Did you get compliments on your name choice?

Yes. Not sure if our of politeness. We went for traditional Englishy names and people always say how lovely the "old names are back in" 😂

Three of my DC have incredibly boring names. When they were small, if you called to them in the playground at least three other children turned round. People were very positive when I shared their names.

In contrast, my first DC has a name that - whilst very similar in style to her siblings - is slightly unusual. When we shared her name, nobody liked it. There was a couple of seconds pause, before a comment along the lines of "oh, how unusual". Nobody was rude enough to criticise it, but it was somewhat obvious what they were thinking.

It really isn't that unusual a name, btw. And when mentioned on MN, responses tend to be positive. For full disclosure that name is Esther.

Yes, especially for our dc’s quite uncommon name, used about 20 times in their birth year.

We did, but the one that surprised me most was someone who said “oh, and it goes perfectly with yours and DH’s names.”

It hadn’t occurred to me to say all three names together to check that they sounded good as a three!

edit to add - not an unusual name at all, but haven’t come across any more at baby groups/in nursery. Met one other child with the same name in the park, but that’s it. No idea where it came in the top 100 or whatever because I didn’t look!

Most people who compliment a name are just being polite.

"What's her name?"... "Oh that's lovely". It's a standard answer most people will give to any name they find remotely ok.

If you truly hate the name, you just compliment the baby instead so as not to appear rude.

"What's his name?"... "Oh he's lovely" 😉

No, we didn't. I don't care; we love them. Our first DD's name was about to fall out of the top 100, and is now down around 2000. Our second daughter's was about to drop oit of the top 50, then had a brief resurgence, and is now around number 1000. There were two other girls with the same name at her school - both much older than her, so eventually left. We have met one other child the same age as DD1 with her name.

Ooh I’m wondering now…. Flea?!

We did for our second, whose nickname (that he's known by on a day to day basis) happens to have quite a cool rock star reference, although that's not why we gave him the name. He's actually named after a great grandfather, but the name happens to shorten well.

I think most people compliment most names, but you wouldn't know whether it's because they're being polite, or whether it's because they think it's an amazing name. I suspect unusual names get more compliments because people think they have to say something specifically about the name, and if they are nice and polite then they will say something nice. What names do you like best?