into the swimming pool

Shawn

Dear god

Imagine a girl named Shawn

Yes, well, this is a British board, PrePG.

I'm American, too, but I can't stomach American parenting and baby boards.

Too much manufactured fluff. Like a lot of the names.

Hate to say this, but as an American, I don't visit this particular board much because I really don't like a lot of the names I read on here. But I wouldn't go so far as to say the parents that are naming their children Archie or Barnaby (names that would certainly evoke teasing on a playground in the US) are stupid for naming their children that.

To each his own I guess...

My oldest boy is named Wallace, totally my X's desicion BTW as I was gonna name a girl. Well I only knew of one other Wallace at the time and he was a lovely guy so went with it. Yeah of course son did get the Wallace & Gromit thing at school but can think of worse things so be associated with. I love the fact no-one else in the school is Wallace, makes things easy when calling the secretary

There is somebody on US babycenter with screen name "hoyt'smomma"!! So she's not ashamed of it either.

Names like Gavin and Kevin are the Bruno and Magnus of America.

All the names that I like such as Archie, Bruno, Jago, Magnus, Victor, Peter... well, we're on different pages to quote the apprentice again.

My friend here in Texas has a boy called Braxton. Weird, no?

I think that came across as more bitter than intended. Names are so personal in likings, there are always going to be loads of people who don't like the names you choose for your child. There's names that come up on the baby name threads that I find waayyyyy too old-fashioned for my taste, or, my personal favorite, names that seem like people chose them by throwing a bunch of Scrabble tiles in the air and calling it good.

So in review, middle-class naff names and chavvy names are always better than naming your child after a vagina, a sound, candy, last names or Princes Tiiamii or however you spell it.

(I forgot, I knew of a Brock growing up. Someone my mom's age. He looked like a panda bear personified, except for he was really pale and blonde. But he still managed to look like a panda bear somehow.)

Dooney, my DS has a 'chavvy' name, apparently so you're not alone

Well, I guess I'm glad I did my middle-class duty and gave my son a typical naff name.

I'm going to really disagree with you Nancy 66 about the name Emma. When DS was born, we wanted that for a girls name, but it was the 1st most popular girls name the year before. When DD was born a 2 years later, it was the 2nd most popular. I don't think we've gone much of anywhere (except for his current class with only 2 girls in it) that there hasn't been an Emma.

I knew one Randy growing up, and we did know what it meant, and he got teased non-stop about it. I knew one Quinn, too, and nobody knew about the quim implication until people disliked her so much, they went to the trouble of finding out something about her to make fun of, and dug deeply and found a goldmine.

Isn't MacCall the brand of those really frumpy dressmaking patterns?

MadameCholet, you are excused because I am not American.

I know a few Averys & Quinns (girls).

And like Hellish; Carson, Arielle, Reilly. Also Randy. Several.

brock is definitely a boys name, but quinn and avery is either i think. never heard of maccall.

The Australian trend seems to be for noun as name. There are a few Reefs, Storms, Ravens and even a little Rage in antipodean pre-schools if essentialbaby.com.au is to be believed.

one of my first ever jobs entailed calling an american sub. my contact there would answer the phone thusly; 'Hi! I'm Randy! How can i help you today?!'
was a trial to stifle the sniggering i can tell you.

Avery very popular here in Canada, so much so that people often mistake my (very rare) Evie for Avery [hmmm].
Also Carson, Reilly (boys and girls) Arielle, Piper and I could go on.

This reminds me of Nancy Mitford -"the Americans like art so much they name their children after it"

Nancy66, you know what has always bugged me about Miranda's baby in sex and the city (and I obviously have waaaaay too much time on my hands to even think about this) but she called him Brady after her boyfriend, Steve Brady. But then they got married. So was that baby then called Brady Brady?!?!?

i climbed with a man called 'Bran'.

people were always cracking cereal jokes around the poor chap.