“Imagine having a gorgeous new baby and calling her Winnie!”

Almost all children I know with “ie” or cutesy names have a full name they can revert to. Eg Evie might use her full name of Evelyn when she is older, or use Eve. Teddy is an Edward. Hettie is Henrietta. LuLu is Louisa.

I’m aware not all parents do that but I do assume most cutesy names are nicknames when I meet children with those names, and they pretty much always are.

My hairdresser is called September which is not a traditional month as a name.

I can only think of one Charles and one Albie in my age group. There were several called James and Richard. William was a middle name or they were Billy. Harry and Henry were very dated.

I wasn't in a 'posh' area, which might have made a difference.

Me too. I am 60 though so they’re still old fashioned names to me. Some old names stand the test of time, but I can’t get on board with a lot of them. I’ll probably find if I become a gp I’ll have gc with the fusty old names 😁

George Michael was half-Greek and his name registered at birth was Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. Andrew Ridgeley had an interesting heritage despite the very 'British' name.

I can only think of one George my age but he was George Known-as-name Surname, and the George was his grandfather's name.
The name was dated at the time but there were a few Georginas my age.

I'm younger than the George Michael & Boy George age group and it was a name that had been very popular in my grandparents' age group.

That's true - I don't remember any comments on his first name, but maybe that was because he was a rock star so expected to have a less usual name! Also, there was a lot of emphasis on his being Greek, so people presumably saw it is a part of his difference...

Boy George's name was seen I think as being very much the point - an unusual name for an unusual persona

It's hard for me to see them as fresh, but my dc are a decade or so older than the babies being born. and I guess they may have less of an old person vibe to the parents using those names now. I think names go from dated to something that feels more timeless, depending on how far before your time they were.

They're all dreadfully old fashioned in my head....!

Last week down at the beach, I met a French bulldog and her name was Winnie.

Ohhh that's lovely! It is a nice name, for human or dog!

It's classic, but definitely had a spell out of favour when I was a child.

I just posted about George and Mildred, and it definitely struck me as an old man's name growing up.

It is back in grand style - along with Mabel which I find similarly heavy and unglamorous!

BUT they have in their favour the fact that they are recognisable, old names and I guess we all hear and associate things differently, especially depending whom we have known who carried them before, so there will always be an element of taste.

George is also back, and I really find it a heavy, sodden sort of name that sounds like a belch, but it is probably because the first George I knew of was a memory as a toddler of my grandparents watching a sitcom called George and Mildred (does anyone remember it?). But in reality the sorts of names I do like - Charles, Edward, Frederick, Henry - all belong in the same sort of "name family" as George, so it is surprising, really, that I don't like it.

No one thought George Michael’s name as weird (not his given name but he suited it very much). Although when I was growing up (60s/70s) no one young that I knew was called George.

I do have to concede that they make very good names for dogs (no offence to your lovely dd of course). I could get on board with calling a cute puppy Olive or Maude 😁

Exactly.

I know a dog Winnie and I can’t disassociate from with dogs.

See also:

• Bella
• Luna

Both nice names but entirely unusable these days.

Far too much pressure to be called Zeus or Spartacus - imagine if you grew up to be short and overweight, or thin and spindly!

Reminds me of a quiet, drippy child I taught when I was working in London called Charisma 🤦‍♀️

It’s quite a common dogs name

No it hasn't. It fell from favour for many years and returned in the late 80s, I think because Gary Lineker had a child called George who was in the press a lot. I know a George born a few years before this whose name was seen as a horrible and weird "old man" name.

Some names never seem to come into fashion. Zeus and Spartacus are very rare first names in the UK.

I knew a Penny (Penelope) who was also sometimes called Nello. But not actually Nellie.

A friend's daughter is known sometimes as Nellie and her full name is Kornelia.

I'd usually associate it with Helen and the various other permutations such as Eleanor, but a great-great-aunt had this name and it was a standalone, not short for anything.

As a small child I was sometimes known as Nell, after the story character Pussy Nell!

I obviously have different taste than you-those names are my DD's middle name and my dog's name 😂

And speaking of dogs-I know 3 little ones called Winnie 😂all very sweet dogs but not for a human child for me!!

I used to hate the name Olive as it conjured up Olive from On the Buses. I quite like it now, but prefer Olivia.

In the early 80s, a relative on DH side named her child Melissa. I remember MIL making catty comments about it being posh. Today she's Mel and no-one gives a hoot about that or her full name.

It will be interesting to see if names popular when I was born (60s) make a comeback in the next generation.

I live in Northern Ireland and when the name Roman became popular it raised a few eyebrows, as it’s a derogatory term for a catholic.

All these people saying 'aww, it's cute' about names, what about when the owner of that name is no longer a cute baby?

That's what puts me off some of the 'ie' names; they just feel a bit juvenile and while I can come to terms with a cat or dog with that name (because they are, intrinsically, cute) I struggle to think how an adult goes along with a 'cutesy' name.

@Whynottryagain , I think people hear Audrey and think Hepburn. I think Roberts.