If you could go back in time, would you give your children different names?

[surferjet]

I’d be more adventurous I think.
My dc have lovely traditional names but if I could change them I probably would ( way too late though as they’re teenagers )

How about you?

I would I think, but I ended up with the names I got because then H wouldn't agree to anything more unusual. They were relatively uncommon then, and now all are top 10.

I don't think I'd change it, as it's part of DS but, having chosen a name which I considered 'popular' (my own name unusual and I always wished I'd had a more popular name), I didn't realise that the name was going to be shared by around 30% of boys in his year group!!!

Yes, I'd name my first son after his dad. Him, his dad, his grandfather and his great grandfather all had that name. DH didn't really want it because it doesn't really work well in his language and he has had a lifetime of repeating his name, spelling his name, being teased for trying to be chic with a foreign name and mostly being called the version in his language because people assume he is trying to anglascise his name. It is a very traditional English name, so my son could have had it without any of those problems.

No. I picked my DD’s name when I was 9. Never regretted using it.

I do have two amazing names put aside for the never going to happen “just in case” babies

Nope, not their first names

My sons middle name though yeah (only one of both their names and middle names I didn't choose)

My daughter is named after my grandmothers and I still love her names,DS has a chosen because we liked it first name ,and I still love that but I wish we'd given him his grandfathers names as middle names instead of the random name we chose.
It would have sounded good and been a family connection,like DDs name.
Oh well,18 years too late with that!

No. Still happy with my choices.
Ds1 was very popular, the most popular for years. I didn't know this. Wished I'd known. But, It was Dh's dads name.
Ds2 semi popular. Or certainly not unusual.
Still happy.

Definitely different middle names. My DC hate theirs.

Difficult. Dd2's I still love and wouldn't change. Dd1's was unusual when we named her but has become really popular now over ten years later. I still like it (and more importantly so does she) but I had a really common name at school and hated being one of so many, so I'm disappointed the name we picked has shot up the charts - luckily it's not that common in her year group so on balance I'd probably keep both.

Probably not, I might have held out for his names to be the other way around as I’d originally planned. So I’d hoped for Benjamin George (not the actual names) but he was named George Benjamin as DH said he’d want to call him Ben and knows I hate shortened names.

I should have gone with Benjamin and just insisted on the full name.

Maybe. Dc 1's name has been a favourite of mine since childhood. It is a classic name that everyone knows but is never overly popular, but did seem to be getting quite popular for a few years.

Dc 2 we decided to go more modern and contemporary to avoid the overpopular thing. At first people were like "what? Say gain? How do you spell that? Never heard of it, did you make it up?" But now it is everywhere and there are several in the class with the name. So I wish we'd gone with our initial choice which we eventually decided against because it was becoming very popular.

However, the dc love their names and everyone (even those who were at first) now say the dc have "owned" their names and couldn't possibly suit anything better.

I would have swapped their middle names around, if I'd know then. I think it would have sounded better.

I'm another with teenagers with traditional, not too common names. DS I wouldn't change; DD I maybe think I could have pushed a little more on some of the names her father thought weren't suitable (I can't remember any of them, just that we kept producing lists that the other said no to everything on! It didn't help that I had too many bad memories from primary school). DS got our preferred boy's name, DD was a few days old before she was named (and is the older one). A couple of years ago DD and I spent a summer thinking hard about alternative names or nicknames she could try out on changing school, but didn't come up with anything she felt better about.

What I think I would do is more seriously consider having 2 middle names. Their father thought that was a bit pretentious but they've ended up in circles where that would have been fine...

Does anyone else feel it would have been far easier to name their children after they'd been through nursery/school for a few years and you were more aware of the range of names in common use?

For first names, I'm still pretty happy. I might consider using a different variant for one child to make her life easier but she loves her name.

For middle names, I'd probably do more tweaking. I was too wrapped up in tradition and just in a very different place & it feels odd at times that they're kinda marked in time like that.

I'd travel back to the year 967 and call my kids Ethelberger, Aethelstan and Eadred.

Yes, because it's really confusing that they all have the same name. I wish I'd thought of giving them different ones.

Yes. I would change my eldest’s middle name and my youngest’s first name.

Regretted dd1s to some degree as they turned out to be 2 of the top names that year

Yes. I would possibly change one due to possible racism/not being considered for a job, might have gone for something more ‘English’ sounding. Someone suggested this to me back then but I didn’t take it seriously.

Yes I should have gone for the name I loved but a close relative put me off.

Dd has a lovely name but I had no idea at the time how common it now is.

I would have given ds the short version of his name as he never uses the long version so it’s a bit pointless and he forgets to answer to the long version 😂. I’d have given him a middle name too as dh didn’t want to but o wish we had.

No, I love my DD's name. It wasn't unusual for her year of birth (inside the top 50 names) but surprisingly she was the only one in her school! We have come across others since, some of whom picked it because they thought it was unusual It's not unusual (cue for a song).

Yes. Dd is 16 and called Alexandra, I wish I’d called her Rose or Honor.

Sons no, but daughter I'd probably swap her first and middle names around.

Yes and no. I'd keep the names they have, but give them an extra middle name each. I've got a couple of names I love, I nearly gave dd2 one as a second middle name and didn't, I really regret it.

No definitely not