Can someone explain the term ‘try hard’ in the context of baby names.

We have a Jaggar and an Elvis at my school. These I would say are 'try hard'.

What's the name OP?

Totally agree. I don’t think of Jaxon Lennon Bodhi as try hard. In my opinion they’re fairly hideous names but the try hard ones are where parents clearly think they are, oh so superior, cultured and educated

I love it as a middle name because of the Scott of the Antarctic link, but it was the surname of his Godparents, not a first name.

You are all so beige

There is also a Sant Candida who founded the Sisters of Jesus (I think was the name) so it is definitely Catholic as well.

Yes this. It can mean trying to be upwardly mobile but more generally is someone who it doing a “look at me and how unique/kooky we are”. Normally parents named Jane and Steve, with a Rainbow, Tiger and Xavier.

@DuchessOfNarcissex that statement basically proves my point.

When a baby is born no one knows what their capabilities might be. They might be an athlete with couch potato parents, or a mathematician with innumerate parents, or a musician with tone deaf parents, or a best selling author with illiterate parents. By giving them a specific type of name, it puts them in a perceived category, making it harder for them to fulfil their potential.

And your statement demonstrates perfectly how someone called Fairy Princess Tinklebell will have a mountain to climb if she wants to break the mould.

I think parents owe it to their children to give them names that won’t define them. Kids should be left to define themselves as they want to.

I know a Candy, aged 48, real name Candida, she is of Jewish ethnicity.

I knew a Candida.

It's actually quite a nice name if you don't think of the association.

I always assumed that was where the Chlamydia story came from. It sounds like a dressed-up version of Lydia and I hadn't realised there was a racial element to the story.

I think we can all agree on Chardonnay being awful!

I’ve never met a Chlamydia, but I went to school with a girl called Candida. She was in the year above me, I remember her very clearly.

So your logic is that a family who would call their child something along the lines of Fairy Princess Tinkerbell (which, fwiw, I agree wouldn’t be an advisable or sensible choice, but again, that’s just my opinion), are obviously of a socioeconomic class as to not breed children who would have the ability to succeed in a career in law or medicine?

Does that apply to all children born into poorer or lower socioeconomic status? Are we writing off children’s ability to succeed altogether based on what? Their poorly thought out name? Their poor upbringing? Their parents education or lack of? That’s a real shame, and a worse attitude than the parents who gave their child a silly or inappropriate name.

I’m glad that I’m of an age where I see young adults with incredibly unusual or “unique” names work their way to success, as it’s obvious that somewhere someone down the line hasn’t written them off because of some preconceived notion that they are less deserving of a chance, because their parent named them “Bryhannah-Mae-Louh”.

@VikaOlson EXACTLY! I will be campaigning for Falcon again if we do ever have another son!

Calling your daughter Fairy Princess Tinkerbell will do her no favours when she’s training to be a barrister, and calling your son King Rex Hero will be awful for him if he’s small and shy.
Parents who would give a child such a name are unlikely to have DC who'll be barristers.

Yniquely Kool.

Such as Luomo or pedward

The whole point of a middle name is to have a secret ugly/posh/try hard name in there!

I wanted to give DS the middle name "Falcon" like Scott of the Antarctic DH vetoed it for being "too much"

DS is 5 now and I still think Falcon is a fabulous middle name.

Or something contrived, where there's no obvious reason why you'd use it as a day-to-day name for the fancy long name.

Um, the whole “Chlamydia” as a name is an incredibly racist urban myth. Along with Fe-ma-le and the likes. It’s basically taking the piss out of some imaginary non English speaking family mistaking a term written on a babies medical notes or hospital identification bracelet as a name. In fact, dragging out that outdated racist story is, ironically, probably the epitome of “chavvy”.

“Try hard” names are the names chosen by very ordinary people to make their child appear extremely special, clever, unique and classy. Sadly it has the opposite effect.

Names can be a huge burden for a child to carry, and parents should remember that children aren’t pets. They’re independent humans, who will spent most of their lives separate from their parents. Calling your daughter Fairy Princess Tinkerbell will do her no favours when she’s training to be a barrister, and calling your son King Rex Hero will be awful for him if he’s small and shy.

In my opinion “special” names are a sign of selfish self-indulgent parents.

And when that 'nn' ISN'T a 'nick name' at all, it's a short form of the actual name.

When who's her face and what's his name called their child Apple. That's try-hard.

The thing is though, Australia is as close culturally, to the Uk as you can get. Commonwealth, English speaking country, similarly diverse ethnic and cultural makeup. Very similar political dynamic. But for some reason without the awful classist, snobbish attitude.

I have friends who earn MW here, and others who earn $1m/annum, but each would be as likely to name their child Elizabeth, as they would be to name their child Jaxxon, and there would be no way to know which was which, and no judgement placed on either for it.

It’s interesting to witness the difference, having lived in both places for a significant amount of time, and quite baffling to understand. What I can say, is that it does make it much more pleasant to live in a place where the judgement doesn’t exist.

This is how I see it as well. For me it’s about ‘trying too hard’ to be different, special and unique. Names that aren’t names but maybe objects or just a made up collection of sounds.
using made up spellings for established names. Things like that.
But I’m a traditionalist when it comes to names.

This is such a specifically MN complaint! The revulsion at imaginary parents in the imaginary grocery store calling their child by an imagined name in a hypothetically “performative “ or attention grabbing way.

Christ—imagine the bile ducts on some of these MN posters? They must be bigger than an irradiated beaver. What if Artemis’ family are greek? What if Jesus’s family is Mexican? What if they never shortened their child’s name because they didn’t name their child “Artie” but chose Artimis because its beautiful and historical ly significant and not something weird to them?

To me the Shakespeare names don't bother me, everyone does GCSE English so that's not a surprise. I'd rather have cultural names than made up ones or ones where the parents clearly don't know how to use Google. Chlamydia anyone?