Did you get compliments on your name choice?

Don’t people always compliment your babies names?

mum1: ”this is little tallulah belle, she’s 8 weeks today”
mum2: “aw that so cute, I love an unusual name”.

mum1 “say hello to baby Colin”
mum2 “baby colin, nice! I like transition names too, this is Harry”.

People are being nice. Your friends and acquaintances are hardly going to say anything but ‘how lovely’ your baby/child and their names are when introducing them for the first time.

Thankfully we all have different tastes - wouldn’t life be dull if we all liked and chose the same names?

I compliment all names and say they are lovely whether I've ever heard of them before or whether every second baby is called that name.
I also say all babies are beautiful.
I can't imagine many people would say otherwise to parents (other than my MIL who wondered WHY I had chosen DC1's name).

My girl is Daisy Eloise. Modern but also classic, and pretty popular :) I've not met anyone who doesn't like it irl. Everyone says it's a happy, cheerful name, and it really suits my 1yo, who never stops smiling.

Yes I did he is top 30 a shortened version of a longer name the short version is popular now , I called him the full name

No compliments as DS name is a classic, timeless one that is permanently in the Top 100. People instead tend to say “Oh that’s my Son’s middle name/my Dad’s/Uncle’s/Brother’s name” etc as everyone knows at least a couple because of how long it’s been popular. Think the James, Thomas, William, Edward etc school of boys names (I guess Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily, Alice etc might be the closest equivalent girls).

BUT the benefits of a name like that are that nobody really dislikes it either. It also won’t date and doesn’t give away his social background. It’s not a newly popular/trendy name where there tends to a lot more younger ones about (DS is still the only one with his name in his primary school at the moment), and it’s not a more unusual sort of name which are often marmite - for every compliment you get with those, there might be another person secretly thinking “what? poor kid”.

These are the benefits of classic names. But you have to accept you aren’t likely to get compliments on these sort of names either, it’s part and parcel of choosing them - they just aren’t the sort of name that attracts attention. For me, it was more important that my DC had a name that wouldn’t cause them any issues in life - I’d rather they stood out from the crowd for more important reasons than their name, if that’s something they want to do.

Thank you so much. I really needed this today.

Most people said something like "ah, lovely name" - which is exactly what I would say whether I liked a name or not! A few said that the name had been on their list, which I do believe because their child had a name with a similar vibe. (This is a not hugely out there, slightly trendy but out of the top 100 name).

I really really don't think you should be letting the expectation of compliments sway your decision making though.

That's a beautiful, classic name that will carry her through life well.

To my surprise and AFAIA my DC is the only child with their name in Britain - at the moment. Someone put a link up on this very board on how to check ‘how many babies were called whatever per year,’ and there was only one entry, as far back as searchable, and it was for DC’s birth year. Obviously can’t say what it is cos it’d be quite outing!

I believe it belongs to a different era, two very elderly women my parents knew were buzzing when they heard it, all ‘oooh that takes me right back!’

We are often told, as is DC, that it’s a brilliant name and perfect for them, It has also been occasionally mocked (by people with tragically crap patter). DC likes it and also goes to school with people named after Tolkien and GOT characters, very multi-cultural area as well, so does not stand out.

Other kid has been in the Top 10 or whatever since sometime BC 😂 I think there are benefits and drawbacks to an unusual name - if the other kid is ever charged with criminal activity they’ll
struggle with denying it’s them now that everything is online…

My daughter has an unusual name but people often compliment it. Another couple we know through friends have now used it for their baby which is a bigger compliment! There were about 10 the year by daughter was born but I anticipate it will get more popular as I've seen it mentioned a few times recently on here.

When I opened a children's savings account for my son at the bank the guy said "Oh that's a nice normal name, makes a change"

We’ve had a fair few genuine compliments about our classic DD’s name. The one of compliments that people have gone out their way to mention how lovely it is/unusual these days. I think people also have a little reminisce about women who were close to them who have passed on. I also get compliments for not being a try hard/not trying to be unusual (but it’s also not that common these days).

From my contemporaries, yes, everyone loved it ( it was around 80th in the rankings at the time, it’s apparently about 200th now which surprises me). My mother and father had to hide their shock, I think to them it was an outlandishly Jewish name and perhaps for the first time they realised that my dh’s Jewish heritage meant something. I didn’t care because from the moment we thought of it we both loved it and I still do.

We did, and still do get compliments on our children's names. They're well recognised, definitely not "out there" names, but not often used, although our eldests is getting more popular, we still have only met a few. They're the only ones in their schools with their names, but I feel that's probably just the luck of the draw, as there are other children with much more uncommon names (Winnifred, Coral and Orion are a few examples) and there are multiples of them in our school! Eldests name was a name I picked after a childhood friend, I always adored her name and knew I'd want to use it if I had a daughter, and luckily dh loved it too. Youngest Dh named her as I just couldn't choose anything. I wasn't sold on it to begin with, but it suits her so perfectly, and I love it so much now.

We did. Ours have classic names.

But I did once say “oh that’s lovely” to someone who named their kid Axel. I didn’t mean it 😬

Yes for both

DD once got 'well that's a name to live up to' and I'm still not sure if that was meant as a compliment or an insult!

not really. never.
DS1 uncommon but not unheard of.
DS2 classic but super popular
DS3 unpopular but associated with pop culture. buts gets called by a very common middle name

If I didn't like a name I just wouldn't comment on a name.

So yes when I say that's a nice name I mean it

Yes a few compliments. Not a huge amount but a few. Name is top 120 (off top of my head)

I'm in Ireland and gave both my children old Irish names. My eldests name definitely has gotten a lot more compliments than the youngests name but again I always question how genuine people really are

No. Her name is Rose. Still wondering if I regret it or not but I have PND I think.

Yes we did and still do. Went for something unusual for DD and I was worried people would hate it but we get constant compliments.

I thought people were just being polite or making conversation but one time after saying it to the pharmacist a bloke waiting for his prescription muttered “that’s a lovely name that” to himself.

It’s not a classic but it is a very real, very old name with significance to us. Never very popular on MN though!

Yes the nurse told me my daughters name sounded like a movie star which I thought was very nice